Big River -
with the Okanogan Highlands Alliance
Join conservation photographer and author David Moskowitz and the Okanogan Highlands Alliance at the Community Cultural Center of Tonasket to experience a multimedia journey along the Columbia River from source to sea.
Dinner: 5-6:15 pm | Presentation: 6:30pm (free to the public)
In Big River: Resilience and Renewal in the Columbia Basin, (from Braided River) award-winning photographer David Moskowitz and writer Eileen Delehanty Pearkes illuminate the natural history, hydrogeology, beauty, and human activity on the Columbia River, while also highlighting the challenges facing the region and the people working on sustainable solutions.
This event is part of a series of international book events celebrating the book launch of Big River throughout the Pacific Northwest. Big River explores the Columbia River watershed as one living, interdependent entity that embraces a broad cultural and ecological perspective.
Through rich and comprehensive images of the land, river, and people and micro-interviews from diverse voices across the region, Big River explores the Columbia River Basin as a single living, interdependent entity.
The culmination of Moskowitz’s many years of photographing the river and exploring its watershed and Eileen’s decades of research, Big River seeks a path forward for the Columbia River watershed, balancing the demands around water, salmon, agriculture, energy, and climate with the fundamental need for a sustainable living river.
About the Presenter
DAVID MOSKOWITZ
Big River photographer and author | speaker
Photographer, author, wildlife biologist, and tracker David Moskowitz is the author of Caribou Rainforest, Wildlife of the Pacific Northwest, and Wolves in the Land of Salmon, and coauthor of Peterson’s Field Guide to North American Bird Nests. His work has been featured in the New York Times, Sierra, High Country News, and Audubon Magazine, as well as by organizations such as the National Wildlife Federation, Endangered Species Coalition, and Nature Conservancy of Canada.
Okanogan Highlands Alliance
OHA is a grassroots conservation organization that has worked to protect the environment in the Okanogan Highlands of north-central Washington since 1992. Our work began on Buckhorn Mountain, where we stopped an open-pit gold mine, the “Crown Jewel Project,” in January 2000. In 2002, Crown Resources proposed an underground mine on the same ore body. OHA appealed the proposal and continued to advocate for the protection of the highlands environment. Ultimately, in 2008, the political, legal, and economic situation led to OHA’s decision to enter into negotiations with Crown/Kinross. The agreement between OHA and the company meant that an underground mine would be developed on Buckhorn, but OHA would have better access to the mine site and oversight process. The agreement also stated that OHA would receive funds that would enable us to monitor mining activities and implement mitigation projects in the Okanogan Highlands. Since then, OHA has created robust wetland restoration and natural history education programs that serve the local communities in northern Okanogan County. We partner with organizations from the local to the national level and work to engage people of all ages. OHA is 501(c)3 nonprofit organization.