Fish River Road, in Upper Columbia Region, B. C.Photo. by Trueman, Victoria.
We next enter a broad expanse of the River, nine miles wide, on the north side of which is a deep cove. There is the historic spot in which Robert Gray on May 3, 1792, paused at his highest point to fill his water casks and to float the Stars and Stripes over Oregon, claimed for the United States of America. As we look westward, the headlands seem to part in front of us, and between them sky and water join. The greatest ocean is before us, though still twenty miles away. The River has reached the end of his fourteen-hundred-mile journey. Soon we pass, on the Oregon side, the bold promontory of Tongue Point, and Astoria, the second largest city on the navigable waters of the Columbia, is before us.
To the history of this oldest American town west of the Rocky Mountains we have already referred many times. Interesting in so many features of the past, Astoria is full of problems and suggestions, commercial and otherwise, for the present and the future. The city has grown slowly, always wondering why Portland should have so outstripped her. She certainly has such a location that it seems a crime not to utilise it for a great city. The River is here five miles wide. Upon its ample flood all the navies of the world might ride at anchor, sheltered from the sea by the long low sand-ridge of Point Adams. The site of the city, though somewhat ruggedand broken, is entirely capable of reduction to a convenient grade, and is singularly noble and commanding. From the plateau three hundred feet high upon which the splendid waterworks are located, is a view of imposing grandeur;—River in front, dense forest to rear, with the blue saddle and pinnacled horn of Saddle Mountain,—Swallalochost in Indian speech, with its thunder-bird of native myth,—and the ocean to the west. We find Astoria to be a well-built city of about fifteen thousand permanent inhabitants, with perhaps five or six thousand more during the height of the fishing season. Almost every resource of industry offers itself in this favoured region about the mouth of the River. Though the country is densely timbered in its native state, the soil is such that when cleared it is of the finest for dairy and vegetable purposes. The mildness of the climate keeps the clover and grass green and the flowers in bloom the long year through.
As might be expected the chief industries as yet developed are lumbering and fishing. There are magnificent forests of fir, spruce, cedar, and hemlock, in all directions, while in and around Astoria there are six immense establishments for transforming the timber into merchantable lumber. This lumber aggregates something like a hundred and twenty million feet annually, and it goes to all the ports of the world. There is occasionally floated to the bar and thence to San Francisco, a log-boom chained in substantial fashion and containing several million feet of logs. Such a great boom is one of the most curious sights of the River-mouth. But transcending all else in importance at Astoria is the business of canning and dryingsalmon. What silver is to the Cœur d’Alene, what wheat is to Walla Walla, what apples are to Hood River, that salmon are to Astoria. The people think, act, and reason in terms of salmon. And well they may. He who has not seen Chinook salmon from the Columbia River has not seen fish. Nay, he cannot even be said to have really lived in the larger sense of the term. Take a genuine Chinook salmon of fifty or sixty pounds, caught in June, fat, rich, glistening,—but words are a mockery. Nothing but the actual experience will convey the impression. The salmon output on the River has for some years run from two hundred and fifty thousand to five hundred thousand cases per year, twenty-four cans to the case. The amount dried and smoked represents something like an equal amount. This is for the River from Astoria to The Dalles. The great bulk of this, however, is put up at Astoria or in its immediate vicinity. It is estimated that from thirty million to forty million salmon are caught yearly on the Oregon side of the lower River. This represents a value of four or five million dollars, about half of this going to the fishermen and half to the cannerymen. Some ten thousand men are engaged in fishing about the mouth of the River. These men are largely Finns, Russians, Norsemen, Italians, Sicilians, and Greeks. They have various co-operative associations and are independent of the cannerymen, to whom they furnish the fish at some stipulated price, usually five cents a pound.
Multnomah Falls, 840 Feet High, on South Side ofColumbia River about Sixty Miles above Portland.Photo. by E. H. Moorehouse, Portland.
