The Hanford Reach is the last free stretch of the river between the McNary and Priest Rapids Dams, a place boasting a varied landscape of floodplains, wetlands, deserts, orchards - and nuclear reactors.
This is not a place that people think to visit. Known primarily for hosting the country's most toxic nuclear outpost, it is public land that barely exists in public consciousness. But because the Reach has been posted off-limits by the military since 1943, this book offers readers a little-seen glimpse into what the Pacific Northwest's arid east was like before the postwar boom.
Zwinger's text, enhanced by Skip Smith's photos, captures the subtleties of the contrasting vistas, just as it makes clear the depth of the radioactive poisoning within the soil and wildlife.
Susan Zwinger is the author of The Last Wild Edge: One Woman&;s Journey from the Arctic Circle to the Olympic Rain Forest and Still Wild, Always Wild: A Journey into the Desert Wilderness of California. She lives in Langley, Washington. Skip Smith is a professional photographer living in Langley.