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Columbia River Journals Each issue of the Estuary Partnership’s newsletter, Common Waters, contains space for an individual citizen’s thoughts and perspectives on the lower Columbia River. The column is called Columbia River Journal. Over the years a number of people have submitted articles or allowed already written pieces to be excerpted for the Journal. Below are links to most Journal articles. Read them. Get a sense for the river. Get inspired. Write your own. The Estuary Partnership is always accepting submissions.
October 1997 I grew up on the sore of the Columbia River, and so took it for granted. I was not amazed by its size or by the freight of history it carried. It was simply itself to me, a part of the world that I accepted as I did the hills and sky and the desert landscape of eastern Washington. We swam in it, we hunted for arrowheads along its banks, occasionally we marveled at the extent of its flood waters, but I did not find the river amazing. It was as ordinary and familiar as a member of my family. It was only after I had left home that I realized what an amazing thing the river was. It haunted my memories, being present in every scene I recalled from my past. Other rivers were so small, pretty maybe, nice in their way, but not rivers. Rivers were large, majestic things. Rivers were places where salmon spawned, and migrated to the sea and back. Rivers were places with a history – fished by Native American tribes for thousands of years, explored by Lewis and Clark. I used to sit by the Clark Fork River in Montana – a very nice river in its small way – and think about these things, four hundred miles from the Pacific and still in the Columbia’s watershed. I have never seen another river that so dominates its physical and historic environment. In its flow through space and time, the Columbia carries our lives and the lives of those who were here before us. It is a mythic river, a working river, a home to countless plant and animal communities, and the landscape of my memories. The Columbia is the most ordinary and most extraordinary thing I have ever known. Fall 1998 The Pacific Coast was to me, when I was growing up in northern Minnesota, an almost mythical place of pure water, remote valleys and salmon runs of immense proportions. In 1968, the last year of my graduate studies in oceanography at Oregon State University, I can to Astoria to interview for a job. A friend who had grown up in Astoria was a Columbia River gillnetter. During my fist night in town the spring salmon commercial season was open and he took me fishing. We ran the bowpicker a short distance from the east mooring basin out into the calm, dark river. We laid the quarter mile-long net out across the ship channel from the city. We had three nets fastened together: a long salmon net, a short piece of steelhead web and an even shorter section of smelt net. We caught some of each species. I have now lived in Astoria for almost 30 years. I have done research on the Columbia River estuary, become acquainted and worked with some of the well-known fisheries, tribal, and environmental scientists and activists, and owned and operated my own gillnet boat on the Columbia. I spend my leisure time hunting and fishing among the marshy, tidal islands of the lower Columbia, often with the “river people,” who take both their living and leisure from the river. They and I have seen a gradual withering away of the river-provided amenities. My friend can no longer fish for those three species at once, and some years cannot fish at all on the mainstream Columbia. We have all become aware of such things as PCB, Dioxin, and DDT derivatives. Some will no longer eat fish from the river. I remember with anger that I naively took sturgeon home from my drift below the outfall pipe at a pulp mill to feed my children. While a few of the younger people still have hope, most of the older ones only go through the motions of protest. The signs of a change in such feelings, while not obvious, have begun with the more serious efforts at salmon revival and actions to clean the river. Jim serves as Vice Chair of the Lower Columbia River Estuary Program Management Committee. Winter 1999 I wonder at time on the river, at our brief eyeblink of time. Say that history of man on the Columbia River - from Clovis hunters to the Morning Orchid now passing out to sea - spans ten thousand years. Robert Gray, Lewis and Clark, David Thompson, and our written history begins only two hundred years ago. The oldest dam is only fifty. If the history of man here were a time line as long as my outstretched arm, the Euro-Americans' "discovery" of the Columbia and its rapid exploitation are all written past the last knuckle. The dams are well out on the fingernail. Trojan nuclear plant you could clip off with no pain, and my voyage of one summer's sun is too little to file. The world goes by so big and soon. Timed where I am, old enough to have seen the wild river at Celilo Falls and young enough to imagine seeing it again, I can't know if what I saw on the river is right. But time, for the river, seemed to have reached a pivot point as great as when our ancestors diverted streams to water the first crops and built the first waterwheel to grind grain. What got me was how everything - the damage, the work, the people and wildlife, my own family - is connected to how we draw energy from the Columbia. Pluck a strand here and the web vibrates all the way back up the river and plays a tune we will hear far into the future. To imagine a world that spreads another ten thousand years and more ahead of us is to know in your bones that clean waters, ever flowing to the sea, are not just the well-spring of wild salmon but also the source on which the whole web of life, including our own species, will depend. Robin Cody is a writer who lives in Portland. During the summer of 1990, he canoed down the entire Columbia River. He detailed the journey and his experiences in the book Voyage of a Summer Sun: Canoeing down the Columbia River. Sasquatch Books (Seattle), 1995. p. 297-298. This passage, excerpted from that book, has been used with the author’s permission. Spring 1999 The reach of tide defines the estuary of the Columbia River, the place where river currents are met by tide, where fresh water mingles with salt, where the river meets the sea to end and begin again. Weather sets the mood; storm swept, rain washed, sun-drenched, foggy and overcast. Each mood is reflected in colors – blue, green, silver, various shades of gray. Tide, flood, and river currents define the shorelines of the estuary, expanding and contracting by the minute, the hour, and the day in the cycle of rising and falling water. Nothing stable, ever changing and always the same this place of river and the sea, ringed by villages and century-old river towns, derelict docks, forested shores, and dotted with islands and meandering creeks, streams and backwater sloughs. The estuary does not easily yield its secrets, its weavings of people, history, and landscapes. It