Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this file
which includes the more than 200 original illustrations.
See 42893-h.htm or 42893-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/42893/pg42893-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/42893/42893-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/guardiansofcolu00willrich
Transcriber's note:
Text enclosed by underscores is in italics (_italics_).
Text enclosed by equal signs is in bold face (=bold=).
THE GUARDIANS OF THE COLUMBIA
* * * * *
THE MOUNTAIN
I hold above a careless land
The menace of the skies;
Within the hollow of my hand
The sleeping tempest lies.
Mine are the promise of the morn,
The triumph of the day;
And parting sunset's beams forlorn
Upon my heights delay.
--Edward Sydney Tylee
* * * * *
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT DR. U. M. LAUMAN
Dawn on Spirit Lake, north side of Mt. St. Helens.
"Night's candles are burnt out, and jocund day
Stands tiptoe on the misty mountain tops." Shakespeare.]
THE GUARDIANS OF THE COLUMBIA
Mount Hood, Mount Adams and Mount St. Helens
by
JOHN H. WILLIAMS
Author of "The Mountain That Was 'God'"
_And mountains that like giants stand
To sentinel enchanted land._
SCOTT: "The Lady of the Lake."
With More Than Two Hundred Illustrations
Including Eight in Colors
Tacoma
John H. Williams
1912
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Climbing the last steep slope on Mount Hood, from Cooper's Spur, with
ropes anchored on summit.]
Copyright, 1912, by John H. Williams
[Illustration: Willamette River at Portland, with ships loading wheat
and lumber for foreign ports.]
FOREWORD
In offering this second volume of a proposed series on Western mountain
scenery, I am fortunate in having a subject as unhackneyed as was that
of "The Mountain that Was 'God.'" The Columbia River has been described
in many publications about the Northwest, but the three fine snow-peaks
guarding its great canyon have received scant attention, and that mainly
from periodicals of local circulation.
These peaks are vitally a part of the vast Cascade-Columbia scene to
which they give a climax. Hence the story here told by text and picture
has necessarily included the stage upon which they were built up. And
since the great forests of this mountain and river district are a factor
of its beauty as well as its wealth, I am glad to be able to present a
brief chapter about them from the competent hand of Mr. H. D. Langille,
formerly of the United States forest service. A short bibliography, with
notes on transportation routes, hotels, guides and other matters of
interest to travelers and students, will be found at the end.
Accuracy has been my first aim. I have tried to avoid the exaggeration
employed in much current writing for the supposed edification of
tourists. It has seemed to me that simply and briefly to tell the truth
about the fascinating Columbia country would be the best service I could
render to those who love its splendid mountains and its noble river. A
mass of books, government documents and scientific essays has been
examined. This literature is more or less contradictory, and as I cannot
hope to have avoided all errors, I shall be grateful for any correction
of my text.
In choosing the illustrations, I have sought to show the individuality
of each peak. Mountains, like men, wear their history on their
faces,--none more so than Hood's sharp and finely scarred pyramid; or
Adams, with its wide, truncated dome and deeply carved slopes; or St.
Helens, newest of all our extinct volcanoes--if, indeed, it be
extinct,--and least marred by the ice, its cone as perfect as
Fujiyama's. Each has its own wonderful story to tell of ancient and
often recent vulcanism. Let me again suggest that readers who would get
the full value of the more comprehensive illustrations will find a
reading glass very useful.
Thanks are due to many helpers. More than fifty photographers,
professional and amateur, are named in the table of illustrations.
Without their co-operation the book would have been impossible. I am
also indebted for valued information and assistance to the librarians at
the Portland and Tacoma public libraries, the officers and members of
the several mountaineering clubs in Portland, and the passenger
departments of the railways reaching that city; to Prof. Harry Fielding
Reid, the eminent geologist of Johns Hopkins University; Fred G.
Plummer, geographer of the United States forest service; Dr. George Otis
Smith, director of the United States geological survey; Judge Harrington
Putnam, of New York, president of the American Alpine Club; Messrs.
Rodney L. Glisan, William M. Ladd, H. O. Stabler, T. H. Sherrard, Judge
W. B. Gilbert, H. L. Pittock, George H. Himes, John Gill, C. E. Rusk,
and others in Portland and elsewhere.
The West has much besides magnificent scenery to give those who visit
it. Here have been played, upon a grander stage, the closing acts in the
great drama of state-building which opened three hundred years ago on
the Atlantic Coast. The setting has powerfully moulded the history, and
we must know one if we would understand the other. Europe, of course,
offers to the American student of culture and the arts something which
travel here at home cannot supply. But every influence that brings the
different sections of the United States into closer touch and fuller
sympathy makes for patriotism and increased national strength.
This, rather than regret for the two hundred millions of dollars which
our tourists spend abroad each year, is the true basis of the "See
America First" movement. According to his capacity, the tourist commonly
gets value for his money, whether traveling in Europe or America. But
Eastern ignorance of the West is costing the country more than the drain
of tourist money.
This volume is presented, therefore, as a call to better appreciation of
the splendor and worth of our own land. Its publication will be
justified if it is found to merit in some degree the commendation given
its predecessor by Prof. W. D. Lyman, of Whitman College, whose
delightful book on the Columbia has been consulted and whose personal
advice has been of great value throughout my work. "I wish to express
the conviction," writes Prof. Lyman, "that you have done an inestimable
service to all who love beauty, and who stand for those higher things
among our possessions that cannot be measured in money, but which have
an untold bearing upon the finer sensibilities of a nation."
Tacoma, June 15, 1912.
[Illustration: Mount Adams, seen from south slope of Mount St. Helens,
near the summit, showing the Cascade ranges below. Note the great burn
in the forest cover of the ridges. "Steamboat Mountain" is seen in the
distance beyond. Elevation of camera, nearly 9,000 feet.]
