For tens of thousands of years salmon have been part of this place. It would be unconscionable for humans to cause their extinction, but scientists warn it could happen. We owe it to ourselves, as well, to preserve wildlife and grand landscapes. Salmon and the Olympic Mountains are part of who we are even those of us who come to a place like this for the first time simply to watch the beauty of clouds drifting over the valley of the Elwha or to fish for trout in remote pools. One million visitors a year come to Olympic National Park, which was established in 1937.
People come to find themselves.
You can stand on the steep sidewalks of downtown Seattle the skyscrapers next to streets where just a bit more than a century ago fat virgin timber was skidded down to the crude sawmills on Elliot Bay and study the mountains for a reminder of what once must have been here. The metropolis sprawls nearly one hundred miles along Puget Sound. Its new urban dwellers look to the forested mountains for memory. The Elwha Dam was built on or near a part of the river that was the most sacred site of the Klallam tribe. Elders say that is where the Creator gave life to the Klallam people.