Submerged Forest

Up until the completion of Bonneville Dam in 1938, a ghostly white forest of drowned tree stumps could be observed along both sides of the Columbia River between Cascade Locks and The Dalles. The submerged forest was first mentioned in a geologic textbook in 1853, in “Principles of Geology” by Sir Charles Lyell

“Thus Captains Clark and Lewis found, about the year 1807 (sic), a forest of pines standing erect under water in the body of the Columbia RIver, which they supposed, from the appearance of the trees, to have been submerged only about twenty years.”

Both Lewis and Clark in 1805 and Captain Fremont in 1845 recognized that the trees were drowned by the formation of a lake behind a 200-foot landslide dam.

Penny Postcard, ca.1920s, "Wind Mountain and Submerged Forest, Columbia River".

Penny Postcard, ca.1920s, “Wind Mountain and Submerged Forest, Columbia River”.

Possibly triggered by an earthquake, the dam material slid down from the cliffs of Table Mountain and Greenleaf Peak at a time later determined to be between 1260 and 1290 A.D. The stumps were described in detail by Minnesota biologists Donald B. and Elizabeth G. Lawrence in a series of definitive papers in 1935, 1937, 1937, and 1958. The Lawrences were the first to date the time of the landslide, by caron 14 analyses, as having occurred 700 years before. As of 1936, the Lawrence’s counted 3,068 stumps on the south side of the river, and 938 on the north side of the river. The maximum concentration of stumps on the south side occurs just above the mouth of Viento Creek, where more than 800 stumps were counted within a small area.

Source: John Allen, Professor of Geology at Portland State University, 1985, “Time Travel in Oregon”.

Writing a new story

A grand spectacle! The sheer magnitude of these living waters, pummeling in their forever song of change.

Post Card, Near The Dalles, 1917

Post Card, Near The Dalles, 1917

The stories are spoken in the songs heard in between the spaces – when we close our eyes and listen. For millennia, this teller of tales has inspired and washed us in awe. Taken back, we are asked to remember its tales. Whether we like it, or not, it is up to us to write the new stories, and to pass them on… and time is speeding up in its forever song of change.

Chinook – Coyote Builds Willamette Falls and the Magic Fish Trap

Coyote came to a place near Oregon City and found the people there very hungry. The river was full of salmon, but they had no way to spear them in the deep water. Coyote decided he would build a big waterfall, so that the salmon would come to the surface for spearing. Then he would build a fish trap there too. First he tried at the mouth of Pudding River, but it was no good, and all he made was a gravel bar there. So he went on down the river to Rock Island, and it was better, but after making the rapids there he gave up again and went farther down still. Where the Willamette Falls are now, he found just the right place, and he made the Falls high and wide.1471357_704065902938393_808146150_n (1) All the Indians came and began to fish. Now Coyote made his magic fish trap. He made it so it would speak, and say Noseepsk! when it was full. Because he was pretty hungry, Coyote decided to try it first himself. He set the trap by the Falls, and then ran back up the shore to prepare to make a cooking fire. But he had only begun when the trap called out, “Noseepsk!”

He hurried back; indeed the trap was full of salmon. Running back with them, he started his fire again, but again the fish trap cried “Noseepsk! Noseepsk!” He went again and found the trap full of salmon. Again he ran to the shore with them; again he had hardly gotten to his fire when the trap called out, “Noseepsk! Noseepsk!” It happened again, and again; the fifth time Coyote became angry and said to the trap, “What, can’t you wait with your fish catching until I’ve built a fire?” The trap was very offended by Coyote’s impatience and stopped working right then. So after that the people had to spear their salmon as best they could.

Identity and Tradition: A Changing Story

Celilo Falls, post card. ca. 1930

Celilo Falls, post card. ca. 1930


‘I seem to have shown up at a strange and vulnerable time… a time of the in-medias-res or the in-between. My memory has been altered by many things and, at times, I feel like I am suffering from a incurable cultural amnesia, similar to putting a jigsaw together with no image. Image is there, but it is not my own.. it is from the bias of others, for my ancestors knew little of the industrial revolution until one day, they were violently thrown into the orgy. Yes, it has been tragic, and yes, it has been human.. but, it has allowed a different kind of breathing, or at least that is what I have to work with.’

- A paragraph from the book that I am writing.

I am of Many Stories.

Sometimes when I look at these pictures, I can hear the wind blowing the sweet smell of Spring rains up through the Gorge. I am Indigenous to this very spot, the Cascades on the Columbia, yet, I am the immigrant carrying goods upriver and I am the hands that would build the dam that would silence it forever. I am of many stories.
Columbia_River_below_the_Cascades_showing_sternwheeler,_ca_1901

Photo: Columbia River below the Cascades, looking west (downriver) showing sternwheeler, probably the Bailey Gatzert. c. 1901

 

Charles Lindbergh and the Bridge of the Gods

September 1927, following Charles Lindbergh’s trans-Atlantic flight in May, Colonel

A post--card from the event.

Artist: © Paul A. Lanquist (“PAL”)

Lindbergh himself flew up the gorge from Portland in his famous Spirit of St. Louis, passing low over the new Bridge of the Gods, banked his plane and in a dramatic show of barnstorming, flew under the bridge and headed back to Swan Island.