[Illustration: Looking up the Columbia at Lyle, Washington.]
CONTENTS
I. THE RIVER.
Dawn at Cloud Cap Inn--The geological dawn--Cascade-Sierra
uptilt--Rise of the snow-peaks--An age of vulcanism--Origin
of the great Columbia gorge--Dawn in Indian legend--The
"Bridge of the Gods"--Victory of Young Chinook--Dawn of
modern history--The pioneers and the state builders 15
II. THE MOUNTAINS.
Portland's snowy sentinels--Ruskin on the mountains--Cascades
vs. Alps--Mount Hood and its retreating glaciers--The
Mazamas--A shattered crater--Mount Adams--Lava and ice
caves--Mount St. Helens--The struggle of the forest on the
lava beds--Adventures of the climbers--The Mazamas in
peril--An heroic rescue 57
III. THE FORESTS, by HAROLD DOUGLAS LANGILLE.
Outposts at timber line--The alpine parks--Zone of the great
trees--Douglas fir--From snow-line to ocean beach--Conservation
and reforestation 123
NOTES 140
ILLUSTRATIONS
The * indicates engravings from copyrighted photographs. See notice
under the illustration.
THREE-COLOR HALFTONES.
Title Photographer Page
*Dawn on Spirit Lake, north side of Mount
St. Helens Dr. U. M. Lauman Frontispiece
*St. Peter's Dome, with the Columbia and
Mount Adams G. M. Weister 20
*Nightfall on the Columbia Kiser Photo Co. 37
*Columbia River and Mount Hood, from White
Salmon, Washington Kiser Photo Co. 56
*Mount Hood, with crevasses of Eliot glacier G. M. Weister 73
*Ice Castle and crevasse, Eliot glacier G. M. Weister 92
*Columbia River and Mount Adams, from Hood
River, Oregon Benj. A. Gifford 109
An Island of Color--Rhododendrons and Squaw
Grass Asahel Curtis 127
ONE-COLOR HALFTONES.
Title Photographer Page
*Climbing to summit of Mount Hood from Cooper
Spur G. M. Weister 6
Willamette River and Portland Harbor G. M. Weister 7
Mount Adams, from south slope of Mount St.
Helens G. M. Weister 8
Columbia River at Lyle William R. King 9
Mount Hood, seen from the Columbia at
Vancouver L. C. Henrichsen 14
Trout Lake and Mount Adams Prof. Harry Fielding Reid 15
Mount St. Helens, seen from the Columbia,
with railway bridge C. S. Reeves 15
*View up the Columbia, opposite Astoria G. M. Weister 16
Astoria in 1813 From an old print 16
*View north from Eliot glacier G. M. Weister 17
Columbia Slough, near mouth of the
Willamette George F. Holman 18
*Cape Horn Kiser Photo Co. 19
Mount Hood, seen from Columbia Slough L. C. Henrichsen 21
*Campfire of Yakima Indians at Astoria
Centennial Frank Woodfield 21
Sunset at mouth of the Columbia Frank Woodfield 22
Portland, the Willamette, and Mounts
Hood, Adams and St. Helens Angelus Photo Co. 22
"The Coming of the White Man" L. C. Henrichsen 23
"Sacajawea" G. M. Weister 23
Sunset on Vancouver Lake Jas. Waggener, Jr. 24
Fort Vancouver in 1852 From an old lithograph 24
*Rooster Rock G. M. Weister 25
Seining for Salmon on the lower Columbia Frank Woodfield 25
*The Columbia near Butler, looking
across to Multnomah Falls Kiser Photo Co. 26
Captain Som-kin, chief of Indian police Lee Moorehouse 26
*Multnomah Falls in Summer and Winter (2) Kiser Photo Co. 27
*View from the cliffs at Multnomah Falls Kiser Photo Co. 28
*The broad Columbia, seen from Lone Rock Kiser Photo Co. 29
Castle Rock, seen from Mosquito Island Kiser Photo Co. 29
*The Columbia opposite Oneonta Gorge and
Horsetail Falls Kiser Photo Co. 30
An Original American C. C. Hutchins 30
*View from elevation west of St. Peter's
Dome Kiser Photo Co. 31
*Oneonta Gorge G. M. Weister 32
Looking up the Columbia, near Bonneville H. J. Thorne 33
Salmon trying to jump the Falls of the
Willamette Jas. Waggener, Jr. 33
*In the Columbia Canyon at Cascade Kiser Photo Co. 34
*The Cascades of the Columbia G. M. Weister 35
*Fishwheel below the Cascades, with
Table Mountain G. M. Weister 36
*Sunrise on the Columbia, from top of
Table Mountain Kiser Photo Co. 36
Looking down the Columbia below the
Cascades L. J. Hicks 38
*Wind Mountain and submerged forest G. M. Weister 39
Steamboat entering Cascades Locks G. M. Weister 39
Moonlight on the Columbia, with clouds
on Wind Mountain C. S. Reeves 40
*White Salmon River and its Gorge (2) Kiser Photo Co. 41
Looking down the Columbia Canyon from
White Salmon, Washington S. C. Reeves 42
An Oregon Trout Stream L. C. Henrichsen 42
Looking up the Columbia from Hood
River, Oregon F. C. Howell 43
*Hood River, fed by the glaciers of
Mount Hood Benj. A. Gifford 43
A Late Winter Afternoon; the Columbia
from White Salmon C. C. Hutchins 44
*Memaloose Island G. M. Weister 44
"Gateway to the Inland Empire;" the
Columbia at Lyle Kiser Photo Co. 45
"Grant Castle" and Palisades of the
Columbia below The Dalles G. M. Weister 46
*The Dalles of the Columbia, lower
channel G. M. Weister 47
Cabbage Rock Lee Moorehouse 47
A True Fish Story of the Columbia Frank Woodfield 48
The Zigzag River in Winter T. Brook White 48
*The Dalles, below Celilo G. M. Weister 49
The "Witch's Head," an Indian picture rock Lee Moorehouse 50
Village of Indian tepees, Umatilla Reservation Lee Moorehouse 50
Mount Adams, seen from Eagle Peak Asahel Curtis 51
