The scope of Columbia--the first epic saga of our country's final courageous thrust into the continental unknown, the Pacific Northwest--is as massive as the Columbia River itself. The story begins nine thousand years ago, when the river was new, and unfolds in a magnificent family portrait spanning five generations, from the end of the eighteenth century to the present.
At the head of ancient family is Ilchee, a Chinook Indian princess married to a white trader, who founds a dynasty of rare courage; Caleb, her son, who must learn to live in the white world of Fort Vancouver; Suzanna, who makes the arduous trip across the continent, battling humiliation, death, and even love; Isaac, their son who builds a logging empire only to discover that destiny, not timber, is king; Ning Ho, Isaac's Chinese mistress, who teaches him even more of life than of pleasure; and finally Will, who rejects his father's vision to power his own--the building of the Grand Coolie Dam--and Leona, his wife,, whose secret threatens to destroy everything the family has worked to create.
Columbia is a rich, vivid canvas of heroes and scoundrels, of men and women and their dreams of land, gold, timber, salmon, and power--dreams that begin when a nomad hunter kills a mastodon and ends with an archaeology team working frantically to uncover evidence of that kill before the Columbia's waters rise to cover the past forever--and a family destiny that proves "some things must be believed to be seen."
Pamela Jekel is a nationally-known novelist with four NY Times bestsellers, twelve novels that have been translated into sixteen languages, including Braille, Large Print Editions, and Kindle. Library Journal hailed Columbia as "a well-researched novel of drama and passion", and "historical fiction at its best." Publishers Weekly praised its heroine as "a living breathing, three-dimensional character." Winner of the Southwest Historical Fiction award.