Biographical note

Charles Otis "Chuck" Williams was born in Portland, Oregon, in 1943. Williams, who was Cascade Chinook and a member of the Confederated Tribes of Grande Ronde, was a lifelong advocate for Native people of the Columbia Gorge area. He grew up in Petaluma, California, and later worked as an engineer for Johnson Controls in Sausalito, where he designed computer systems for NASA. In the mid-1960s, he briefly worked for Boeing in Seattle, Washington, before returning to the Bay Area and earning a bachelor's degree in art from Sonoma College.

Williams became a photographer and writer, and lived much of his life in The Dalles, Oregon. His first book, "Bridge of the Gods, Mountains of Fire: A Return to the Columbia Gorge," was published in 1980, and he opened the Columbia Gorge Gallery in The Dalles in 1994. Alongside his work as a photographer, he served as the publications editor and public information officer for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission; co-founded Salmon Corps, an AmeriCorps program for Native youth; and began the campaign to designate the Columbia River Gorge as a National Scenic Area. He also served as national parks expert for Friends of the Earth. Williams died in 2016.

Sources: Author biography, "Chuck Williams (Cascade Chinook)," Oregon Encyclopedia, https://www.oregonencyclopedia.org/about/authors/1000035/; biographical information in finding aid for the Chuck Williams Photograph Collection, by Adriane Burk and Natalia Fernández, Oregon State University Special Collections and Archives Research Center 2023, https://archiveswest.orbiscascade.org/ark:80444/xv143084; information provided by Williams in his interview; vital records on Ancestry.com

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