A Clearing in the Forest; Mount Hood from
Sandy, Oregon L. C. Henrichsen 51
An Indian Madonna and Child Lee Moorehouse 52
Finished portion of Canal at Celilo Ed. Ledgerwood 52
*Sentinels of "the Wallula Gateway" G. M. Weister 53
*Tumwater, the falls of the Columbia at
Celilo Kiser Photo Co. 54
*Summit of Mount Hood, from west end
of ridge G. M. Weister 55
North side of Mount Hood, from ridge west
of Cloud Cap Inn George R. Miller 57
Winter on Mount Hood Rodney L. Glisan 57
*Watching the Climbers, from Cloud Cap Inn G. M. Weister 58
Lower end of Eliot glacier, seen from
Cooper Spur E. D. Jorgensen 59
Snout of Eliot glacier Prof. W. D. Lyman 59
Cone of Mount Hood, seen from Cooper Spur F. W. Freeborn 60
Cloud Cap Inn George R. Miller 60
*Portland's White Sentinel, Mount Hood G. M. Weister 61
*Ice Cascade on Eliot glacier, Mount Hood G. M. Weister 62
Portland Snow-shoe Club members on Eliot
glacier in Winter Rodney L. Glisan 62
*Snow-bridge over great crevasse, Eliot
glacier G. M. Weister 63
*Coasting down east side of Mount Hood,
above Cooper Spur. G. M. Weister 63
*Mount Hood, from hills south of The
Dalles G. M. Weister 64
*Mount Hood, from Larch Mountain L. J. Hicks 65
Butterfly on summit of Mount Hood Shoji Endow 66
Portland Snow-shoe Club and Club House (2) Rodney L. Glisan 66
Fumarole, or gas vent, near Crater Rock L. J. Hicks 66
Looking across the head of Eliot glacier Shoji Endow 67
Mount Hood at night, from Cloud Cap Inn William M. Ladd 67
Climbing Mount Hood; the rope anchor (2)
George R. Miller and Shoji Endow 68
North side of Mount Hood, from moraine of
Coe glacier Prof. Harry Fielding Reid 69
*Looking west on summit, with Mazama
Rock below G. M. Weister 70
Summit of Mount Hood, from Mazama Rock F. W. Freeborn 70
Mount Hood, from Sandy Canyon L. J. Hicks 71
Crevasses of Coe glacier (2) Mary C. Voorhees 72
*Crevasse and Ice Pinnacles on Eliot glacier G. M. Weister 74
Mount Hood, seen from the top of Barret Spur
Prof. Harry Fielding Reid 75
Ice Cascade, south side of Mount Hood Prof. J. N. LeConte 75
Little Sandy or Reid glacier, west side of
Mount Hood Elisha Coalman 76
Portland Y. M. C. A. party starting for
the summit A. M. Grilley 76
Crater of Mount Hood, seen from south
side L. J. Hicks 77
South side of Mount Hood, from
Tom-Dick-and-Harry Ridge L. E. Anderson 78
Crag on which above view was taken H. J. Thorne 78
Part of the "bergschrund" above Crater Rock G. M. Weister 79
Prof. Reid and party exploring Zigzag glacier Asahel Curtis 79
Mazamas near Crater Rock (2) Asahel Curtis 80
Portland Ski Club on south side of Mount Hood E. D. Jorgensen 81
Mount Hood Lily William L. Finley 81
Mazama party exploring White River
glacier (2) Asahel Curtis 82
Newton Clark glacier, seen from Cooper Spur Shoji Endow 83
Looking from Mount Jefferson to Mount Hood L. J. Hicks 83
*Shadow of Mount Hood G. M. Weister 84
Snout of Newton Clark glacier Prof. Harry Fielding Reid 84
*Mount Hood and Hood River Benj. A. Gifford 85
Lava Flume near Trout Lake Ray M. Filloon 86
Y. M. C. A. party from North Yakima at Red
Butte Eugene Bradbury 86
Ice Cave in lava bed near Trout Lake Ray M. Filloon 87
*Mount Adams, from northeast side of Mount
St. Helens G. M. Weister 88
Mount Adams, from Trout Creek at Guler L. J. Hicks 89
Climbers on South Butte Ray M. Filloon 89
Dawn on Mount Adams, telephotographed from
Guler at 4 a.m. L. J. Hicks 90
Foraging in the Snow Crissie Cameron 90
*Steel's Cliff, southeast side of Mount Hood G. M. Weister 91
Mazamas Climbing Mount Adams Asahel Curtis 93
Mount Adams from lake, with hotel site above Ed. Hess 93
Climbing from South Peak to Middle Peak L. J. Hicks 94
Mount Adams, seen from Happy Valley Asahel Curtis 94
Mount Adams, from Snow-plow Mountain Ed. Hess 95
*Wind-whittled Ice near summit of Mount Adams S. C. Smith 95
Mazama glacier and Hellroaring Canyon (2) William R. King 96
Nearing the Summit of Mount Adams, south side Shoji Endow 97
Ice Cascade, above Klickitat glacier Ray M. Filloon 97
An Upland Park H. O. Stabler 97
Mount Adams and Klickitat glacier Prof. Harry Fielding Reid 98
Storm on Klickitat glacier, seen from the
Ridge of Wonders Prof. W. D. Lyman 99
Snow Cornice and Crevasse, head of
Klickitat glacier (2) H. V. Abel and Ray M. Filloon 100
Mount Adams, from the Northeast Prof. Harry Fielding Reid 101
*Mount Adams, from Sunnyside, Washington Asahel Curtis 102
Crevasse in Lava glacier Eugene Bradbury 102
North Peak, with the Mountaineers
starting for the summit W. M. Gorham 103
Snow-bridge over Killing Creek W. H. Gorham 103
Route up the Cleaver, north side of
Mount Adams Eugene Bradbury 104
Looking across Adams glacier Carlyle Ellis 104
"The Mountain that was 'God'" seen from
Mount Adams Asahel Curtis 105
Northwest slope of Mount Adams Prof. Harry Fielding Reid 106
Mount Adams from the southwest Prof. W. D. Lyman 107
Scenes in the Lewis River Canyon (3) Jas. Waggener, Jr. 108
*Mount Adams from Trout Lake Kiser Photo Co. 110
Scenes on Lava Bed, south of Mount St.
