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

by William Denison Lyman

As we speed swiftly down the river, we note the little station of Bonneville, named for the historic fur-trader whom the fascinating pages of Irving have brought down to this era. A short distance below Bonneville our eyes catch sight of a white sign-board bearing the words, “Petrified Tree.” Sure enough, there is the tree, and a marvellously fine specimen of silicification it is, too. When the railroad was built along the river bank at this point, the graders ran into a perfect forest of petrified wood. The logs and limbs were piled up by the cord near Bonneville, but the larger part has been taken in various directions for cabinets and ornaments.

But a short time is needed to fly down the Cascades, and at their lower end we reach what may be called the Lower River. For here a slight rise and fall of tide betokens the presence of the ocean. No more rapids on the River, but a tranquil, majestic flood, broadening like a sea toward its final destination, a hundred and sixty miles away.

If we were to describe in detail all the marvels of beauty and grandeur and physical interest which engage our attention at every stage of the journey, our volume would end with this chapter, for there would be no room for anything more. One class of objects of curious interest to almost all travellers, though of no special charm to scientist or nature lover, is the fish-wheels at the Cascades. These are very ingenious contrivances set in the midst of a swift place in the stream and made to revolve by the current. As they revolve, the huge vans dipping the water scoop up almost incredible numbers of the salmon which have made the Columbia famous the world over. A weir is built to turn the fish from the outside course into the channel of the wheel, with the result that numbers are taken almost beyond belief, sometimes as high as eight tons a day by a single wheel. Another picturesque sight, both at the Celilo Falls and the Cascades, is the Indian fishermen perched upon the rocks and with spear and dip-net seeking to fill their larder with the noble salmon.

But now to contemplate the works of God and Nature rather than those of man. We must, as already seen, by the necessities of space, ask our readers to share with us only the masterpieces of this gallery of wonders. Probably all visitors to the River would agree that the following scenes most nearly express the spirit and character of the sublime whole: Castle Rock, St. Peter’s Dome, Oneonta Gorge, Multnomah Falls, Cape Horn, and Rooster Rock. To these individual scenes we should add, as the very crown of all, the view at the lower Cascades both up and down the great gorge. With the majestic heights, scarred with the tempests and the earthquakes of the ages, swathed in drifting clouds and oftentimes tipped with snow, and the shimmering of the River, and the answering grandeur of sky and forest,—this grouping of the whole is more inspiring than any one scene.

Castle Rock, Columbia River.
(Copyright by Kiser Photograph Co., 1902.)

The first special object to fix our attention below the Cascades is Castle Rock. It is an isolated cliff of basalt, nine hundred feet high, covering about seventeen acres, its summit thinly clothed with stunted trees. It stands right on the verge of the River, nearly perpendicular on all sides, marvellous for symmetry from every point of view. At first sight one gets no conception of its magnitude, for it is dwarfed by the stupendous pinnacles, three thousand feet high, which compose the walls of the cañon. It is said that some Eastern lady, seeing it from a steamer’s deck, exclaimed, “See that fine rock! I wish I had it in my back yard at home.” Being informed that she would have to find a pretty spacious back yard to accommodate an ornament covering seventeen acres, she was too much astonished to believe it. But to any one viewing it deliberately and from every point of view, and especially landing, as we in our happy method of travel can do, and going about its base, it becomes evident that Castle Rock might be called a mountain in almost any other place. It was for a long time regarded as an impossible thing to reach the summit. For some years there was a standing offer of one thousand dollars for any one who would place the Stars and Stripes on the summit. But no one took the dare. At last in 1901, when the rivalry between two steamboat lines was keen, Frank Smith of the Regulator Line, with George Purser and Charles Church, accomplished the seemingly impossible, and, by ropes and staples and fingers and teeth and toenails, scaled the almost perpendicular walls, and unfurled the Regulator banner to the breeze where no flag ever flew before, nor human foot ever trod. It was probably the most risky climb ever taken in the North-west. A little later, by the aid of the experience of this party, several others attained the summit. Among these were George Maxwell, who set the Oregon Railway and Navigation flag as high as that of the Regulator had gone, and two photographers, W. C. Staatz and George M. Weister. With them went a young lady, Lilian White, who, though she did not reach the summit, went higher than any of her sex have gone. Later Mr. Whitney, manager of the great McGowan Cannery, went up and placed the Stars and Stripes upon the top.

The Lyman Glacier and Glacier Lake in North Star Park Near Lake Chelan.
Photo. by W. D. Lyman.

We said that no earlier human steps had trodden that beetling height and that Miss White had gone higher than any of her sex. But if we accept the romantic Indian tale of Wehatpolitan, our statement needs correction. For this story is to the following effect. Wehatpolitan was the beautiful child of the principal chieftain in these parts. She loved and was loved by a young chief of a neighbouring tribe. But when she was sought by her lover in marriage, the stern father denied the request and killed the messenger. But the lovers were secretly married and met clandestinely at various times. In course of time the father, thinking the infatuation of the forbidden lovers to be at an end, gave Wehatpolitan to a chief whom he had favoured. The latter kept constant watch of the girl, and one night he saw her stealing steathily away, and tracking her he found the secret of her midnight wanderings. As soon as the new lover had imparted to the father these tidings, the latter with deep duplicity sent word to the other chieftain that if he would come to the lodge, all would be forgiven and he and Wehatpolitan would be duly wed. Rejoicing at the happy outcome to all their troubles, the faithful lover hastened to his own, but no sooner had he arrived than he was seized upon and slain by the revengeful parent. Not long after this the heartbroken girl gave birth to a child, but her father at once decreed that the child must share its father’s fate. Hearing this pitiless word, Wehatpolitan caught up her child and disappeared. All that day they searched in vain, and on the next day, the Indians heard wailings from the top of Castle Rock, from which they soon discovered that the poor girl with her child had gone to that apparently inaccessible height. The old chief, repenting of his harsh course, called aloud to his daughter to come down and he would forgive her. But fearing new treachery she paid no heed, and the wailings continued. Overcome with grief the remorseful chief offered all kinds of rewards for any one who would climb the rock and save Wehatpolitan and her child. But though many tried, none could succeed. On the third day the wailings ceased. Then the half-crazed father himself essayed to climb. He seemed to succeed, for at least he disappeared among the crevices of the rock high up toward the summit. But he never returned. The Indians thought that he reached the top and that finding the lifeless bodies of his daughter and her child he had probably given up all hope of getting down and had lain down and died with them. But even yet heart-breaking wailings come down from time to time, especially when the Chinook blows soft and damp up the river, and these wailings have been thought by Indians to be the voice of the spirit of the unhappy Wehatpolitan, because it could never descend to the happy hunting grounds of the tribe.