Sunset over the Hanford Reach of the Columbia River and Rattlesnake Mountain from the White Bluffs, Hanford Reach National Monument
A Chinook salmon flings itself up Dagger Falls on the Middle Fork Salmon River, Idaho.
Jordan Yazzie from Goldendale, Washington, and Sonnie Altaha from Arizona, are two of the young people who help Lewis George on his fishing platforms across the river from the Dalles Dam. As George says, “My survival is based on my grandchildren’s survival.”
A grizzly bear sow and cub fish for kokanee salmon on a tributary of the Kootenay River in fall.
A member of the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs dipnetting for salmon on the Deschutes River in Oregon
A herd of elk crosses the Gros Ventre River, a tributary of the Snake River in Wyoming, in early spring.
Basalt flows covered much of the Columbia Plateau in layers thousands of feet thick in places.
Harlequin ducks, such as these in the North Cascades, travel inland in the spring to breed on mountain creeks throughout the northern portion of the Big River watershed before returning to winter on the open ocean.
Aldolfo Martinez, from Santa Cruz, Mexico, is one of thousands of temporary workers who come to the Columbia River watershed every year to harvest agricultural products.
The pinnacle of North American watersheds, the massive Columbia Icefield in the Rocky Mountains feeds water into the Arctic, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans. This area drains into the Bush River, a tributary of the Big River.
A female coho attended by a male at a redd in the Methow River watershed, Washington.
Climate change and past fire suppression have led to a dramatic increase in mega wildfires across the forested portions of the Big River’s watershed.
A mountain lion pauses on a winter day in the forest above a tributary to the Big River in the North Cascades, Washington.
An American dipper, North America’s only aquatic songbird, hunts for aquatic invertebrates in cold, fast-flowing mountain streams throughout the Big River watershed.
Saddle Creek Rapids on the Snake River in Hells Canyon
Male sage grouse displaying at a lek in the Owyhee River watershed. An icon of the American West, these birds rely on healthy sagebrush habitat, vast tracts of which can be found in the southeastern and central portions of the Big River watershed.
Near its mouth, the tidally influenced Big River is miles across, dwarfing large commercial shipping vessels.
Russ Ipock looks out over the river on his way out to a one-night commercial gillnet fishing season on the river near Vancouver, Washington.
Licorice ferns cling to an overhanging cliff during a rainstorm in the Columbia River Gorge.