is changing as you straddle the shoreline and river edge, one foot on land, the other in water. Turn and the line of sand a moment ago at the outer edge of the beach is now water; beach is less, river is more. A place of magic this edge line of water and earth. Watch a child run with joyous abandonment to the water’s edge. Who can resist the impulse to shed shoes and wade at the water’s edge and feel gritty sand underfoot and the squishing of mud through toes. In the estuary, the separate waters of thousands of tributary rivers and streams have come together to flow as one river – the Columbia. Out of yesterday’s snowfall and rain, water drips and drops to form trickles and seeps, then brooks and streams that gurgle and roar through gullies and canyons to form this wondrous thing called a river. It answers to but one destiny: to return to the sea in a journey that comes out of the past, through the present and into the future to tie together land, air, and sea in a living ring that waters the earth and all its creatures. Here, at the mouth of the river, the Columbia ends and begins again. In addition to founding the Lewis and Clark Water Trail, Sam McKinney is the author of Reach of Tide Ring of History: A Columbia River Voyage. Oregon Historical Society Press (Portland) 1987. Summer 1999 My first look at the Columbia River happened in the summer of 1967. It was my first visit to the Pacific Northwest. I had read about Lewis and Clark’s trip to the very spot where I was getting my first view as I crossed the bridge from Astoria to the Washington side of the river. I followed the river east to Longview and thought to myself that it would be great to live near this mighty body of water. I imagined how big the fish must be that I could catch from her waters, and I could see in my mind the large flocks of geese that surely must rest in her backwaters late in fall. I wanted to live close to her. In 1969 I finished my schooling at the University of Michigan. A recruiter from the State of Washington was on campus looking for engineers to come to work for the State Water Pollution Control Commission. They wanted a District Engineer for southwest Washington. I remembered my Astoria to Longview trip two years earlier and I realized this was my chance to be near the resources and beauty of the Columbia River. I came and I stayed. I have spent many hours getting acquainted with this national treasure that flows through my space on this earth. My imagination was small back in 1967 when I thought about the fish that could be caught, the geese that I could hunt, and the beauty I could take in from this river. I am now possessive of what she offers me. It has been a true adventure to be involved with a project that has had as its goal to determine the health of the Columbia River. I was glad to be appointed to the Bi-State Water Quality Steering Committee in 1990. This group of people dedicated themselves to producing as much factual information about the river as they could. I was pleased when I saw the Governor’s of Washington and Oregon embrace our findings and recommendations. My efforts and the efforts of the others who served for six years on the Bi-State where rewarded when the Columbia River was made part of the National Estuary Program. I was able to continue working for the river on the Estuary Program Management Committee from 1996 through 1999. It has been gratifying to give something back to her. She truly belongs to us all and she is a treasure that deserves the attention of all of us who live here close to her. Nelson Graham committed 9 years of his life toward working for a better lower Columbia River. His commitment, sense of fairness, and clear thinking will be missed by the Estuary Program. Fall 1999 As long as I can remember I have been connected in some way with rivers. I suppose that is why I became a fisheries biologist nearly 40 years ago. As a biologist, you learn about rivers and lakes. If it flows downhill, it’s a river. If it stays in one place for a long time, it’s probably a lake. This is all very scientific and objective but in spite of it all I can’t shake the notion that rivers are alive. Maybe it was my uncle, Willard. Uncle Willard worked on the Willamette River. He told us stories about the river; not about his work, but about the river – her power, her anger and her many moods. Willard believed the river was alive and spoke of her as if she were a lady. I think she was his secret mistress. I never told my aunt though - some people just don’t understand about rivers. The Columbia and Willamette are different people. The Columbia is a brawny, brawly lady with immense power and the capacity for great anger, great peace and many moods in between. Seventy years ago Woody Guthrie saw the Columbia as source of wealth and resources that, if harnessed, could reduce the poverty and pain he saw in the migrant farm labor camps. He wrote songs that helped launch a national vision for harnessing the river and a better life; a strong vision for the depression years. Much of that vision came true. Three decades later his son would write songs with a different message. Taken in the context of their times, they were both right. I don’t believe we have destroyed the river’s vitality or capacity to function. It still has a heart and soul but it is beginning to demand a few rights of its own and recognition as an equal partner, or services will be discontinued. About 10 years ago a cross section of people came together, not as individuals from artificial political boxes or jurisdictions, but as a group of benefactors who have shared in the river’s wealth. The political system called us “stakeholders.” Our mission was to diagnose the “health of the river.” While I couldn’t explain to my peers our doctor-patient mission statement, Uncle Willard would have understood. Now 10 years later we have a plan for the Lower Columbia River. In thinking through the time since Woody Guthrie wrote his songs, it’s not that all development was bad, but simply that the river was never at the table. Perhaps the Estuary Plan will recognize the river as an equal partner. The river is capable of and will continue to provide electric power, transportation, irrigation, recreation and vitality for future generations if the implementers of the plan honor the rights and privileges of the river as an equal partner. The Estuary Plan is more than a plan for the river; Uncle Willard and I think it’s a contract. Rollie Montagne was a consistent voice of reason, experience, and integrity throughout 10 years of Columbia River discussions with the Bi-State and Estuary Programs. We wish him well in retirement and hope to see him often. Spring 2000 Skamokawa As I paddle in from across the river, it still seems the perfect site for a town. Neat buildings face south on the little bay, presided over by the old schoolhouse tower, now the River Life Interpretive Center. The wind and waves of the main channel subside as I pass the pilings that mark the remains of the old shingle mill. Everywhere is evidence that there was once more of a town