Helens (3) Jas. Waggener, Jr. 111
Lava Flume, south of Mount St. Helens Jas. Waggener, Jr. 112
Entrance to Lava Flume Rodney L. Glisan 112
Mount St. Helens, seen from Portland L. C. Henrichsen 113
*Mount St. Helens, from Chelatchie Prairie
Jas. Waggener, Jr. 114
Mount St. Helens, seen from Twin Buttes Ray M. Filloon 115
Canyons of South Toutle River U. S. Forest Service 116
Lower Toutle Canyon Jas. Waggener, Jr. 116
Northeast side of Mount St. Helens Dr. U. M. Lauman 117
Mazamas on summit of Mt. St. Helens
shortly before sunset Marion Randall Parsons 117
Mount St. Helens in Winter Dr. U. M. Lauman 118
Mount St. Helens, north side, from near
the snow line Dr. U. M. Lauman 119
Glacier Scenes, east of the "Lizard." (2) Dr. U. M. Lauman 120
*Finest of the St. Helens glaciers G. M. Weister 121
*Road among the Douglas Firs Asahel Curtis 122
Ships loading lumber at one of
Portland's mills The Timberman 123
Outposts of the Forest Shoji Endow 123
Alpine Hemlocks at the timber line Ray M. Filloon 124
Mazamas at the foot of Mount St. Helens E. S. Curtis 124
A Lowland Ravine E. S. Curtis 125
*The Noble Fir Kiser Photo Co. 125
Dense Hemlock Forest G. M. Weister 126
Mount Hood, from Ghost-tree Ridge George R. Miller 126
*A Group of Red Cedars Asahel Curtis 128
Road to Government Camp A. M. Grilley 129
Firs and Hemlocks, in Clarke County,
Washington Jas. Waggener, Jr. 130
*Where Man is a Pigmy G. M. Weister 130
Hemlock growing on Cedar log Asahel Curtis 131
Tideland Spruce Frank Woodfield 131
Sugar Pine, Douglas Fir and Yellow Pine Jas. Waggener, Jr. 132
Yellow Cedar, with young Silver Fir H. D. Norton 133
*One of the Kings of Treeland Benj. A. Gifford 133
*Firs and Vine Maples Jas. Waggener, Jr. 134
Log Raft Benj. A. Gifford 134
A "Burn" on Mount Hood, overgrown with
Squaw Grass Asahel Curtis 135
*A Noble Fir Benj. A. Gifford 136
Western White Pine Unknown 136
A Clatsop Forest H. D. Langille 137
Carpet of Firs J. E. Ford 137
Winter in the Forest, near Mount Hood E. D. Jorgensen 138
Rangers' Pony Trail A. P. Cronk 138
Forest Fire on East Fork of Hood River William M. Ladd 139
Reforestation; three generations of
young growth H. D. Langille 139
Klickitat River Canyon William R. King 144
MAPS.
The Scenic Northwest 13
Mount Hood 58
Mount Adams 87
Mount St. Helens 107
[Illustration: THE SCENIC NORTHWEST
Relief Map to accompany
"THE GUARDIANS _of the_ COLUMBIA"
by John H. Williams
Designed by G. H. Mulldorfer.--Portland.]
[Illustration: A Gray Day on the Columbia. Telephotograph of Mount Hood
from the river opposite Vancouver Barracks.]
[Illustration: Trout Lake and Mount Adams.]
THE GUARDIANS OF THE COLUMBIA
I.
THE RIVER
The Columbia, viewed as one from the sea to the
mountains, is like a rugged, broad-topped picturesque
old oak, about six hundred miles long, and nearly a
thousand miles wide, measured across the spread of its
upper branches, the main limbs gnarled and swollen
with lakes and lake-like expansions, while innumerable
smaller lakes shine like fruit among the smaller
branches.--_John Muir._
ON a frosty morning of last July, before sunrise, I stood upon the
belvedere of the delightful Cloud Cap Inn, which a public-spirited man
of Portland has provided for visitors to the north side of Mount Hood;
and from that superb viewpoint, six thousand feet above sea level,
watched the day come up out of the delicate saffron east. Behind us lay
Eliot Glacier, sloping to the summit of the kindling peak. Before us
rose--an ocean!
[Illustration: Mount St. Helens, seen from the Columbia at Vancouver,
with railway bridge in foreground.]
Never was a marine picture of greater stress. No watcher from the
crags, none who go down to the sea in ships, ever beheld a scene more
awful. Ceaselessly the mighty surges piled up against the ridge at our
feet, as if to tear away the solid foundations of the mountain. Towers
and castles of foam were built up, huge and white, against the sullen
sky, only to hurl themselves into the gulf. Far to the north, dimly
above this gray and heaving surface were seen the crests of three
snow-mantled mountains, paler even than the undulating expanse from
which they emerged. All between was a wild sea that rolled across sixty
miles of space to assail those ghostly islands.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
View up the Columbia on north side, opposite Astoria. Noon rest of the
night fishermen. Much of the fishing on the lower Columbia is done at
night with gill-nets from small boats. The river is here six miles
wide.]
