Portland and its summer resorts; but these things may as well be
referred to here as elsewhere, since all of rural Oregon is practically
a summer resort. I can only briefly refer to other attractions, such
as the numerous wild canaries and other song-birds which fill the
Oregon air with glad music; or the game-birds which may still be hunted
but a few miles from Portland,—the stoical, hooting grouse on the
tree-tops, undaunted by the repeated shots of the amateur rifleman;
the partridges, which do not allow a passing train to disturb them at
their breakfast in a wheatfield; or the wild pigeons, which save you
the trouble of hunting them by giving you a few shots at them every
morning on your cherry-trees; or the deer, which still abound in the
mountains; etc. But in conclusion I must once more refer to what after
all constitutes the greatest charm and attraction of Oregon, next to
the snow-peaks; namely, the omnipresent fir-trees, tall, stately, dark
green, and shady. Artists and others who have grown up in firless
countries can have no idea of the true grandeur and beauty of a real
forest, of the cathedral-like gloom and silence in its midst, of the
exquisite serrated lines formed by the branching tree-tops standing
against a deep blue sky, and of the infinite variety of tints and
shadows produced by the play of clouds and of sunlight at different
hours of the day. More beautiful still, if less imposing, than the
full-grown trees, are the young fir-trees of ten to thirty feet in
height which are rapidly filling up the regions destroyed by forest
fires. They look like so many square miles of Christmas-trees, but no
Christmas-trees adorned by Santa Claus with colored wax candles ever
present so brilliant an appearance as those young fir groves when the
morning or evening sun shines horizontally on them. Such lights and
shades are to be seen nowhere else in the world, and the tints seem so
warm and glowing that on a cold morning one involuntarily edges up to
them to get warm.
XII.
UP AND DOWN THE COLUMBIA RIVER.
AN UNGRATEFUL REPUBLIC—THE COLUMBIA COMPARED WITH OTHER
RIVERS—SNOW-PEAKS—SALMON-CANNERIES—ASTORIA AND THE MOUTH
OF THE RIVER—CAPE HORN AND ROOSTER ROCK—WATER-FALLS—THE
CASCADES—SALMON-WHEELS—IN THE HIGHLANDS—THE LAST OF THE
MOHICANS—LOW AND HIGH WATER—THE SCENERY AND THE RAILROAD—THE
“PLACE OF THE WINDS”—“SWIFT WATER”—A RIVER TURNED ON EDGE.
The proverbial ingratitude of republics has never been better
illustrated than by the fact that not one of our forty-two States
is named after the discoverer of America. True, there are more than
fifty Columbia counties, townships, cities, and villages in the United
States, and thirty more have adopted the name Columbus, while the
capital of the country lies in the District of Columbia; but this
district comprises an area of only sixty-four square miles, and in
a country where so much is thought of big things, Columbus surely
ought to have been sponsor of one of our largest States. An excellent
opportunity was missed, on the occasion of the recent admission of
Washington Territory to statehood, of changing its name to Columbia.
This would not only have prevented much confusion in the mails, but
would have been singularly appropriate, for the reason that Washington
is bounded on the south by the Columbia River, and on the north by
British Columbia.[1]
[1] When Washington Territory was separated from Oregon, an effort was
made to have it named Columbia, but it was defeated in Congress.
However, even if it failed to use its opportunity for adopting the
name of Columbia for one of its States, the Northwest has done more
to honor the name of Columbus than any other part of the country; for
here is British Columbia with its magnificent mountain scenery, more
than eight times as large as the State of New York; and, better still,
the Columbia River, three thousand miles in length, with the grandest
river scenery in the world. I have repeatedly seen the Hudson, the
St. Lawrence, Mississippi, Missouri, Sacramento, the Rhine, Elbe,
and Danube, and none of these rivers impressed me as deeply as the
Columbia, which, with the exception of the castles on the Rhine,
combines the best features of all of them, and adds to them what they
all lack—a background of lofty mountains covered with eternal snow.
Grandeur is the watchword of the Columbia, which, with this mountainous
background and the stupendous sculpture of its banks, towers above
other famous rivers as the high Alps of Switzerland do above our
Adirondacks and Catskills.