here. Each row of old pilings is silent testament to a mill, a home, a cannery. Near the turn of the century residents here thought Skamokawa was destined to be the next San Francisco. It was not. There is something touching about slipping through the pilings of Skamokawa and of nearby river towns long vanished. History here seems close to the surface. The trees gaining height over abandoned towns emphasize that the lower Columbia is a place that is at once wild and well-traveled. Even the 40,000 acres of national wildlife refuge on this stretch of river shelter not just wildlife, but evidence throughout of previous people’s connection to the land and river. I paddle the lower Columbia throughout the year leading kayak tours, but I never tire of the river. It attunes me to weather, tide, and cycles of the seasons, connecting me to all others here who have made or continue to make their living from the Columbia. Andrew Emlen runs the Skamokawa Paddle Center and Estuary Program in Skamokawa, Washington. Fall 2000 In February 1999 the 650-foot oil tanker New Carissa lay stranded on the ocean beach near Coos Bay, Oregon. Its nearest hope of rescue was the 200-foot Salvage Chief moored at Astoria. Unfortunately, twenty five-foot seas held the rescue vessel in port for two days on the Columbia River bar. In spite of two long jetties, a 43-foot channel and state of the art navigation, the bar, the weather and the vast north Pacific could still thwart the massive 3400 horsepower engines of the Salvage Chief. This incident awakens one to the powerful forces, which converge when a mighty river meets an ocean. Imagine how vulnerable 19th century explorers and sea traders were in such a situation as they neared the Columbia bar. Hostile seas, anything but pacific, surround the frail sailing vessel. Many travelers had been at sea for nearly a year having sailed the length of two continents to cross from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They had struggled to survive the fickle winds and weather of Cape Horn or the disease infested jungles of Nicaragua. Finally, as they approach the Columbia, a strong Sou’wester advances and a turbulent bar blocks entrance to the safety of Bakers Bay. On the other hand, leaving the Columbia was often just as difficult. Oregon Territory residents sometimes waited to leave the river for two or three weeks while sou’westers pounded the bar. Sea captains wrote little in their logbooks but their passengers wrote volumes. Some, like Fr. Louis Rossi in 1856 aboard the Brother Jonathan, report the stark beauty of the amazing scene. “The sight of this shore in squally weather is grandiose, solemn, frightening. Imagine an enormous row of waves breaking for a distance of three leagues from Cape Disappointment to Point Adams, and forming a kind of sandy crescent about 1500 meters long at the river’s mouth. The sea water, whipped in by the wind towards the river mouth, encountered the river water on this enormous sand bar, producing a frightful impact; the noise is so loud that you can hear it several leagues away, and the mountainous waves---resulting from the meeting of two opposing currents---reach a height of sixty feet.” Crossing the bar today is no less a thrill. Wind and wave, tide and time still confound even the most experienced fisherman, sea captain and bar pilot. Perhaps the New Carissa could have been dislodged if the Salvage Chief had not been kept in port by indomitable forces of the Columbia River bar. Andy Anderson is an English teacher at Gladstone High School. He is currently working on a history of Hammond, Oregon and a collection of narratives about pioneer experiences crossing the Columbia bar. Spring 2001 The Columbia River is special to me because I have lived near it all my life. Sometimes my mom, my dad, my brother, and I go to the beach and have a picnic. We do these things at the beginning of the school on a weekend, because my dad is in Alaska for the whole summer. Most of the time when we go to the beach, we just go and look at the water, and walk on the beach looking at seashells. Once we caught a school of minnows and put them in a jar of water. When we left, we let them go. The Columbia River has been special to me since the day I met it. Spending time at the Columbia River makes me feel like I’m taking a vacation. When I think of the Columbia River, I think of the animals that live in it such as fish, clams, crawdads, etc. I think of summer days when ships go by and I wonder what’s on the ships or where it’s going and where it came from. I love to find a log and climb to the top just in time to watch the sunset across the shore. I love those warm summer days. When I think of the Columbia River I think of my family. It’s just the way the sun makes the water sparkle and glitter like a diamond. I think of where I would be without them. I think of how important and special they are to me. I like to go fishing on the Columbia River. I get up at about 6:00 am with my mom and my sister. One time we went fishing and my mom caught a steelhead, 15 pounds. My mom told me to hit it on the head with a rock. But I felt sorry for him and didn’t do it. The Columbia River is special to me. My family and I like to go swimming in the summer. We also like to play on the beach. One time I was climbing a log and a ship went by. A humungous wave crashed on the log and I fell in. Lucky for me I wasn’t hurt. On the weekends my stepdad and I go camping on White’s Island. I like to sit on the beach and fish for anything I can catch. My cousins and I walk in the shallow water and watch the sunset. I love getting up in the mornings and eating breakfast on the campsite beach. At noon, I wait for ships to go by so I can jump the waves. I try to read the names on the ships but sometimes it’s too hard. Summer 2002 Our Part of the River Our part of the River is the Columbia's east shore, along the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge, across from Sauvie Island on the Oregon side. It's a part of the River's great northward reach between Vancouver and Longview. You can get the best view of it from downtown Ridgefield. Get a cup of coffee at the Liberty Theatre and look down on the Lake River and the Columbia. The view across the wetlands and woodland of the Refuge to the Oregon hills above St. Helens is fabulous. The view only enhances the feeling of “Old Town" Ridgefield as a special place, a quieter place, a community that still has the friendliness of the old days when paddlewheelers brought the mail, and carried livestock and crops off to Portland. Today, there are no paddle steamers, but small boats launch at the marina, and kayakers and canoeist put in at the Port of Ridgefield's landing on Lake River. It's often quiet enough along this waterfront to enjoy the nesting Purple martins and swallows, and to enjoy the Osprey family that nest on the pole at the Port landing. Over two years ago, the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership provided a grant to Ridgefield High School for water quality monitoring. This resulted in a link between the Estuary Partnership, the High School, and the Friends of Ridgefield NWR, which has grown stronger and more enjoyable with every experience we share together. Best of all are the memories. Pictures do the job best, but just think of boy scouts planting trees with their troop and family members, at Mallard Slough and Lake River, on the River S Unit. Second graders ignoring the pouring rain and cold to discover acorns and galls on the Oaks to Wetlands Trail, on the Carty Unit. Ridgefield High School and Washington School for the Blind students restoring the "Between Double Dikes" shoreline of the Columbia River, a priority site for filling a gap in the riparian forest and preventing bank erosion. Volunteers from the Estuary Partnership, the Oregon Zoo, and the Friends, helping on the nesting survey of the heron rookery on the Refuge's Bachelor Island Unit this spring. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife staff has completed a "Riparian Restoration Plan" for the Ridgefield Refuge which will take many years to complete. The US Fish and Wildlife Service has asked the Friends/Estuary Partnership to raise funds and volunteers for this important effort. We see it as an enormous opportunity for environmental education and student service. Planting the "Between Double Dikes" site in February and March 2002 was not our first project, but was our first big project, involving four days and over 100 volunteers. In 2002, we will restore at least three more major sites through our partnership--and create a lot more of those priceless memories, on "our part of the River". Glenn Akins, Director, Friends of Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge Fall 2002 “Do you know what a white tailed jackrabbit looks like? A white tailed jackrabbit is brownish-grey in the summer, fall and spring to mix in with their surroundings while in winter their all white except for their ears that stay brownish-grey. Now you know what a white tailed jackrabbit looks like.” Heather “My animal is the Mule Deer. I am going to tell you a little bit of what they look like. They have big ears and white rumps. They have small rope-like tails with black tips. In the summer, their fur is a reddish brownish color, and in the winter their fur is grayish. Their habitat is on a rocky hillside, open areas, and forested areas in the summer. They also live on small islands, but not very often. They also live by the Columbia River.” Alexis “Unlike any other dock on the Columbia River the Mallard has a green head. Orange webbed feet and a yellow bill are some of the bright colors on this duck. On the Mallard’s chest and back are brown creamy feathers. With a white ring around its neck the Mallard has many spectacular colors.” Amanda “Raccoons are small and plum with dense brown hair. They weigh 15 to 20 lbs. With long noses they can smell well. Their ears stick straight up. The most common feature is the black mask surrounding their eyes.” Aubrey “Different species of salmon spend part of their lives in the salt water of the Pacific Ocean, but they travel many miles into freshwater streams and rivers to spawn. Along the journey, their bodies change to a brilliant red color. Females release eggs along the gravel bottom, were they are fertilized by males. Both make and females dies after spawning. The young fish hatch and spend a year in freshwater before traveling out to sea. Two to three years later, the salmon returns to the river as adults. They spawn and the cycle continues.” RC Summer 2003 Intriguing history and stories awash at regular intervals along the lower Columbia River. One interesting spot on the river is Knappton Cove, which has been used as camping and fishing grounds by the Chinook Indians, visited by the British Lieutenant William R. Broughton 1792, and paddled past by Lewis and Clark 1805. The area’s first white woman landed at Knappton Cove in 1814. In 1899 the site became the Columbia River Quarantine Station. Nancy Anderson, whose family purchased the property in 1950, has written a fun account of the site’s history, portions of which are excerpted here. “Ships crossing the Columbia bar first anchored at the port of Astoria where an inspector boarded and checked for infestation and communicable disease……If deemed necessary, the ship was then immediately sent over to Knappton Cove for fumigation. An article…. in the October 2, 1921 Oregonian stated: ‘Pratique is granted foreign vessels entering the Columbia river at Astoria, which ranks as one of the main points of entry and clearance for offshore traffic in America….Before any vessel coming from a foreign port can discharge or load cargo in the Columbia river it must pass quarantine at Astoria. The “Ellis Island” for this district is situated on the Washington side of the river near Knappton; and consists of a dock, disinfecting building and appliances, quarters, hospital, detention quarters, etc….Thanks to vigilance of the quarantine of the Columbia river our cities have yet to experience the plague.’ ” “Ships from around the world were coming to the lower Columbia. The year the station opened ships arrived from Germany, Norway, Britain, Japan, Russia, France and Peru. 97 sailing vessels and 35 steam vessels were inspected and a total of 6,120 people went through health inspection that year at the Knappton facility.” “In the 1920’s methods of inspection, fumigation and inoculation changed and health practices were improving. ….. In 1929 the use of cyanide gas replaced the sulfur pots. New disinfecting agents made it possible for ships to be cleaned at anchor near the Port of Astoria. Only extreme isolation cases were sent to Knappton Cove. In 1907, the Japanese were excluded and in 1924 a quota system for European nationalities went into effect. The Columbia River Quarantine Station was phased out and closed in 1938.” The old Quarantine Station is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Nancy Anderson operates the site as a museum – the Knappton Cove Heritage Center. You can make an appointment to visit the center or purchase Nancy’s historical book by calling her at 503.738.5206 or emailing thecove@theoregonshore.com. Fall-Winter 2003-2004 Ken Karch and Bernie Gerkens paddled most of the Lower Columbia River Water Trail in late August 2003. Karch’s full trip report, which includes passages from the Lewis and Clark journals, and his overall impressions of the trip, is available at www.lcrep.org. Here, we pick up the journey towards the end of Day 6….their last day on the water. We pulled into the Knappton boat launch area looking for a possible camp site, and found it essentially flooded. We were now on that stretch of the Washington shore where the highway runs along the shore, which is rip-rapped, and there is little in the way of camp sites available. We had realized that we were committed to go all the way to Chinook if we proceeded beyond Portuguese/Grays Point, but felt we could do it with the good tidal current and a little help from only modestly opposing winds. We rounded Knappton Point, passed by Cliff Point and the highway