Yet the tossing breakers gave forth no roar. It was a spectral and
pantomimic ocean. We "had sight of Proteus rising from the sea," but no
Triton of the upper air blew his "wreathed horn." Cold and uncanny, all
that seething ocean was silent as a windless lake under summer stars. It
was a sea of clouds.
[Illustration: Astoria in 1813, showing the trading post established by
John Jacob Astor.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Looking north from lower end of Eliot Glacier on Mount Hood, across the
Cascade ranges and the Columbia River canyon, twenty-five miles away, to
Mount Adams (right), Mount Rainier-Tacoma (center), and Mount St. Helens
(left). These snow-peaks are respectively 60, 100, and 60 miles
distant.]
Swiftly the dawn marched westward. The sun, breaking across the eastern
ridges, sent long level beams to sprinkle the cloud-sea with silver. Its
touch was magical. The billows broke and parted. The mists fled in
panic. Cloud after cloud arose and was caught away into space. The
tops of the Cascade ranges below came, one by one, into view. Lower and
lower, with the shortening shadows, the wooded slopes were revealed in
the morning light. Here and there some deep vale was still white and
hidden. Scattered cloud-fleeces clung to pinnacles on the cliffs.
Northward, the snow-peaks in Washington towered higher. Great banks of
fog embraced their forested abutments, and surged up to their glaciers.
But the icy summits smiled in the gladness of a new day. The reign of
darkness and mist was broken.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
In his first splendor valley, rock or hill.
Clearer and wider the picture grew. Below us, the orchards of Hood River
caught the fresh breezes and laughed in the first sunshine. The day
reached down into the nearer canyons, and saluted the busy, leaping
brooks. Noisy waterfalls filled the glens with spray, and built rainbows
from bank to bank, then hurried and tumbled on, in conceited haste, as
if the ocean must run dry unless replenished by their wetness ere the
sun should set again. Rippling lakes, in little mountain pockets,
signaled their joy as blankets of dense vapor were folded up and quickly
whisked away.
[Illustration: Columbia Slough in Winter, near the mouth of the
Willamette.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
Cape Horn, tall basaltic cliffs that rise, terrace upon terrace, on the
north side of the Columbia, twenty-five miles east of Portland. Lone
Rock is seen in the distance.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
St. Peter's Dome, an 800-foot crag on the south bank of the Columbia;
Mt. Adams in the distance
"Uplift against the blue walls of the sky
Your mighty shapes, and let the sunshine weave
Its golden network in your belting woods;
Smile down in rainbows from your falling floods,
And on your kingly brows at morn and eve
Set crowns of fire."--Whittier.]
[Illustration: Mount Hood, seen from Columbia Slough.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, FRANK WOODFIELD
Campfire of Yakima Indians gathered at the Astoria Centennial, 1911, to
take part in "The Bridge of the Gods," a dramatization of Balch's famous
story. The celebration of the one hundredth anniversary of the Astor
trading post at the mouth of the Columbia was made noteworthy by a
revival of Indian folk lore, in which the myth of the great tamahnawas
bridge held first place.] Thirty miles northeast, a ribbon of gold
flashed the story of a mighty stream at The Dalles. Far beyond, even to
the uplands of the Umatilla and the Snake, to the Blue Mountains of
eastern Washington and Oregon, stretched the wheat fields and stock
ranges of that vast "Inland Empire" which the great river watered; while
westward, cut deep through a dozen folds of the Cascades, the chasm
it had torn on its way to the sea was traced in the faint blue that
distance paints upon evergreen hills. Out on our left, beyond the
mountains, the Willamette slipped down its famous valley to join the
larger river; and still farther, a hundred and fifty miles away, our
glasses caught the vague gray line of the Pacific. Within these limits
of vision lay a noble and historic country, the lower watershed of the
Columbia.
Earth has not anything to show more fair.
[Illustration: Sunset at the mouth of the Columbia. Cape Hancock on
right, Point Adams on left. View from river off Astoria.]
[Illustration: Northern part of Portland, showing the Willamette River
flowing through it, and indicating relative position of the three
snow-peaks. Mount Hood (right) and Mount St. Helens (left) are each
about fifty miles away, while Mount Adams, seen between, is twenty miles
farther.]
[Illustration: "The Coming of the White Man" and "Sacajawea," statues in
Portland City Park which commemorate the aboriginal Americans.]
Wide as was the prospect, however, it called the imagination to a still
broader view; to look back, indeed,--how many millions of years?--to an
earlier dawn, bounded by the horizons of geological time. Let us try to
realize the panorama thus unfolded. As we look down from some aerial
viewpoint, behold! there is no Mount Hood and no Cascade Range. The
volcanic snow-peaks of Oregon and Washington are still embryo in the
womb of earth. We stand face to face with the beginnings of the
Northwest.
Far south and east of our castle-in-the-air, islands rise slowly out of
a Pacific that has long rolled, unbroken, to the Rocky Mountains. We
see the ocean bed pushed above the tide in what men of later ages will
call the Siskiyou and the Blue Mountains, one range in southwestern, the
other in eastern, Oregon. A third uptilt, the great Okanogan, in
northern Washington, soon appears. All else is sea. Upon these primitive
uplands, the date is written in the fossil archives of their ancient sea
beaches, raised thousands of feet above the former shore-line level. At
a time when all western Europe was still ocean, and busy foraminifers
were strewing its floor with shells to form the chalk beds of France and
England, these first lands of our Northwest emerged from the great deep.
It is but a glimpse we get into the immeasurable distance of the
Paleozoic. Its time-units are centuries instead of minutes.
[Illustration: Sunset on Vancouver Lake, near Vancouver, Washington.]
[Illustration: Fort Vancouver in 1852.]
