Northwest Books for Christmas

                                         
ONLY A FEW MILES FROM ITS BIRTHPLACE IN EASTERN BRITISH COLUMBIA, CANADA, THIS CREEK-SIZE RIVER  WANDERS MORE THAN 1,200 MILES (about 1/3 of it in Canada)TO THE PACIFIC OCEAN AT ASTORIA, OREGON, USA, BECOMING AS MUCH AS SIX MILES WIDE BEFORE RUSHING INTO THE SEA.
The whole story in Columbia River (Caxton Press, 2013), by JoAnn Roe.

San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century (Caxton Press, 2011) by JoAnn Roe
tells what happened in these romantic islands between the USA and Canada from about mid-20th century to the present. This is not another replay of the famous Pig War between the countries in the 19th century, but about barges, ferries, alpaca farming, lavender farms, small airplane access, Christmas Ship to remote island settlements, a doctor who might wade ashore to help a patient, orca whales, the ocean research laboratory that is compared to Woods Hole Oceanographic, four-star and family-operated resorts.  The real San Juan Islands of today.

Stevens Pass (Caxton Press, 2002), first published in 1997 by Mountaineer Books. JoAnn Roe emphasizes the difficulties of finding the pass from eastern Washington toward Seattle and of building a railroad through rugged North Cascades Mountains. The book describes beginnings of charming Leavenworth, logging, ski resort development, extensive railroad history that includes the 1910 Wellington avalanche (third worst railway disaster) and GNR's building of the Cascade Tunnel.

All three books are in bookstores and outlets all over the continent & some abroad.

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL MY READERS. THANK YOU!!

COLUMBIA GORGE WINTER

THE COLUMBIA RIVER WESTBOUND just east of Portland and Vancouver/

It looks so benign in this photo taken from the Oregon cliffs, but winter brings another dimension. Remember that western Washington and Oregon have a medium warm climate in winter, around 45-55 degrees by day, while to the east, blocked from ocean warmth by the towering North Cascades Mountains, temperatures are much colder. Occasionally, the wind screams westward through the spectacular Columbia Gorge to bring cold temperatures to the west side. Here is my own experience.

In normal December temperatures I eased southward from Seattle on I-5 through intermittent light rain. My car radio blared Christmas carols, and late flowers and green lawns still decorated the streets and houses of towns. Very relaxed I moved along at a moderate speed to get to a book signing of The Columbia River scheduled for that evening at a Portland bookstore

Only about 15 or 20 miles north of Portland, still drifting along in mild temperatures, I realized the radio news was reporting car accidents and collisions because of ICE, ice a few miles ahead near Portland and Vancouver. An excited commentator said large trucks had slid sidewise into the guard rails on slanted roadways. Whoa, I thought. I did not even carry chains, as I had not expected to be traveling any wintry road. I slowed some and even more when the few rain drops began hitting my windshield as pellets of ice, then began to stick on the highway. What on earth was going on only a few miles ahead! I soon found out as wind gusts from the Gorge tried to push me sidewise.

No way was I going to cross most of Portland to the vicinity of the bookstore before finding a motel for the night after the signing! Now traveling at a snail's pace and remembering not to put my brakes on hard nor turn suddenly, I spied a motel at Portland's north edge and barely made it up its slanted driveway before I started to slide around. A real "chicken" on ice or snow (after all, I had been a Los Angeles resident before Washington), I would give up and hope the motel had a room. It did and, when I had to appear for the book signing, I called a taxi, no matter what the cost.
Only a few brave souls came to that event.

By morning the wind had switched back to a normal southwesterly direction, all the ice had vanished, and I headed north to my home in 50 degree temperatures as before. Conditions are very fickle in our winters, indeed.

The Columbia River Island that "never was"

About 1912 about 5,000 Russian religious dissenters were living in British Columbia, their story quite a saga in itself. Many of the people -- Doukhobours -- centered eventually around the towns of Castlegar and Grand Forks, not far north of the border with the USA. They set up permanent settlements and started businesses.

But this blog is about the charming cabin pictured here. A non-Doukhobour Russian fleeing from the Bolshevik Revolution came to teach the Russian language to children at the Dooukhobour schools in the mid-1900s. He liked to hike around the area and visited a small island in the Columbia River near Castlegar often. He adored his wife and wanted to build a home for her on that island. When he checked with authorities about purchasing all or at least part of it, they told Zuckerberg there was no such island.

He convinced the government that such a piece of land truly existed and bought it. As funds permitted, he built a lovely, Russian-style, country home pictured here, and hacked out paths through the forested island. Soon he and his wife had lush gardens irrigated by installing a water wheel to lift water from the Columbia. Zuckerberg added outdoor statues, adding one to honor his wife after she died in 1960.

Today the island is a park, given to everyone to enjoy by Zuckerberg. Aiding in the funding has been the Rotary Club. Visitors reach the island "that never was" over a suspension foot bridge.

A bit of explanation, too, about the river. At its birth in the Columbia Lake of BC. only a small ridge of land separates the Columbia from the Kootenay River, another major waterway that, at that point, comes from its more northerly birthplace and flows south even as the Columbia begins to flow northwest. The Kootenay wanders down into the USA's Montana and eventually turns back north and empties into the Columbia River near Castlegar after both rivers have racked up hundreds of divergent miles. At one time, some "wise guy" proposed digging a channel through the earth barrier between the two rivers near Columbia Lake. Fortunately, a wiser guy pointed out that this would be an environmental and economic disaster to join the two at that site, and it was not done.