rest stop, and shot past Point Ellice at 8-10 miles per hour amid 4-6 foot standing and confused waves and swells. Point Ellice held Lewis and Clark for five days in their passage here (and it is no wonder, given the open log canoes they had). We were tossed around like leaves, and many times submerged the noses of our kayaks before they muscled their way to the surface. We slowed down about a half-mile further as we came up on the McGowan church and Lewis and Clark’s Station Camp. While we would have liked to stop here, the shore is rip-rapped and dangerous to try to land, and time was drawing near for the final dash to a safe harbor before night. We paddled past Station Camp and around Chinook Point, where we found several beautiful little rock coves with sand beaches, but weren’t ready to stop for the night (nor were we sure it would be legal to do so). At this point we saw the way ahead was covered with thousands of decaying wood pilings as far as the eye could see, the water levels had receded substantially and we were almost continuously hitting the sand bottom with our paddles. Bernie had kayaked this stretch once before and knew the serpentine way to the Port of Chinook navigation channel, so we followed his instincts, being now in a race between the falling water level; high, cold winds; a setting sun; and a dense fog bank coming on the western horizon which threatened to obscure the sun within an hour, and before it actually set. With 90 minutes of continuous, hard paddling, we finally reached the navigation channel and proceeded into the Port of Chinook marina, where we pulled our boats out, donned some dry clothes, checked out the overnight accommodations, and decided to call it a trip. Local queries indicated that weather was expected to be foggy and cold with high winds and seas the following day, and we were encouraged to stay off the water. We took the advice. Spring 2004 The Estuary Partnership has invited members of the Oregon and Washington Congressional Delegations to share their thoughts on the lower Columbia River. Journal entries will run as we receive them. First up, Congressman David Wu from Oregon’s 1st District. As a Member of Congress whose district borders the river I see the waterway as an economic highway, the source of one in six jobs for the State. The fish that once thrived and now work to rebound, migrate up and down the river's length – providing jobs for many Oregon families. The economic impact of this industry remains an indicator of our ability to be good stewards of its watershed and ecosystems. As a fisherman I savor the memory of arising before dawn on a crisp fall morning, grabbing coffee and gathering with friends for a day of fishing for fall Chinook. I vividly remember one particular morning when I arrived ahead of my companions, giving me time to linger quietly on the dock. The river was slightly warmer than the morning air, creating a shallow fog that hovered over the backwater where we were to launch. A great blue heron eased itself off a piling and floated over the fog to find breakfast in the tide flats of the estuary. When my friends arrived, the tone changed and it was all action as we prepared for the morning's endeavor. Later, as we enjoyed the catch with our families, we knew the fish we ate were champions. These fish had migrated to the ocean, avoided predators, matured and returned to the same river that had given them birth, just as salmon have been doing for thousands of years and generations. For all this, I am truly thankful. The Columbia River is a legacy worth preserving. On behalf of my children and their children to follow, I vow to protect and enhance this tremendous resource, nurturing both the commerce it supports as well as the natural splendor it offers for us all. David Wu Summer 2004 Wild Places Been on a tear the last couple weeks, shedding work-angst. Five days on the water over the last seven -- two overnights and a day trip. Yesterday it gelled. Smack dab on a coarse sand beach, a divergence in the River, where eighty per cent of the flow edges to the south, past parallel mountains of dredge spoils, and another ten per cent shelves northward. The rest is spread over four miles of shallows and backwaters, all hell-bound for the sea. A man-made place, yet wild. Broken trees and huge driftwood lace the swash line. Moss and dried annuals scratch at the sand on the dune. Double crested cormorants alight echelons of pile dikes, preening for a mate. Grebes "screebing" at each other, bragging of bigger fish, more fish. Seals smacking the water, chasing vanishing salmon. Mongo freighters take the larger channel, and the Corps smooths their path with a million dollars a year in spoil extraction, to make the waters turn ten degrees south. Conservation of momentum and money in a standoff. We sit in awe, here shuddering at the power of the River, shaking piles and gouging sand. The geese know it, the terns know it, and the immature eagle fifty yards off knows it. All are competing for a piece of this place. And so am I, to scrabble a fragment of sanity. The sun is out, the wet suit off, food gulletting down with water as lubricant. A feeding mode not so much different from the soon-to-be-hatched goslings, now incubating under an adult, itself watched by the eagle, the redtail, and us. The current runs in two directions here, generating boils and mild haystacks for us to dance over, and we ease off, skirting massive piles of sand, decorated at the lower end with feeble fences of plastic to divert terns. An eagle silhouette stands guard, and two matures help on a grounded root ball. Leaving this special, diverse, remote place, though it will not leave us. We carry it back to civilization, a tonic for an interval, or maybe a lifetime, knowing it is there. Are there sand-Druids? Dave Kruger is a retired chemistry professor and long-time paddler on the Lower Columbia River Water Trail. When not on the water, or on a sandy island in the middle of the river, he can be found at the coffee shop on Smith Point in Astoria. Winter 2005 It is impossible to separate the Columbia River from my life, it has always been there lapping at the door in one way or another, sometimes in a much more threatening way than others. It became a part of my life before I was even born and has remained that way despite temporary departures into other landscapes. I have always returned. I grew up on its shores. I swam in its water. I watched the ocean-going vessels travel up and down its channel, waving at the sailors, wondering what their cargo might be and dreaming of far off lands and where that river might someday take me. Not realizing at the time that its tides would always bring me home. It has been my heritage since my grandfather arrived along its shores in early 1900 and saw the future for agricultural production in its fertile delta soil. A man “small of stature and large of vision” they said of him as he reclaimed 10,000 acres of Columbia River delta to fill the America’s need for productive land to feed the growing population. Since then my family has been