There are many tragedies at the mouth of the River. The best fishing is just off the Bar and the best time to draw the nets is at the turn of the tide. In a fishing boat in the chill of the early morning,the fishermen will frequently become benumbed and drowsy, and will neglect the critical moment. When the tide fairly turns on the Bar it runs out like a mill race, and woe to the boat that waits too long. It goes out to sea, reappearing perhaps, bottom-up, in the course of the day, with owners and cargo gone. Some experienced men have asserted that not less than a hundred fishermen are lost every summer. Many boats are now fitted with gasoline power, and loss of life is lessened thereby.
To the visitor at the River’s mouth the fairest sight of all in connection with the fishing industry is the incoming fleet of boats in the early morning, or the outgoing fleet of evening. On a June night it scarcely grows really dark at all, and as the faint glow of the north turns at two or three o’clock into the morning flush, the lateen sails can be seen like a flock of gulls on the rim of the ocean. When the full radiance of the dawn, with its bars of carmine and saffron, has “turned to yellow gold the salt-green streams,” the fleet is within the outer headlands. Hundreds, sometimes thousands of them, a regular cloud of them, converge from all parts of the offing to the wharves of lower Astoria.
With all its benefits the fishing industry brings almost infinite trouble. The two States of Oregon and Washington never agree on laws governing the periods of lawful fishing. Sometimes Federal authorities bear a part in the imbroglio. Gill-net men, seiners, fish-trap men, union men, non-union men, local, State, and Federal officials, all combine in one great general mix-up. In the midst of the confusion the countless salmon pursue their course up the River and itstributaries in summer, back to the ocean again in autumn. The Federal Government maintains fish hatcheries on a number of streams, and from them young salmon to the number of millions are turned out each year to replenish the diminishing supply.
Chinook Salmon, Weight 80 Pounds.Photo. by Woodfield, Astoria.
A great and constantly growing tide of tourists from all parts of the Willamette Valley and the upper Columbia region go to Astoria during the summer. The fine steamers,T. J. Potter,Hassalo,Charles D. Spencer, and others of less size, convey these thousands of tourists to Astoria, while the railroad from Portland brings yet other thousands. From Astoria, the North Beach is reached by steamer to Ilwaco, and thence by rail to all points of the fishhook of land which extends from the northern headland of the River to the mouth of Willapa Harbour. During the season this beach is almost a continuous city from Cape Hancock to Leadbetter Point, twenty miles distant. Clatsop Beach on the south side of the River is reached by rail from Astoria. Every charm that an ocean resort can possess has been lavished on these two beaches on either side of the River. The bathing, boating, climbing, fishing, hunting, clamming, crabbing,—they are all there. To the population of that part of the River country east of the Cascades, the transition from the dust and heat of the summer to the cool and rest and freshness of the beach, with its breath from six thousand miles of unbroken sea, is almost like a change of scenes in a play. Both these beaches, especially Clatsop Beach, are the location of a rich store of Indian legend and romance. “Cheatcos” and “Skookums” haunt the forests, and the spirits of Tallapus and Nekahni andQuootshoi have been enthroned on every peak and cape.
All rivers must reach the sea, and all journeys must end. And so both our River and our journey find their end in the ocean. From Astoria we can see the outer headlands and the ocean space between. As we survey this merging of the Great River with the greater deep, our eyes turn in fancy to that clear, bright lake, fourteen hundred miles away in the snowy peaks of British Columbia, from which the River flows. And in imagination we view again the vistas of lagoons and islands, cliffs and glaciers, lakes and cañons, plains and forests, through which the Columbia takes its course, while once more the changing scenes of the historical drama associated with that splendid waterway are enacted before our eyes.
Lake Adela, near Head of Columbia River, B. C.Photo. by C. F. Yates.