Another glance, as the next long geological age passes, and we perceive
a second step in the making of the West. It is the gradual uplift of a
thin sea-dike, separating the two islands first disclosed, and
stretching from the present Lower California to our Alaska. It is a
folding of the earth's crust that will, for innumerable ages, exercise a
controlling influence upon the whole western slope of North America. At
first merely a sea-dike, we see it slowly become a far-reaching range of
hills, and then a vast continental mountain system, covering a broad
region with its spurs and interlying plateaus. "The highest mountains,"
our school geographies used to tell us, "parallel the deepest oceans."
So here, bordering its profound depths, the Pacific ocean, through
centuries of centuries, thrust upward, fold on fold, the lofty ridges of
this colossal Sierra-Cascade barrier, to be itself a guide of further
land building, a governor of climate, and a reservoir of water for
valleys and river basins as yet unborn.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Rooster Rock, south bank of the Columbia.]
[Illustration: Seining for salmon on the lower Columbia.]
Behind this barrier, what revolutions are recorded! The inland sea, at
first a huge body of ocean waters, becomes in time a fresh-water lake.
In its three thousand feet of sediment, it buries the fossils of a
strange reptilian life, covering hundreds of thousands of years. Cycle
follows cycle, altering the face of all that interior basin. Its vast
lake is lessened in area as it is cut off from the Utah lake on the
south and hemmed in by upfolds on the north. Then its bed is lifted up
and broken by forces of which our present-day experiences give us no
example. Instead of one great lake, as drainage proceeds, we behold at
last a wide country of many lakes and rivers. Their shores are clothed
in tropical vegetation. Under the palms, flourish a race of giant
mammals. The broad-faced ox, the mylodon, mammoth, elephant, rhinoceros,
and mastodon, and with them the camel and the three-toed horse, roam the
forests that are building the coal deposits for a later age. This story
of the Eocene and Miocene time is also told in the fossils of the
period, and we may read it in the strata deposited by the lakes.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
The Columbia near Butler, looking across to Multnomah Falls.]
[Illustration: Captain Som-Kin, chief of Indian police, Umatilla
reservation.]
[Illustration: Multnomah Falls in Summer and Winter. This fascinating
cascade, the most famous in the Northwest, falls 720 feet into a basin,
and then 130 feet to the bank of the Columbia below.
PHOTOS COPYRIGHT, KISER]
Age succeeds age, not always distinct, but often overlapping one
another, and all changing the face of nature. The Coast Range rises,
shutting in vast gulfs to fill later, and form the valleys of the
Sacramento and San Joaquin in California and the Willamette in Oregon,
with the partly filled basin of Puget Sound in Washington. Centering
along the Cascade barrier, an era of terrific violence shakes the very
foundation of the Northwest. Elevations and contours are changed. New
lake beds are created. Watersheds and stream courses are remodeled. Dry
"coulees" are left where formerly rivers flowed. Strata are uptilted and
riven, to be cross-sectioned again by the new rivers as they cut new
canyons in draining the new lakes. Most important of all, outflows of
melted rock, pouring from fissures in the changing earth-folds, spread
vast sheets of basalt, trap and andesite over most of the interior.
Innumerable craters build cones of lava and scoriæ along the Cascade
uptilt, and scatter clouds of volcanic ashes upon the steady sea winds,
to blanket the country for hundreds of miles with deep layers of future
soil.
A reign of ice follows the era of tropic heat. Stupendous glaciers grind
the volcanic rocks, and carving new valleys, endow them with fertility
for new forests that will rise where once the palm forests stood. With
advancing age, the earth grows cold and quiet, awakening only to an
occasional volcanic eruption or earthquake as a reminder of former
violence. The dawn of history approaches. The country slowly takes on
its present shape. Landscape changes are henceforth the work of milder
forces, erosion by streams and remnant glaciers. Man appears.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
View from the cliffs at Multnomah Falls (seen on right). Castle Rock is
in distance on north side.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
The broad Columbia, seen from Lone Rock, a small island east of Cape
Horn. Shows successive ranges of the Cascades cut by the river, with
Archer and Arrowhead Mountains and Castle Rock in distance on north
side.]
[Illustration: Castle Rock, a huge tower of columnar basalt, 1146 feet
high, on north bank of the Columbia, forty miles east of Portland. View
from Mosquito Island.]
Throughout the cycles of convulsion and revolution which we have
witnessed from our eyrie in the clouds, the vital and increasing
influence in the building of the Northwest has been the Cascade upfold.
First, it merely shuts in a piece of the Pacific. Rising higher, its
condensation of the moist ocean wind feeds the thousand streams that
convert the inland seas thus enclosed from salt to fresh water, and
furnish the silt deposited over their floors. The fractures and faults
resulting from its uptilting spread an empire with some of the largest
lava flows in geological history. It pushes its snow-covered volcanoes
upward, to scatter ashes far to the east. Finally, its increasing height
converts a realm of tropical verdure into semi-arid land, which only its
rivers, impounded by man, will again make fertile.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
The Columbia, opposite Oneonta Bluffs and Gorge, and Horsetail Falls.]
[Illustration: An original American--"Jake" Hunt, former Klickitat
chief, 112 years old. He is said to be the oldest Indian on the
Columbia.]
In all this great continental barrier, throughout the changes which we
have witnessed, there has been only one sea-level pass. For nearly a
thousand miles northward from the Gulf of California, the single outlet
for the waters of the interior is the remarkable canyon which we first
saw from the distant roof of Cloud Cap Inn. Here the Columbia, greatest
of Western rivers, has cut its way through ranges rising more than 4,000
feet on either hand. This erosion, let us remember, has been continuous
and gradual, rather than the work of any single epoch. It doubtless
began when the Cascade Mountains were in their infancy, a gap in the
prolonged but low sea-dike. The drainage, first of the vast salt lake
shut off from the ocean, and then of the succeeding fresh-water lakes,
has preserved this channel to the sea, cutting it deeper and deeper as
the earth-folds rose higher, until at last the canyon became one of the
most important river gorges in the world. Thus nature prepared a vast
and fruitful section of the continent for human use, and provided it
with a worthy highway to the ocean.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
View from 2,300 foot elevation, west of St. Peter's Dome. The Columbia
here hurries down from The Cascades with a speed varying in different
seasons from six to ten miles per hour. Mosquito Island lies below, with
Castle Rock opposite. Beyond, the beautiful wooded ridges rise to 4,100
feet in Arrowhead and Table Mountains, and the snowy dome of Mount Adams
closes the scene, fifty miles away.]