In entitling this chapter “Up and down the Columbia” I do not wish to
frighten the reader into the belief that I intend to take him over the
same ground—or water—twice, but merely to indicate that Portland is to
be our starting-place. From that city steamers leave daily to make the
trip of one hundred miles down to Astoria and the ocean, while others
go up the river about one hundred and ten miles, to the Falls. The
former trip should be taken first, to avoid an anticlimax.
Portland, Oregon,—which, although founded two centuries later than
its namesake in almost the same latitude in Maine, has already almost
double the population of the latter (sixty thousand),—is, as I remarked
in the last chapter, doubtless the most picturesquely situated city in
the United States. From the densely wooded green hills which enclose it
on the west, the city is seen spreading itself comfortably and without
unsanitary crowding along both sides of the Willamette River, which is
about a mile wide at this place. East Portland and Albina are on the
east side of the river, and beyond them, at a distance of about fifty
miles, this picture is framed in by the Cascade Range and half-a-dozen
giant snow-peaks. Mt. Hood and Mt. St. Helens, both covered with
eternal snow, are so vast that on clear days they seem to rise just
beyond the outskirts of the city, and delightful glimpses of them are
caught in the streets. Less conspicuous, because farther away, but
still adding to the charm of the scene, are Mt. Tacoma and Mt. Adams on
the left, while on the right, the snowy tops of Mt. Jefferson and the
three sisters are visible. To the left of Mt. Hood the Columbia River
can be seen in the distance, like a silver cord showing the way to the
deep cañon which it has worn through the Cascade Mountains.
Portland is practically a seaport, although situated a hundred miles up
the Columbia, and twelve miles more up its tributary, the Willamette,
which, up to this point, is deep enough to receive the largest ocean
steamers, although in dry summers the channel has to be carefully
watched, and lighterage resorted to in some cases. For hours after the
day boat to Astoria leaves the city, the snow-mountains above mentioned
are visible on deck, in ever-new groupings as the boat follows the
winding course of the river. This is by far the most striking feature
of the lower Columbia scenery; for the minor ridges of the coast range
are insignificant compared with the cascade ridges of the “middle”
Columbia, and the fir-fringed banks are usually low, and have none of
the steep palisades and isolated rocks which give continuous grandeur
to that part of the river. The banks of the Willamette River, below
Portland, resemble those of the Columbia, and indeed this river, which
is hardly known outside of Oregon, becomes so wide and majestic before
it reaches the Columbia, that a careless passenger would not notice the
transition from one river to the other. It would be difficult, however,
to be inattentive here, for the place where the Columbia receives the
Willamette is one of the most interesting spots in its course. The
Willamette—which should be called the Oregon, since that name has
been taken away from the Columbia (“where rolls the mighty Oregon,”
as Bryant still could write), or should at least receive back its old
Indian name Wallámet—meets the Columbia almost at right angles in two
currents, being divided here by one of those pretty little islands
which abound along this part of the river and give it some resemblance
to the St. Lawrence. They are submerged in spring, and but a few inches
above the level of the water in summer, when they are covered with
a luxuriant growth of grass and shrubbery—ideal grazing-grounds for
thousands of head of cattle; yet Oregon still imports much of her meat
and butter from the East.
As the river-banks become wider and wider, and the scenery somewhat
monotonous, the salmon industry begins to attract attention. During the
legal salmon season, from the first of April to the end of July—which
is also the tourist season in Oregon, since in July the forest fires
begin which shroud the whole State, with its fine mountain scenery,
in a dense cloud of smoke, lasting till September—the river steamers
are liable to be stopped at any moment in midstream by boats loaded
to the edge with salmon, which are to be conveyed to one of the
numerous canneries that line the last thirty miles of the stream.
These canneries are buildings of the flimsiest construction, inhabited
chiefly by Chinamen, and by young bears caught in the neighboring
hills and chained to the front door. The salmon are thrown on the
wharf, where they are seized by the Chinamen, who carry them in,
throw them on long tables, chop off the heads, disembowel and clean
them, and cut them up into small lumps for the cans—all in about as
much time as it takes to write this sentence. In the larger canneries
everything, from the making of the cans to putting on the labels, is
done on the premises. Some of the canneries are built on the shore;
but as the river, where the ocean comes in sight, widens out into
a bay seven miles wide, the canneries are built in midstream, on
piles, and it is an odd sight to behold horses—real land-horses, not
hippopotami—dragging in the nets on these flimsy mid-river structures.
