On the Colville Reservation, deadly car crashes have become a tragic fact of life. EWU faculty and students are determined to change that.
T
o drive along one stretch of the Coulee Corridor, a national scenic byway, is to experience North Central Washington in all its glory. The majestic Columbia River is never far away. Mountains stack up in layers against a distant horizon. At every turn, motorists are greeted by endless acres of stunning landscape sprawling in every direction: sagebrush and native grasses bowing low before the wind, jagged rock formations shooting up to expansive blue skies, green pines and firs holding fast to golden hills. But this striking landscape creates somewhat of a deceptive beauty, one that masks a terrible reality of navigating this breathtaking expanse of State Route 155 on the Colville Reservation. The two-lane highway has long been among the state’s most deadly; few who have grown up navigating this treacherous path are free of the weight of its tragic memories.
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EASTERN MAGAZINE
Like many other reservations nationwide, the remote roads crisscrossing the Colville Tribe’s land are fraught with hazards: blind corners, narrow shoulders and dangerous passages. Not surprisingly, traffic fatality rates on these roads, as compared to other state highways, are high. Over the years, too many wooden crosses have become fixtures along these routes, too many lonely memorials built to commemorate a friend or loved one lost. “We are almost five times more likely to die in a car fatality than the national average,” says Adam Amundson ’16, a member of the Colville Confederated Tribes. Having grown up in Omak and Nespelem, Amundson knows the lay of the land as well as anyone. Yet he was almost one of those statistics. In 1996, a tired Amundson had just completed a