a steward of the land, using this fertile soil to grow crops and livestock. Living side by side with the many wildlife populations that have long been residents, we have worked to achieve a balance where we can all exist together. But this is a new balance; it is not the balance of nature that existed before man came. That can not be recaptured. But some of its complexity and diversity can be maintained through the sustainable practices of agriculture and forestry. I sometimes resent the intrusion of outsiders, those that have not vested their souls in this land. Those who come only briefly yet seem to feel they know more than those who have come and long stayed. Knowing is more than traveling through, passing by, temporarily enjoying the beauty. Knowing is spending time in the drenching winter rains while trying to make a living, working in the icy winds blowing off the river. Knowing is seeing a multitude of rainbows while feeling the mud suck your boots from your feet. Knowing is sharing the landscape with the predators and the prey and learning how to achieve the balance. Balance is balancing an economy and an environment and not just saying the words but living them. I know my Columbia River. It is my home, where I make a living and where my children continue to be stewards of the land, following in the footsteps of those who came before us. Margaret Magruder is a fourth generation farmer and sheep rancher in the Clatskanie area, the coordinator of the Lower Columbia River Watershed Council, and a member of the Estuary Partnership’s Board of Directors. Spring 2005 Life is short, and what is urgent may not usually be important…that is why when I first set eyes on the Columbia River in 1987 I realized the magnitude of its presence. It is not just a river...but a vehicle of beauty, sustenance and experience...an icon and emblem of renewal, a reminder that all things pass, yet it still flows, cutting its coarse and delivering life in many different forms. A passion for the outdoors brought me to the shores of the Columbia from California 18 years ago: a view from Angels rest in the Columbia Gorge...yet it is the richness of our unique urban lifestyle in the Northwest that signifies why the river is so crucial to our communities and families. Without it we would not be here, cities un-built, communities un-developed upon its shores, art un-realized, fine and fresh wines un-tasted, northwest foods and fare un-created, recreation un-explored, and how the heck would Lewis and Clark have traveled and experienced that sense of awe and purpose: something I experience, even though I have seen the Columbia thousands of times. Have we ever thought what life would be like without the Columbia’s reaching arms? I have left and returned to Oregon 3 times during my 18 years in the Northwest...and upon my last return from living on the east coast. I knew I was here to stay. Sometimes you have to leave what you love most...to appreciate the gifts right in front of you. I have always had a passion for the river and its influence upon me related to the life I am living. It was time to give back…thus my partnership with the Estuary Partnership. Being a leader is a core personal philosophy...it is not what happens to you, but what you create from your experience that delivers a legacy. It may be personal leadership or leadership within a group that helps to sustain a better life: one that is in harmony with nature and inspirational for humanity...we are in this together you know…so baby steps I say. What is urgent at times distracts us from what is important. The Estuary Partnership is a leader in important actions that reach beyond the urgent and into a legacy: one that both the urban and natural coexist. Holly Van Fleet manages the Tualatin REI store and chairs the Estuary Partnership’s Board of Directors. Summer 2005 I first saw the Columbia River from the window of an airplane as it landed in Portland in January of 1994. I suspect most people see it that way, or certainly from the window of a car as they enter the watershed for the first time. Seems like so few of us were born here. My attraction to rivers and my desire to protect and restore watersheds began as a child. I’m sure I didn’t understand it then, but those days playing along Pennypack Creek in Philadelphia and later the Passaic River in northern New Jersey influenced me greatly. Many of us seem to be drawn to water. For some of us it just means something to know it is there and it is constantly replenishing itself. When I was a little older, I learned to paddle a canoe and then I really got to enjoy rivers and streams. The eye-opener for me was paddling the Millers River in central Massachusetts one early summer day while in high school. A friend had moved to New England and invited me up to paddle some small rivers and streams I had never heard of. The Millers was the best, but for the paper mill that turned the river orange that day. My friend told me it sometimes ran yellow or blue or some other color, depending on the color of the paper they were making that day. I’m old enough to say it was before the Clean Water Act forced everyone to clean up their act, and I have confidence that the Millers once again runs clean. The experience made me convinced that people needed to speak for our waterways, since they could not speak for themselves. Fast forward to today, and I can report that Debrah, Andrew and I enjoy getting out on the Columbia whenever we can. I can also report that it is not often enough! For us the Columbia is a special river that deserves more attention than it has received in the past. I am happy to report that my love of rivers has not diminished and I’m doing my best to direct it toward restoring watershed health wherever I can. Dean Marriott is director of the City of Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services and has been an Estuary Partnership Board Member since the program’s inception. Winter 2006 Tonight I’m eating wild salmon. I felt fortunate that the store had it as sometimes there is only farm-raised salmon…something I couldn’t imagine, growing up in Astoria in the 1940’s and 50’s. I’m 64 years old and my life seems as long as the 1400 mile length of the Columbia and its tributaries. Early on there was abundance…of salmon (when I would catch 10 in one day), of clams, crab, sturgeon…and old growth; whole trunks were as wide as 3 men laid lengthwise and I saw them cut without thinking about their age. I was a deckhand on a salmon fishing boat, gaffed or netted the fish, baiting the hooks, slitting the bellies of the salmon…I knew the contents and avoiding cutting myself and getting “salmon poisoning.” My Finnish Uncle “Nutts” Kauno Winters took me on the river every day. My only boyhood dream was to own a salmon trawler and go out to sea alone. The pictures of trawlers covered my room and are still on the wall of a bedroom in my house at the coast! I loved crossing the bar, the danger of Clatsop Spit, the annual Astoria Regatta with thousands of boats trying to catch the 50 to 60 pounder it would take to win