Over this beautiful region we may descry yet another dawn, the
beginnings of the Northwestern world according to Indian legend. The
Columbia River Indian, like his brothers in other parts of the country,
was curious about the origin of the things he beheld around him, and
oppressed by things he could not see. The mysteries both of creation and
of human destiny weighed heavily upon his blindness; and his mind,
pathetically groping in the dark, was ever seeking to penetrate the
distant past and the dim future. So far as he had any religion, it was
connected with the symbols of power in nature, the forces which he saw
at work about him. These forces were often terrible and ruinous, so his
gods were as often his enemies as his benefactors. Feeling his
powerlessness against their cunning, he borrowed a cue from the "animal
people," Watetash, who used craft to circumvent the malevolent gods.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Oneonta Gorge, south side of the Columbia, thirty-three miles east of
Portland.]
These animal people, the Indian believed, had inhabited the world before
the time of the first grandfather, when the sun was as yet only a star,
and the earth, too, had grown but little, and was only a small island.
The chief of the animal people was Speelyei, the coyote, not the
mightiest but the shrewdest of them all. Speelyei was the friend of
"people". He had bidden people to appear, and they "came out."
[Illustration: Looking up the Columbia, near Bonneville. The main
channel of the river is on right of the shoal in foreground.]
[Illustration: Salmon trying to jump the Falls of the Willamette at
Oregon City.]
One of the most interesting attempts to account for the existence of the
Red Man in the Northwest is the Okanogan legend that tells of an island
far out at sea inhabited by a race of giant whites, whose chief was a
tall and powerful woman, Scomalt. When her giants warred among
themselves, Scomalt grew angry and drove all the fighters to the end of
the island. Then she broke off the end of the island, and pushing with
her foot sent it floating away over the sea. The new island drifted far.
All the people on it died save one man and one woman. They caught a
whale, and its blubber saved them from starving. At last they escaped
from the island by making a canoe. In this they paddled many days. Then
they came to the mainland, but it was small. It had not yet grown much.
Here they landed. But while they had been in the canoe, the sun had
turned them from white to red. All the Okanogans were their children.
Hence they all are red. Many years from now the whole of the mainland
will be cut loose from its foundations, and become an island. It will
float about on the sea. That will be the end of the world.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
In the Columbia Canyon at Cascade, with train on the "North Bank" road.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
The Cascades of the Columbia. The narrow, rock-filled channel has a fall
of thirty-seven feet in four miles. Here the river meets the tides from
the ocean, 160 miles away. On the opposite bank, at right, is seen Table
Mountain, 4,100 feet, the north abutment of the legendary "Bridge of the
Gods."]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Fishwheel below the Cascades, with Table Mountain on north side of
river.]
To the aboriginal Americans in the Northwest the great river, "Wauna" in
their vocabulary, was inevitably a subject of deep interest. It not only
furnished them a highway, but it supplied them with food. Their most
fascinating myths are woven about its history. One of these told of the
mighty struggle between Speelyei and Wishpoosh, the greedy king beaver,
which resulted in breaking down the walls of the great lakes of the
interior and creating a passage for their waters through the mountains.
Thus the Indians accounted for the Columbia and its canyon.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
Sunrise on the Columbia; view at 4 a. m. from top of Table Mountain.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, KISER PHOTO CO.
Nightfall on the Columbia.
"O love, they die in yon rich sky,
They faint on hill or field or river:
Our echoes roll from soul to soul,
And grow forever and forever."--Tennyson.]
But first among the river myths must always be the Klickitat legend of
the famous natural bridge, fabled to have stood where the Cascades of
the Columbia now are. This is one of the most beautiful legends
connected with the source of fire, a problem of life in all the northern
lands. Further, it tells the origin of the three snow-peaks that are the
subject of this book.
[Illustration: Looking down the Columbia below the Cascades, showing
many ranges cut by the river. On the left of the scene is "Sliding
Mountain," its name a reminder that the hillsides on both banks are
slowly moving toward the stream and compelling the railways occasionally
to readjust their tracks.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Wind Mountain and remnant of submerged forest, above the Cascades, at
low water.]
[Illustration: Steamboat entering Cascade Locks.]
In the time of their remote grandfathers, said the Klickitats, Tyhee
Saghalie, chief of the gods, had two sons. They made a trip together
down the river to where The Dalles are now. The sons saw that the
country was beautiful, and quarrelled as to its possession. Then
Saghalie shot an arrow to the north and an arrow to the west. The sons
were bidden to find the arrows, and settle where they had fallen. Thus
one son settled in the fair country between the great river and the
Yakima, and became the grandfather of the Klickitats. The other son
settled in the Willamette valley and became the ancestor of the large
Multnomah tribe. To keep peace between the two tribes, Saghalie raised
the great mountains that separate those regions. But there were not yet
any snow-peaks. The great river also flowed very deep between the
country of the Klickitats and the country of the Multnomahs. That the
tribes might always be friendly, Saghalie built a huge bridge of stone
over the river. The Indians called it the tamahnawas bridge, or bridge
of the gods. The great river flowed under it, and a witch-woman, Loowit,
lived on it. Loowit had charge of the only fire in the world.
[Illustration: Moonlight upon the Columbia, with clouds on Wind
Mountain. Looking up the river from the Cascades.]
