First Americans saw flood

I enjoyed Rebecca Nappi’s article on the Ice Age Floods (Aug. 17) but noted a small error when she stated “humans weren’t alive during the floods.” Recent archaeological work in the Pacific Northwest suggests that people have lived here for at least 14,000 years.

The Nez Perce have stories that people took refuge on top of Steptoe Butte during great floods in ancient times. I recently had the opportunity to work with the Colville Confederated Tribes’ history department in Grand Coulee investigating the basalt formations there.

Legends of the Columbia River tribes tell us that the spires of stone are salmon that Coyote turned to rock. Coyote became angry at the people and diverted the Columbia River from Grand Coulee and over what we now call Dry Falls, northward to its present course. He turned the salmon that were left in the dry river bed to stone, where they remain today.

The latest of these humongous floods, carrying half the volume of modern Lake Michigan, may be recorded in the oral histories of Northwest tribes. Though archaeological science is hardly written in stone, increasing evidence suggests that the first Americans witnessed these incredible events.

Matthew Root

Pullman