the prize. Years later I sit in meetings and go to banquets to raise money to restore the Columbia to what it was…or some semblance of it. I serve as Admiral of the Regatta but we can only rustle up 4 boats for the annual boat parade. The canneries I worked in are gone but I eat at restaurants overlooking the stubbles of logs poking up through the gray water. I work to restore habitat (a word I didn’t know as a kid) and to tell people about the chemicals spreading through the ecosystem from fish to bird to our crops and stomachs. I know there are 64 chemicals in northwest women’s breast milk that shouldn’t be there and that the polar bear’s fur is filled with flammable liquid chemicals. I do my part and also dream…of seeing Celilo Falls roaring, reincarnation…and fighting the elements alone at sea in that trawler. The river and the salmon were central to our entire life when I grew up. We ate the salmon pickled and barbequed and sometimes for lunch on the boat during my 13th summer. We took it for granted. Not tonight. I’ll savor the salmon…but spend the rest of my life making sure the estuary is valued by every kid! Mike Lindberg served on the Portland City Council for 17 years, working on issues of sustainability, urban planning and the environment. He has been a long-time friend of the Estuary Partnership. Spring 2006 More than anything else from my youth, I remember the lower Columbia River. I was fascinated by its vast breadth and ever changing color – from the interplay of light, wind, and weather, the armada of vessels plying its waters – ships, scows, tugs, ferries, barges, trawlers, trollers, gillnetters, sailboats, and cabin cruisers. The Navy was stationed nearby then, and on Armistice Day, to my and every boy’s delight, the fleet would sail from Tongue Point to downtown Astoria and welcome us aboard. The river was dynamic. In Portland, where I have lived for the past 30 years, the Columbia flows silently, more a ribbon than a river – the interstate border and a playground for sailboats and yachts. It is, to be sure, a pleasurable sight – made majestic on clear days with snowcapped peaks dotting the vista. But Portland’s river is the Willamette, sinewy and slow, and I am an Astorian. I am a child of the Columbia. In Astoria, where I grew up, the Columbia River dominates the city’s landscape, its commerce, and its consciousness. I lived on top of the 8th Street hill and later on Irving Street, overlooking the river, hilly Astoria’s extended front yard. As a boy, I fished the river from piers or my grandfather’s fishing boat. For fun, I rode across the river on the ferries – a 25¢ ticket – a dear sum then, but worth every penny. Through my school years, I worked continuously on and around the river – bait boy, deckhand, loading logs from floating rafts, “butchering” and “sliming” salmon and tuna at the Barbey and Bumble Bee canneries, freezing and stacking fish in Bumble Bee’s upper town cold storage plant where I worked evenings. We warmed up from the -40 degree freezers by taking a break on the outside dock and looked out on the river. On a serene and starlit night it was a transformative experience. I walk next to the river often, run along it and even over it during Astoria’s annual bridge run. I still swim in the river – off Frenchmen’s Bar and Sauvie Island. I sail on the Columbia, tacking back and forth between Portland and Vancouver, and riding the windy reaches in the spring. I have scouted the world’s largest concentration of Caspian terns on Rice Island. As a lawyer, I have gone to court on behalf of fishing and environmental groups to halt river pollution and help restore its once prolific salmon runs, and in the 1990’s, I became a co‑founder with Elizabeth Furse and John Platt of Columbia Riverkeeper, an organization dedicated to restoring and protecting the river’s waters. My grandfather, Jim Ingleton, mapped the Columbia River for the Corps of Engineers in the 1960’s, and it was from him that I learned of the inundation of Celilo Falls and the loss of an untamed river. But it was not until I began representing Salmon For All and the Columbia River gillnet fishing industry that I began to realize just how many people and families cherish this river, are sustained by it, and feel historically connected to it. Working with these fishermen and the Indians of the Columbia River treaty tribes, I came to appreciate the spiritual power of the river that has served as the lifeblood of entire peoples for millennia. In a real sense, the lower Columbia River is a constant in my somewhat tumultuous life. This river is a lifelong passion, a conscious, revered and persistent presence. I like to think there may be some significance in my surname – Tienson from Tiensuu, Finnish for mouth‑of‑the‑river. Thane Tienson is a layer with Landye Bennet Blumstein LLP. He grew up in Astoria and now lives in Portland. Summer 2006 I am Kris Parke. I worked in a summer project with Hayden Miles, Joel McEntire, Claire Cothren, Paul Cutberth, Becky Hoven, and Kaylyn Kaattari, called the Nelson Creek Project. The project was originally John Doumit’s idea, a now retired FFA teacher. Jeff Rooklidge, a science teacher at Wahkiakum High School, taught and supervised us. Karen Bertroch, Director of Wahkiakum Community Foundation, found our funding, and organized many of our activities. Our group conducted a scientific survey of Nelson Creek. People have told us, many times, there are so many watersheds in our area that the professionals in the field do not have enough time to monitor them all. That is why there needs to be more organizations like us. Properly trained local groups could monitor watersheds in their area, and then report their findings. This would allow the knowledge of the area to be greatly improved. Some people might say, “It is just a little stream. In the summer, it’s just over a cubic foot of water traveling through per second.” That may seem like only a little, but every day 1,440 cubic feet of water flows into the Elochoman, and then into the Columbia River. In the winter there is often 21 cubic feet of water traveling through the stream every second. That is the equivalent of 30,240 cubic feet of water per day. We tried to get all sides of the picture. To do this, we learned from professionals in the field of science, such as Ian Sinks from CLT and Allan Whiting from CREST. Then, we talked to local landowners who have lived here for generations. We also observed a Debriae logging operation and talked to Mark Stanley, a logging safety inspector, to learn about the forestry practices in place to protect streams, such as buffer zones, and the SFI stamp. Finally, we talked to Wahkiakum County Commissioner Dan Cothren about owl circles and murrelet nest sites. Another issue we discussed was noxious weeds. Knotweed can spread several ways in our area. It can send out rhizomes through its roots, which allow large clumps to grow, and the nodes, or places where a leaf stalk branches out, can grow into a whole new plant if they are washed down stream. Purple loosestrife can also spread extremely