[Illustration: White Salmon River and its Gorge, south of Mount Adams.
PHOTOS COPYRIGHT, KISER]
Loowit saw how miserable the tribes were without fire. Therefore she
besought Saghalie to permit her to give them fire. Saghalie granted her
request. Thus a fire was kindled on the bridge. The Indians came there
and obtained fire, which greatly improved their condition. Saghalie was
so much pleased with Loowit's faithfulness that he promised the
witch-woman anything she might ask. Loowit asked for youth and beauty.
So Saghalie transformed her into a beautiful maiden.
[Illustration: Looking down the Columbia Canyon from the cliffs at White
Salmon, Washington.]
[Illustration: An Oregon Trout Stream.]
Many chiefs fell in love with Loowit because of her beauty. But she paid
heed to none till there came two other chiefs, Klickitat from the north,
Wiyeast from the west. As she could not decide which of them to accept
as her husband, they and their people went to war. Great distress came
upon the people because of this fighting. Saghalie grew angry at their
evil doing, and determined to punish them. He broke down the tamahnawas
bridge, and put Loowit, Wiyeast and Klickitat to death. But they had
been beautiful in life, therefore Saghalie would have them beautiful in
death. So he made of them the three famous snow-peaks. Wiyeast became
the mountain which white men call Mount Hood; Klickitat became Mount
Adams; Loowit was changed into Mount St. Helens. Always, said Saghalie,
they should be clothed in garments of snow.
[Illustration: Looking up the Columbia from Hood River, Oregon.]
Thus was the wonderful tamahnawas bridge destroyed, and the great river
dammed by the huge rocks that fell into it. That caused the Cascade
rapids. Above the rapids, when the river is low, you can still see the
forests that were buried when the bridge fell down and dammed the
waters.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, B. A. GIFFORD
Hood River, fed by the glaciers of Mount Hood.]
This noteworthy myth, fit to rank with the folk-lore masterpieces of any
primitive people, Greek or Gothic, is of course only a legend. The
Indian was not a geologist. True, we see the submerged forests to-day,
at low water. But their slowly decaying trunks were killed, perhaps not
much more than a century ago, by a rise in the river that was not caused
by the fall of a natural bridge, but by a landslide from the mountains.
[Illustration: A Late Winter Afternoon. View across the Columbia from
White Salmon to the mouth of Hood River, showing the Hood River Valley
with Mount Hood wrapped in clouds.]
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
Memaloose Island, or Island of the Dead, last resting place of thousands
of Indians. The lone monument is that of Maj. Victor Trevitt, a
celebrated pioneer, who asked to be buried here among "honest men."]
There is a slow and glacier-like motion of the hillsides here which from
time to time compels the railways on either bank to readjust their
tracks. The rapids at the Cascades, with their fall of nearly forty
feet, are doubtless the result of comparatively recent volcanic action.
Shaking down vast masses of rock, this dammed the river, and caused it
to overflow its wooded shores above. But to the traveler on a steamboat
breasting the terrific current below the government locks, as he looks
up to the towering heights on either side of the narrowed channel, the
invention of poor Lo's untutored mind seems almost as easy to believe as
the simpler explanation of the scientist.
[Illustration: "Gateway to the Inland Empire." Towering cliffs of
stratified lava that guard the Columbia on each bank at Lyle,
Washington.]
Remarkable as is this fire myth of the tamahnawas bridge, the legend
inspired by the peculiarities of northwestern climate is no less
beautiful. This climate differs materially, it is well known, from that
of eastern America in the same latitude. The Japan Current warms the
coast of Oregon and Washington just as the Gulf Stream warms the coast
of Ireland. East of the Cascade Mountains, the severe cold of a northern
winter is tempered by the "Chinook" winds from the Pacific. A period of
freezing weather is shortly followed by the melting of the snow upon the
distant mountains; by night the warm Chinook sweeps up the Columbia
canyon and across the passes, and in a few hours the mildness of spring
covers the land.
[Illustration: "Grant Castle" and Palisades of the Columbia, on north
side of the river below The Dalles.]
Such a phenomenon inevitably stirred the Indian to an attempt to
interpret it. Like the ancients of other races, he personified the
winds. The Yakima account of the struggle between the warm winds from
the coast and the icy blasts out of the Northeast will bear comparison
with the Homeric tale of Ulysses, buffeted by the breezes from the bag
given him by the wind-god Aeolus.
[Illustration: COPYRIGHT, G. M. WEISTER
The Dalles of the Columbia, lower channel, east of Dalles City. The
river, crowded into a narrow flume, flows here at a speed often
exceeding ten miles an hour.]
Five Chinook brothers, said the Yakima tradition, lived on the great
river. They caused the warm winds to blow. Five other brothers lived at
Walla Walla, the meeting place of the waters. They caused the cold
winds. The grandparents of them all lived at Umatilla, home of the
wind-blown sands. Always there was war between them. They swept over the
country, destroying the forests, covering the rivers with ice, or
melting the snows and causing floods. The people suffered much because
of their violence.
[Illustration: Cabbage Rock, a huge freak of nature standing in the open
plain four miles north of The Dalles. Apparently, the lava core of a
small extinct crater.]
Then Walla Walla brothers challenged Chinook brothers to wrestle.
Speelyei, the coyote god, should judge the contest. He should cut off
the heads of those who fell.
[Illustration: A True Fish Story of the Columbia, where four- and even
five-foot salmon are not uncommon.]
The crafty Speelyei secretly advised the grandparents of Chinook
brothers that if they would throw oil on the ground, their sons would
not fall. This they did. But Speelyei also told the grandparents of
Walla Walla brothers that if they would throw ice on the ground, their
sons would not fall. This they did. So the Chinook brothers were thrown
one after another, and Speelyei cut off their heads, according to the
bargain. So the five Chinook brothers were dead.