The river view is disfigured on all sides by the ugly stakes driven
in to hold the nets that constitute the salmon-traps. The meshes of
these nets are large enough to allow the small salmon to escape,
but not large enough for the seals, which occasionally get into one
of these enclosures and work sad havoc with the fish and the nets.
Several million dollars are said to be invested in the boats, nets, and
canneries of the Columbia River: but the recklessness of the fishermen
threatens to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs; for the Columbia
River fisheries, which a few years ago were the largest in the world,
have of late yielded less and less each year, and in 1889 they sank to
third rank, with three hundred and thirty thousand cases, Alaska being
at the head, with six hundred and eighty-eight thousand, and British
Columbia second, with four hundred and thirteen thousand cases. The law
is stringent enough, but it is not always obeyed; and it will have to
be supplemented by extensive hatcheries if the Columbia River salmon,
which is the best flavored on the Pacific Coast, is to regain its
former supremacy.
The headquarters of the salmon-fisheries are located at the amphibious
town of Astoria, the first civilized settlement in Oregon, but whose
hoary age of eighty years does not seem to protect it against the gibes
of irreverent tourists—probably because it is so small for its age.
Mr. Joaquin Miller describes it as a town which “clings helplessly to
a humid hill-side that seems to want to glide into the great bay-like
river”; and Mr. Nordhoff unkindly insinuates that the most important
building in the town is a large saw-mill, which is kept busy day and
night in a wild struggle to curb and suppress the forest which is
forever encroaching on the town, and threatens to crowd it into the
river. However, just at present the Astorians are very busily engaged
in digging away at the hill-side and filling up the bay. They expect to
have a railway some day, which will bring the wheat and the apples of
the Willamette Valley to their wharves, instead of to Portland; but it
will require a good deal more digging and filling up before there will
be room for all those products. At present the greater part of Astoria
is still built on piles, washed by the tides; and as the pavements are
not very well looked after, tourists should beware of walking about
after dark. The occupants of many of the houses might easily take a
salt-water bath before breakfast, by simply tying a rope round the
waist and lowering themselves from the window.
Although Astoria is only about a hundred miles distant from Portland,
it has nearly twenty inches more of rain per annum, and in summer its
climate is considerably cooler; wherefore some Portlanders use it as
a summer resort. A much larger number, however, go across the bay to
Ilwaco, and camp on the fine beach which extends for over twenty miles
northward. The boat which takes them across touches at Fort Canby,
whence an interesting walk of a few miles through a dense forest
takes one to the lighthouse on Cape Disappointment, just north of
the notorious Columbia River bar, which in spite of all improvements
continues at certain seasons, and in stormy weather, to detain ships
for days at a time. The view from this lighthouse of the foaming
breakers in the bar is splendid, and in low tide the scene is varied
by long sand-banks on which thousands of seals bask in the fitful
sunshine. These voracious animals do their fishing in the daytime, and
at night their place is taken by the human fishermen, who show the
same reckless spirit in regard to their own lives as they do in regard
to the extermination of the salmon. In their eager rivalry, some of
them approach too near the breakers, and many have thus shared the
fate of the sailors lowered from the _Tonquin_ in 1811, which is so
graphically described by Washington Irving in his “Astoria.” By the
way, I could not help noting the difference between these Astorians and
the Granadans in Spain, in their attitude towards Irving. Both have
been celebrated by him in fine volumes of poetic prose; but whereas in
Granada the principal hotel is named after Irving, whose name is thus
heard whenever a train arrives, the Astorians seem to ignore entirely
the author who has chosen the name of their town for one of his most
readable books.
The trip back to Portland may as well be made on a night boat, as
everything worth seeing can be seen on the down trip. Not so with the
upper or “middle” Columbia, from Portland to the Dalles, which cannot
be seen often enough, and which present on the down trip aspects of
the scenery so different from those enjoyed on going up, that a return
ticket should be taken by all means. Such a ticket, from Portland
to the Dalles and back, costs five dollars, for which you can spend
two whole days on the Columbia. I have seen a great part of three
continents; but if I were asked what I considered the best investment
of a five-dollar bill I had ever made for combined æsthetic enjoyment
and hygienic exhilaration, I should name this return trip on the
Columbia River. Tourists who have time for one trip only should go
up the river, because in that direction the scenery is arranged most
effectively, becoming ever grander and wilder till the climax is
reached in the marvellous rapids above Dalles City.