rapidly. Each mature plant can have approximately thirty flower heads, and each head is capable of producing two to three million seeds per year. These noxious weeds are a huge problem because they crowd out our native wetland plants, and ruin the diversity of the ecosystem. The most common control method for knotweed is injection with a glyphosate herbicide. There is a biological control method for purple loosestrife, two species of Galerucella beetle and a root-eating weevil (Hylobius transversovittatus). In order for the health of our watersheds to improve, we have to start small and get all the small watersheds healthy, and work our way downward. If we get the small watersheds as close to their natural state as possible, the rivers they feed into, such as the Columbia will improve themselves. If we keep this attitude, and get our communities involved, I think we could keep our area healthy, and improve it for generations to come. Kris Parke participated in the 2005 Nelson Creek Project. The project was funded primarily by a grant from the Lower Columbia River Estuary Partnership. Parke and fellow student Hayden Miles won awards at the statewide FFA Spring Fair for the project and will compete at the National FFA Convention this Fall. Winter 2007 My connection with the Columbia River is really my father. He was a fifth generation Oregonian. He spent most of his youth in Tillamook; playing in the sand, hunting for salamanders and wading for flounder in Sand Lake. As I grew up, my father took us all over the west coast….to Astoria to investigate various spots around the estuary…many trips to the beach to play in the sand…out on a Bumblebee Tuna boat where I learned that the deep sea and my stomach don’t agree…and frequent travels through the various channels and bays of the Columbia River. My father was my family’s connection to water bodies around the state of Oregon as he eagerly initiated my Pennsylvania-born mother to “life in the west.” We went camping along the coast in the rain and learned all about that Oregon fashion accessory, the plastic garbage bag, as we sought to protect ourselves from the elements. Just cut a hole in the bottom and each of the sides and pull it on over your head like a t-shirt….voila- a rain slicker! I would later show off my Oregon fashion sense to those who attended the Monterey Jazz Festival when we were surprised by an unusual California shower. During my father’s political career, my family accompanied him on many trips around the state to many other bodies of water including Crater Lake, the Deschutes and Rogue Rivers, to name a few. Oregon is so blessed with beautiful, strong rivers…all of which I used to feed my growing passion for water. I would make it a personal goal to swim the width of many of the state’s rivers we visited during my youth. I never swam the width of the Columbia however, and would hope that my parents would have stopped me if I’d had the notion. The Columbia really is awe-inspiring. After coming to work at the Estuary Partnership, I went along on a staff paddle and got to see the river “up close and personal.” There’s no way to appreciate the strength and vitality of the Columbia without getting in a canoe or kayak and traveling inches from its surface as a massive tanker chugs by. It’s a spectacular economic and environmental resource to us all and it’s up to us, and us alone, to protect and enhance it. Growing up in Oregon and having a family that explored every nook and cranny of the state, it’s hard to realize that there are children who’ve never been in a canoe, don’t know what a robin is, and have never swam in a river or taken a hike. The world is so much bigger! Let’s expand their boundaries and help them become future stewards of this incredible river we call the Columbia. Carolyn Myers Lindberg is the Estuary Partnership’s Development & Communications Director. She joined the program in 2004 after 28 years in broadcast news and public relations. Her father, Clay Myers, served two terms each as Oregon Secretary of State and Oregon State Treasurer. Spring 2007 As I was going through old photos and post cards belonging to my grandfather, a third generation Swiss mountain guide, I came across a 1912 card that he had written to his father. It read, “Father, you must come to America, the peaks in the Pacific Northwest are largely unclimbed and remind me of home.” My Grandfather made a life long career of first ascents and exploration in the Cascades, the Canadian Rockies, and the Tetons. The home that he made in this country for my father, and ultimately for me, was nestled near Mt. Hood, and only a short distance from the impressive sight of the Columbia River. I grew up with the river in my backyard, and like many native Oregonians viewed the river as a marvelous spectacle and a powerful force. As a child, my mother showed me a high-water mark in the hall closet of her childhood home. This mark was left by the Columbia River and it was beyond my comprehension how the Columbia River could have disfigured this beautiful home. She told me of the destruction by the Vanport Flood —the result of the spring snowmelt of 1948. This flood caused multiple dike failures along the Columbia River and reduced America’s largest post-war housing project to rubble in an hour’s time. From that day on, I had the utmost respect for this magnificent river. My first deep connection with the Columbia River occurred as part of my job as a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey. Although opportunities for first ascents and novel exploration no longer exist within the Cascades, the water resources of the Columbia River still welcome exploration and study. One of my first field assignments was to assess contaminants in sediments in the lower Columbia River Estuary. I still remember locating various sampling locations on navigational charts and maps for my field trip. There was Baker Bay on the Washington side, Young’s Bay and Cathlamet Bay on the Oregon side, main channel sites, and ocean sites just north and south of the Columbia River jetties. This map exercise did not prepare me for the wide expanse of the estuary, its powerful currents, and tricky bar. I was fascinated with the calm backwater areas of the lower estuary, but quickly learned the real meaning of the term “bottom swells”. My body lacked any reasonable ability to deal with the seemingly random motion of water outside the confines of the jetties; seasickness was my only companion. Nonetheless, this trip, and many to follow, was fruitful in understanding some of the environmental challenges within the estuary. To this day —and no different from when I was a child—I continue to have the utmost respect for this magnificent river. With the added passage of time though, I also realize that the river isn’t invulnerable; its power is undeniable, but its protection rests in the hands of those of us who are connected to this great river. Greg Fuhrer is the Acting Associate Director of the U.S. Geological Survey, Oregon Water Science Center.
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