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.