The perpetually tricky thing about history is that we always have the benefit of hindsight. We already know how the stories end. For this reason, the burden is on us to put aside what-we-know-is-coming-next if we’re to feel the full depth and context of a given episode. Take, for instance, Warren G. Harding’s 1923 summer trip to the Pacific Northwest (he was the first President to see Alaska). Now, did Harding know he was going to, well, die in San Francisco three weeks later? Nah, probably not. Which lends the Salmon moment so much more solemn gravity and poetic mystery.