The Columbia River: Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery, Its Commerce

by William Denison Lyman

Stehekin Cañon, 5000 Feet Deep.
Photo. by W. D. Lyman.

To view this great picture gallery of history and physiography, we may have the choice of nearly every method of travel, horseback, afoot, by team (though the waggon roads are not continuous), or by train, on either bank. The river himself offers his broad back for any kind of craft. Several swift and elegant steamers make daily trips between Portland and The Dalles, passing through the Government canal and lock at the Cascades. Launches, scows, sailing craft of almost every kind, are in constant movement, loaded with every sort of commodity. Of all the means of transit, however, we will, if you please, float down the stately stream in our well-tried skiff. Independent as the Coyote god Speelyei when he used to pass up and down the river, transforming presumptuous beasts or mortals into rock at will, we will drift with the current, partaking of the very life of the rich and multifarious nature about us. We can pause as we wish on jutting crag or fir-crowned promontory or at the foot of spouting cataract. We can camp for the night beneath some wide-spreading pine, and breathe the balsamic fragrance of the “continuous woods.” We can trace the historic stages of bateaux or canoes or immigrant flatboats, and open and shut the camera at will amid the open volumes of our heroic age of discovery and settlement, or the yet vaster and grander epoch of Nature’s creative day. No palace car or even floating palace of steamer for us when we can have two or three days of such unalloyed bliss in an open skiff moving at our own sweet will.

We shall find here a marked change in the movement of the river as compared with its prevailing character in the five hundred miles from the British line to The Dalles. The impetuous might above has become transformed into a slow and stately majesty. With the exception of the five miles at the Cascades round which the canal passes, the river below The Dalles is deep and calm, seldom less than a mile in width.

Of the almost numberless objects at which we level eye and camera, we can here describe but few.

A fitting introduction to this stage of our journey is found in Paha Cliffs at the mouth of the Klickitat, a perpendicular bastion of lava rock, not remarkable for height, but of such regularity and symmetry as to seem the work of men’s hands. A short distance below the Paha Cliffs, also on the Washington side of the river, is a most singular semicircular wall of gigantic area, surrounding on the west what seems to be an immense sunken enclosure. The Indians have a story to the effect that once Speelyei, being on his way up the river before this wall existed, paused here to perform some unworthy deed (for Speelyei was a curious mixture of the noble and the base). Having done the deed, he began to fear that it would become known. So he hurriedly built a wall to keep in the report. But while he was engaged in building on the west, the report got out on the east. The wall that we now see is the remains of his building. Of a similar order of Indian fancy is the “Baby-on-the-Board” and the “Coyote Head” farther down the river, also on the north side. The Coyote Head is near White Salmon. It commemorates the transformation of a presumptuous Klickitat chief who wished to proclaim himself equal to Speelyei, so he crowned himself with a coyote skin and took his station on the great rock wall above the mouth of the White Salmon. And there he remains still, for Speelyei with a wave of the hand transformed the offending chieftain into rock.

Steamer Dalles City Descending the Cascades of the Columbia.

A few miles below the mouth of the Klickitat, there stands in mid-channel one of the most curious and interesting objects on the river, “Memaloose Island.” This desolate islet of basalt was one of the most noted of the frequent “death” or burial places of the Indians. They were accustomed to build platforms and place the dead upon them. Apparently this island was used for its gruesome purpose for centuries. A large white marble monument facing the south attracts the attention of all travellers, and as we pass we see that it is sacred to the memory of Vic Trevett. He was a prominent pioneer of The Dalles, and in the course of his various experiences became a special friend of the Indians, who looked upon him with such love and reverence that when his end approached he gave directions that his permanent burial-place and monument should be on the place sacred to his aboriginal friends.

We have spoken of the region between the mouth of the Klickitat and Rooster Rock as the mountain section of the river. But as we move on down the stream we discover that there are numerous nooks and glens adjoining it which are the choicest locations for fruit and garden ranches. At a point just about midway from The Dalles to the Cascades there is a remarkable break in the otherwise unbroken and constantly rising mountain walls. This break constitutes one of the most charming residence regions on the Columbia shores, and at the same time the avenue of approach to the most magnificent of mountains. There are here two great valleys. One of these is that of Hood River, better called by its musical Indian name Waukoma, “The Place of Cottonwoods.” It proceeds directly from the foot of Mt. Hood, twenty-five miles distant to the south. The valley on the north bears a similar relation to Mt. Adams, forty miles distant, and is drained by the White Salmon River. From favourable points on the River, or from the heights which border it, we obtain views of the two peaks which create an unappeasable longing to tread their crags and snow-fields. Though truly mountain valleys, these two valleys are of spacious extent. They are moreover so richly provided with sun and water and all the ingredients of soil necessary to produce the choicest fruit that they have become the very paradise of the orchardist. The Hood River apples grace the tables of royalty in the old world and delight the palates of epicures in both hemispheres, while to the eyes and the nostrils of any one of delicate sensibilities their colour and fragrance impart a still more æsthetic charm.

As we pass on down the river from those two vales of beauty and plenty, we begin to see the first of those lofty crags on either hand, the basaltic pinnacles, turretted, spired, castellated, which make the distinguishing feature of Columbia River scenery for these fifty miles. Mitchell’s Point, Shell Mountain, Wind Mountain, Bald Mountain, and Mt. Defiance are the first group. The lowest of the group attains an elevation of nearly two thousand feet, almost perpendicular, while at the summit of the crags rise a thousand feet higher yet long grassy slopes alternating with splendid forests.