For thousands of years the north reach of the Willamette River, near its confluence with the Columbia, was a braided river of shallow channels and islands rich in biodiversity. That was until European settlers came to the Pacific Northwest and displaced the Indigenous people who had made this place their home since time immemorial. With industrial development, channels were filled, or dredged to create shipping lanes. Banks were hardened. Industries contaminated the water and land along the river, destroying salmon runs and reducing wildlife populations that had thrived alongside indigenous communities.
Today the area is designated an industrial sanctuary, but the communities that were displaced or damaged by this so-called sanctuary see it as an industrial sacrifice zone. Once a Braided River tells the story of the river before it was transformed into a Superfund Site and features community groups and activists working to replace the current Industrial Sanctuary with a green working waterfront defined by good jobs, clean energy, and healthy ecosystems. The documentary explores their vision to reclaim this stretch of river as a place where people and wildlife who depend upon the river for their homes, jobs and migration routes can thrive.
Listen to/download the audio of ONCE A BRAIDED RIVER
Once A Braided River premiered on Locus Focus on KBOO-FM 90.7 on October 24, 2022. It was rebroadcast on April 22 (Earth Day) 2023 on KBOO-FM 90.7 https://kboo.fm/media/113483-once-braided-river
Scenes from our blockbuster screening at St. Johns Twin Cinema.
ONCE A BRAIDED RIVER (the video) premiered in Portland at Cinema 21, 616 NW 21st Avenue, Tuesday, May 16 at 7 pm to a packed house and enthusiastic audience.
The event was co-sponsored by the Braided River Campaign, Columbia Riverkeeper, Willamette Riverkeeper, KBOO Community Radio, 350PDX and Oregon PSR
Since then he documentary has screened at the Kenton Firehouse in North Portland, the Wy’east Unitarian Universalist Congregation at The Center for Positive Aging in the Hollywood Neighborhood of Portland, St. Luke Church in SW Portland, the Eastside Democratic Club in East Portland. It played to two sold out houses at the St. Johns Twin Cinema in the St. Johns district of Portland. Other screenings include Bridge Meadows Multigenerational Housing Community in Portland, Brian Doyle Auditorium on the University of Portland’s campus in Dundon-Berchtold Hall and the Columbian Theater in Astoria, Oregon.
ONCE A BRAIDED RIVER was funded by the Regional Arts and Culture Council and Stand up to Oil
Banner art by Kandace Manning
Producer Barbara Bernstein is a musician, composer, performance artist and radio producer. Besides her recent documentary Once a Braided River, her award-winning radio documentaries, internationally broadcast on public radio stations, include two pieces about the struggle to stop the Pacific Northwest from becoming a fossil fuel export hub: Holding the Thin Green Line and Sacrifice Zones; Fighting Goliath (the turbulent growth of tar sands development); Sculpted By Fire (the role of fire in shaping western forests and sustaining healthy forest ecosystems); Salmonlands (the cultural significance of diminishing salmon runs in the Northwest) and Rivers That Were (the industrialization of the Colorado and Columbia Rivers). You can hear more of her work here.