The day boat leaves Portland at six o’clock in the morning, and on the
way down the Willamette we once more can admire the imposing white
forms of Hood, St. Helens, Adams, and the top of Tacoma,—now in full
view, now peeping from between the firs which line the banks. At the
Columbia junction the boat turns to the right, and makes its first
stop at Vancouver, noted for its fine site, with a superb view of Mt.
Hood, and as being the military headquarters of the Department of the
Columbia. It lies on the northern or Washington side of the river, and,
oddly enough, almost all the stations along the whole river, excepting
Dalles City, are on that side, the Oregon side being generally wilder
and less hospitable. The scenic features are about equally divided
between the two States. Each has its low green islands at intervals
along the banks; each its densely wooded shores, its bare rocks,
precipitous palisades and water-falls; and each its snow-mountains—Hood
and Jefferson being on the Oregon side, St. Helens, Adams, and Tacoma
on the Washington side. Generally the trees or shrubs grow right to
the water’s edge, but here and there is a strip of sandy beach. On
both sides there are innumerable charming home sites, on gently rising
ground, with fertile soil, plenty of wood and water, excellent market
facilities by rail and steamer, and the finest scenery in the United
States for a background. Yet these shores, which in the next century
will hold hundreds of thousands of happy farmers, are now an absolute
wilderness, and an hour may pass before a farmhouse or village is
sighted from the steamer. Had the unreasoning multitudes who rushed
to Oklahoma quietly taken up homesteads in this region, which is so
favored by climate, soil, and scenery, they would have avoided their
wholesale disappointment. The steamship company is very accommodating
to the few settlers along the river, and stops at frequent intervals
to take on their lumber, shingles, salmon, farm products, and to land
merchandise for them. In low water much ingenuity is required to make
a landing at these informal stations.
Two hours after leaving Portland, Mt. Hood, whose base has been
previously concealed by the Cascade ridges, suddenly comes into view,
life size, from top to base. Were the banks of the Columbia as flat and
monotonous as those of the lower Mississippi, this sight alone would
crown it king of rivers. For a full hour the steamer sails straight
towards this mountain, as if intending to land at its base for a supply
of ice from its glaciers; but all at once it moves to the left as the
steamer provokingly changes its course. For two hours more, however,
the mountain remains in sight till it is once more hidden behind the
crests of the Cascades. Tourists who wish to ascend this mountain or
to explore its glaciers and cañons, get off above the Cascades at the
town of Hood River, near the mouth of the river of that name which
carries the melting snows of the mountain to the Columbia. A hotel was
opened last summer, just below the snow-line, so that the trip can now
be made with great comfort. Mt. Hood is eleven thousand and two hundred
feet high, and is ascended by numerous parties every summer, including
ladies. Like all the Oregon chain of mountain peaks from Shasta to
Tacoma, it is an extinct volcano, and still gives evidence of its past
condition by the sulphurous fumes which in some places are encountered
during the ascent.
Nothing could be more delightful than the ingenuity with which the
Columbia panorama is arranged. For the first five hours, while the
banks present nothing of thrilling interest, the giant snow-peaks
lend grandeur to the scene. As soon as the last of these, Mt. Hood,
disappears, the banks themselves begin to fascinate the attention by
innumerable picturesque formations, and a few hours later, when the
Highlands have been left behind and the banks become lower again, Mt.
Hood once more comes into view, more and more prominently, till at
the last station of our trip, the Dalles, it seems nearer and more
magnificent than even at Vancouver or Portland. Thus there is not a
dull moment between Portland and the Dalles.
The river itself is almost as awe-inspiring in its grandeur as the
snow-peaks visible from it. No other river has ever given me such a
vivid and overpowering sense of sublimity as the Columbia by its great
expanse of watery surface, and its tranquil, deep, majestic movement.