But now all these scenes and vistas must be left behind, and we must pass between the capes. The long sandspit of Point Adams lies on the south, and the bold rock-promontory of Cape Hancock on the north, seven miles apart, each crowned with a lighthouse. Between them we secure a view of the great jetty in course of construction by the Federal Government. This is one of the most important improvements in connection with the River. When this work, together with the canal and locks at Celilo, is completed, the River may be regarded as really navigable on a large scale. The work on the jetty was inaugurated soon after the jetty-building by Captain Eads at the mouth of the Mississippi River had drawn the favourable attention of people and Government tothis method of deepening river mouths. The jetty consists of a double line of piling, filled with rock and mattresses of woven willows. This constitutes a solid core against which the current of the River on one side piles the silt, while on the other the ocean waves pound the sand into a permanent barrier-reef. The philosophy of it is so to narrow the entrance that the accelerated current of the River will scour out the channel to an increased depth. Piles have been set in place by an ingenious system of pneumatic pipes by which compressed air bores a hole in the sand. Into this hole the pile is dropped, and the sea-waves in a moment fill in and tamp the sand around it. Thus the ocean is made to fence itself out. Upon the jetty a railroad has been built, and a train, loaded with rock and willows, runs out on this every eleven minutes for dumping material into the space between the piles. Very gratifying results have already been secured. There is now a depth of twenty-six feet on the Bar at low water. The crest of the Bar has been cut much deeper at several narrow points, and this indicates the progress that may be expected. It is hoped that the completed jetty will maintain a permanent channel of forty feet at low water. In stormy weather the work on the jetty is difficult and dangerous. The impact of the Pacific waves when lashed by a sixty-mile “sou’-wester” is something terrific. Large sections of piling have been torn out, and much loss has resulted. But patience and money triumph over all obstacles, and the work goes steadily on. Some conception of the magnitude of the commerce to be accommodated by this great work may be formed fromthe fact that in the year 1907 the freight handled on the lower River by both river and ocean vessels amounted to 4,251,681 tons, valued at $76,583,804. This is but a fraction of what will come with the full development of the Columbia Valley and with the needed improvements to navigation. The Federal Government maintains life-saving stations on both sides of the River. Many a tale of daring could these heroes of the beach tell, should we stop to question them.
We are at the point of the jetty. The buoys rise and fall behind us. The horrible blare of the fog-horn sounds across the thunder of the surf, as we cross the imaginary line from headland to headland. Sea-captains tell us that ten miles from the River’s mouth—so powerfully does the mighty current cleave the sea—they can dip up fresh water. But now, to west and north and south, the deep blue, though crossed by the pale green of the River water, assures us that we are fairly upon the Bar. The River of the West is all behind us. If it be very clear, we can just discern upon the horizon’s verge, cameo-like and glistening white, Mt. Hood, monarch of the Oregon Cascades, for ever standing guard over the disappearing River.
Bridal Veil Bluff, Columbia River, Ore.Photo. by E. H. Moorehouse, Portland.
As the shore line grows vague, it would not be difficult for the imagination to conjure up the navigators of the Old World who sailed these seas, then unknown seas of mystery and romance. Looming up through the ocean mists we may see strange ships and stranger crews emerge,—junks with Oriental castaways swept hither by storms and ocean currents; caravels with the dauntless sailors of the sixteenthcentury; buccaneers and pirates, a motley flotilla. Then the stout crafts of Drake, Behring, Heceta, Cook, Malaspina, Valdez, Bodega, Vancouver, La Pérouse; ships of discovery, of trade, of war, of adventure, of science; flags of Spain, of Russia, of Portugal, of France, of England;—on they throng from the hazy Pacific rim toward the Oregon shore. And soon we seem to see, circling around them, canoes with their red-skinned paddlers from the River’s mouth. But ships and flags, explorers and natives, fade like a dissolving view. In their place appears a gallant bark, with banner streaming free. What ship? What banner? TheColumbia Rediviva, and the Stars and Stripes—the flag that still waves over the land of the Oregon.
And now our vessel rises and falls upon the long swell of the Pacific. Our journey on the Columbia River is ended, and we are upon the open sea.
Band of Kootenai Indians, B. C.Photo. by Allan Lean, Nelson.
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