Mid-Columbia River, Oregon/Washington
Our Corps of Discovery would never recognize the broad placid and sun-drenched River of the West where we cruised today. In stair step stages we rose through four dam locks into lakes Bonneville, Celilo, Umatilla and Wallula. The guillotine lock at John Day Dam provides the highest lift in the world at 110 feet. Looking back we saw snow and glacier mantled Mt. Hood (11,235 ft.) perfectly framed between the lock towers. Far behind us were the dark conifer forests of the Cascade Mountains. It surprised many of our guests who thought Oregonians were web-footed. They learned that this mid-Columbia reach has only 12 inches of annual rainfall.
On the rolling plateau beyond the river bluffs are wheat ranches up to 10,000 acres in size that provide one-third of the grain exported from the U.S. via the ports of Portland and Vancouver. It’s used for noodles in the Orient and flat bread in Pakistan. Near Boardman the bluffs vanished to reveal a vast agricultural area of vineyards: sweet cherry, peach, apple, apricot and pear orchards; hops; Walla Walla sweet onions that can be eaten like an apple; melons, asparagus, sweet peas and safflower, and irrigated circles for field corn to finish cattle and high grade alfalfa shipped to Japan. Columbia Crest Winery at 4,000 acres is the largest vineyard in the Northwest.
This dramatic change from what Lewis & Clark experienced came with the harnessing of the Columbia for power, navigation, irrigation and recreation, starting with Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt put the people to work and electrified this region in the midst of the Great Depression. Low cost hydropower and water from these impoundments altered this land.
By contrast the Corps of Discovery, in their five dugout canoes, described a harsh landscape and hurried downstream on the powerful current through one rapid after another and portaged at Celilo and the Long Rapids by The Dalles. Outbound in October 1805 and inbound in April 1806 in this reach of river, they missed the prime Chinook salmon runs and obtained only dried or spoiled salmon in trade. They noted in their journals a complete lack of game animals. So they traded for dogs, which all but Capt. Lewis relished eating.
They also traded for firewood. In spring the pristine Columbia rose as much as 40 feet with snowmelt from its natural reservoirs in the Teton, Rocky, Bitterroot, Selkirk, Wallowa and Blue Mountain ranges. The shores were swept clean of driftwood or struggling willow or cottonwood. It was a barren treeless setting that the captains described in their journals.
Beyond our fourth lockage at McNary Dam, the Columbia made a 90-degree turn to the north and cut through Wallula Gap in the Horse Heaven Hills. The Palouse and Cayuse people grazed their wealth, thousands of horses, on the bluebunch wheatgrass, and Capt. Clark said these horses were as fine as those in his Kentucky home. Atop the Horse Heaven Hills we glimpsed the new Stateline Wind Farm, the largest in North America. Engineers from Denmark designed the 450 wind generators that power 70,000 homes.
Our Corps of Discovery would never recognize the broad placid and sun-drenched River of the West where we cruised today. In stair step stages we rose through four dam locks into lakes Bonneville, Celilo, Umatilla and Wallula. The guillotine lock at John Day Dam provides the highest lift in the world at 110 feet. Looking back we saw snow and glacier mantled Mt. Hood (11,235 ft.) perfectly framed between the lock towers. Far behind us were the dark conifer forests of the Cascade Mountains. It surprised many of our guests who thought Oregonians were web-footed. They learned that this mid-Columbia reach has only 12 inches of annual rainfall.
On the rolling plateau beyond the river bluffs are wheat ranches up to 10,000 acres in size that provide one-third of the grain exported from the U.S. via the ports of Portland and Vancouver. It’s used for noodles in the Orient and flat bread in Pakistan. Near Boardman the bluffs vanished to reveal a vast agricultural area of vineyards: sweet cherry, peach, apple, apricot and pear orchards; hops; Walla Walla sweet onions that can be eaten like an apple; melons, asparagus, sweet peas and safflower, and irrigated circles for field corn to finish cattle and high grade alfalfa shipped to Japan. Columbia Crest Winery at 4,000 acres is the largest vineyard in the Northwest.
This dramatic change from what Lewis & Clark experienced came with the harnessing of the Columbia for power, navigation, irrigation and recreation, starting with Bonneville and Grand Coulee dams. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt put the people to work and electrified this region in the midst of the Great Depression. Low cost hydropower and water from these impoundments altered this land.
By contrast the Corps of Discovery, in their five dugout canoes, described a harsh landscape and hurried downstream on the powerful current through one rapid after another and portaged at Celilo and the Long Rapids by The Dalles. Outbound in October 1805 and inbound in April 1806 in this reach of river, they missed the prime Chinook salmon runs and obtained only dried or spoiled salmon in trade. They noted in their journals a complete lack of game animals. So they traded for dogs, which all but Capt. Lewis relished eating.
They also traded for firewood. In spring the pristine Columbia rose as much as 40 feet with snowmelt from its natural reservoirs in the Teton, Rocky, Bitterroot, Selkirk, Wallowa and Blue Mountain ranges. The shores were swept clean of driftwood or struggling willow or cottonwood. It was a barren treeless setting that the captains described in their journals.
Beyond our fourth lockage at McNary Dam, the Columbia made a 90-degree turn to the north and cut through Wallula Gap in the Horse Heaven Hills. The Palouse and Cayuse people grazed their wealth, thousands of horses, on the bluebunch wheatgrass, and Capt. Clark said these horses were as fine as those in his Kentucky home. Atop the Horse Heaven Hills we glimpsed the new Stateline Wind Farm, the largest in North America. Engineers from Denmark designed the 450 wind generators that power 70,000 homes.