And whereas the Mississippi, at a corresponding point in its course,
is so muddy that one almost hesitates to bathe in it, the Columbia is
so clear and pure that in a glass it seems like well-water and tastes
almost as good. The color varies with wind and weather, but is usually
a yellowish green, as grateful to the eye as a new-mown lawn. Standing
at the prow of the boat, surveying this vast expanse of placid or
agitated water, it is a fascinating exercise of the imagination to
think that almost every gallon of this mammoth stream came originally
from some different creek, spring, melting glacier, or snowfield—some
of them in the Cascade Mountains close by, some in the Rocky Mountains
in distant Territories; for the Columbia’s sources are in British
Columbia and in seven States and Territories,—Oregon, Washington,
Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, and Nevada. Think what romantic cañons,
what vast, gloomy forests, these waters have passed through on their
way from the crest of the continent to the ocean; what numbers of
speckled trout have darted through them in the mountains; what hordes
of big salmon and sturgeon in the Columbia; and what exciting scenes
they have noted of seals chasing these unfortunate fish! For even as
far up the Columbia as this the seals make their excursions. A hundred
and fifty miles from the ocean, they can be seen here basking on a
sand-bank projecting from an island into the middle of the river. Some
of them float about on logs, and others swim to within thirty feet of
the steamer, looking, with their heads above the water, exactly like
swimming dogs.
About eleven o’clock, as Mt. Hood disappears, Rooster Rock comes into
sight, and the scenery begins to resemble that of the Hudson River
Highlands. Rooster Rock is a large boulder which, from different points
of view, looks like an uplifted thumb, or like a mammoth seal with
head on high, just ready to plunge. It stands on a projection from the
shore, which looks like an island, and it has a few small firs growing
on its bare sides that subsist apparently on the food of air-plants.
The interesting points now begin to crowd each other, and barely
fifteen minutes elapse before another of the famous sights of the
Columbia comes in view,—Cape Horn, which, at first sight, seems merely
a precipitous rock projecting into the river; but as the boat draws
nearer and begins to round it, all the passengers rush to the left side
of the ship, and a chorus of rapturous admiration bursts from their
lips. Cape Horn is a vertical wall of bare rock, rising abruptly out of
the water, and standing on a pretty row of grooved stones, resembling
little pillars sculptured in high relief. In the centre of the rock a
miniature cascade runs down smoothly over a mossy bed. Presently, as
the boat moves on in close proximity to the rock, another precipitous
wall, even higher than the first, rises above it, adorned with several
more miniature water-falls, whose moss-grown channels are the only
green in the brown, rocky scene. Cape Horn deserves its name, not only
because it is a promontory which the boat has to round, but because at
times the wind blows so wildly that none but steam-vessels can pass,
and canoes and sailing-vessels have been detained there for days. The
Columbia River wind-current, by the way, is very accommodating to
sailing-vessels; for it usually blows up stream, so that it is almost
as easy for them to go up as down. In the future commercial development
of this region this will be a factor of considerable importance.
The Master Landscape-Gardener who planned the Columbia River provided
not only for a gradual dramatic _crescendo_ to a climax, but for
constant scenic variety. So, after the snow-mountains and Rooster Rock
and Cape Horn, the tourist is treated to the sight of a few picturesque
water-falls. The first of them is the Multnomah Fall, which is sighted
only a few minutes after leaving Cape Horn. At first it is somewhat
disappointing, since only the upper part can be seen; but as the boat
approaches nearer, it is revealed in its true size, of eight hundred
feet, in two divisions. It is the death plunge of a lively mountain
stream which has worn a channel in the rock that looks as if a giant
had scooped out a wide groove with a shovel. The trains of the Oregon
Railway and Navigation Company pass very near the falls, and always
stop a few minutes to enable the passengers to see them. But after all,
the only way to see them properly is to visit them on a special picnic
excursion, one of which leaves Portland for this spot almost daily in
summer. There is a bridge spanning the chasm in front of the falls from
which an excellent view is obtained, and the adventurous climb down and
pass under the falls, through a delightful fern grotto and “cave of the
winds.” The water in the pool formed by the fall is cool as ice even
in midsummer. The picnic parties generally visit another fine fall,
the Latourelle, on the same day, noted for the beautiful cave into
which it seems to fall, directly from the blue sky, and for the curious
markings of its rocky surroundings. This fall, however, though close
to the Columbia, is not visible from the river; but only ten minutes
above the Multnomah Falls the boat passes the Oneonta Falls, less high
but more massive than the Multnomah. A curious phenomenon is here seen
sometimes—a _shadow-fall_, reproducing the water-fall with all its
movements and its inverted water-rockets. Still another fall is seen
above the Oneonta, so close to the edge of the river that in high water
it probably plunges directly into the Columbia.