COLUMBIA RIVER, MARITIME HIGHWAY

Lady Washington

 

 

This beautiful replica of Captain Gray's second ship was built at Gray's Harbor north of Astoria, Oregon, and launched in 1989. It soon became the official State Ship of Washington State. It roams the ocean and rivers that touch the state as an operating sailing ship with crew as a reminder of the first entry into the Columbia River by Gray in 1892. The Lady Washington hosts passengers or just appears at maritime events at anchor for visitors to come aboard, hear history lectures perhaps. Frequently, the ship becomes a field trip for the Northwest's school children.

 

Gray had worked with the even more famous Captain Vancouver, but the latter did not believe the Columbia entered at its present site; indeed, he and others kept looking for the ocean outlet of a large river seen far inland. They thought it might be possible to sail eastward through such an unexplored waterway and emerge in the Atlantic Ocean. Gray was not sure about this possibility, either, but had seen the entry of what he thought might be the river earlier -- a belief not shared by Vancouver. Eventually, Gray was able to return southward along the coast, found and entered the treacherous meeting of river and ocean. Of course, it did not rise anywhere near the Atlantic Ocean.

 

Despite the turbulent entrance of the river it became and still is a chosen route for seagoing ships to travel the Columbia far inland for commerce. The local Indian tribes like the Chinook had long sailed upriver for commerce. The coastal people and tribes of eastern Washington and Oregon (names today) had what today we would call a "trade fair" periodically. The eastern residents would bring cured game, crafts, and other products to trade for shells, dried fish (although they had plenty of their own, too) and sea-related items. Inter-tribal wars were suspended for these commercial meetings.

 

Today sophisticated barges haul grain from Washington and Oregon farms or river ports handling grain from as far away as Idaho (via Columbia to Snake River waterways) and even trucked -in grain from Midwest farms to waiting ships moored near Portland, Oregon. Ships from many nations bring products to Portland to be disseminated by various transportation methods to markets in the West, including such barges or smaller ships.

 

In decades past smaller barges hauled fuel oil and gas east and mostly grain west to the ports, too. The high plateaus of eastern Washington, especially, were formed by ongoing emissions of lava, creating vast fertile plains where huge grain farms thrive.

In old days, these smaller barges were loaded from the cliff-like edges of the river by chutes. At first, the chutes were of wood and a problem was the fast-moving grain hurtled down and actually caught on fire (from the friction).

 

Today several charter cruise companies operate from Portland upriver to the Snake River and on east to Lewiston, Idaho. Other varying pleasure routes exist, as well, and this trip of around six days round trip is very popular with tourists. I myself have served several of the companies as a historian making comments as the ships move along the waterway. The rather luxurious ships have comfortable cabins and service, good food, side trips by small boat or bus.  Over all this activity watch the snow-covered mountains such as Mount Hood, Mount St. Helens, Mount Adams and other lesser peaks. 



STORMY WEATHER ON THE COLUMBIA RIVER

PATEROS WA looking east across a wide stretch of the Columbia River during a storm.

100 years ago the river was less wide, and one might have seen a vintage steamboat coming up the river to deliver passengers and supplies to this port settlement. The current of that river, pre-dams, was so swiftly moving (to the right in this photo) that a ship might have to attach a cable from ship to a team of draft horses on shore to pull them past this area. This location also is where the ancient Canadian glaciers covered the river solidly. Between Brewster (five minutes from Pateros)  and Grand Coulee Dam by road one still can see the boulders left over when the glaciers melted during a natural climate change and pulled back to release the ancient river to flow once more. Pateros volunteers and contributors have built a small museum near this site that is worth visiting.  Not far from Brewster upriver visit a fort once manned by Hudson's Bay Company personnel as a stop where HBC's fur employees changed from traveling by water to horses on their way north. The book Columbia River, published by Caxton Press in late 2013 gives insight into this period.

Today the calm waters attract outdoor people in small boats or kayaks, or fishing enthusiasts, Salmon travel up river as far as the mighty Columbia's source more than 400 miles north of the Canadian border! True, their progress and numbers are affected by many dams, but fish and wildlife managers on both sides of the border constantly work to assist the spawning mama fish in fall and the lively babies in spring wending down river to make the 1200+ mile annul journey between Astoria, Oregon, and Columbia Lake, British Columbia. Of course, a large percentage of the salmon also veer off to the many rivers that empty into the Columbia. Major research to solve the myriad problems of the coexistence of power needs and fish maintenance continues.

North Cascades Charms, both sides

Here we are at October 7th still enjoying temps from 70-close to 80, but weather next week looks like reverting to typical fall or early winter weather more like 50s.-60s. Leaves are beginning to turn but not yet. My garden is full of flowers blooming. I play golf every Friday with three others, but -- like them -- do not take scores as a big deal. If I get a bogie once in awhile, good, but I also might rack up 10 strokes on some hole where all goes wrong. Great scenery always in the Northwest, usually nice weather except in rainy mid-winter, so who cares. I am hoping to get over to eastern Washington yet before the North Cascades Highway closes for the winter (heavy snow in mountains, not in western WA. ) But driving along the Columbia River means wonderful views of fruit orchards along the river that turn brilliant yellows in fall, enhanced by reds here and there and certain wild deciduous trees mixed into the prevailing tall evergreens in the Cascades that are mostly yellow, too. Fall in the San Juan Islands brings some foggy mornings and brilliant afternoons and fewer tourists to help out the seasonal businesses that tend to cater to boat populations.  A good time to avoid crowds and some reservations on the ferries, though.

The North Cascades Highway usually gets so much snow above 4,000 feet (passes are all more than that) that some close. The NCH seldom makes it past December 1 and comes back to life around late April or May. Dangers of avalanches or rock slides along the highway. But the valleys are always fun and the east side great for cross-country skiing. Nearer Bellingham, Wenatchee, Seattle, and so on are top downhill skiing areas with good overnight facilities. A book I have not talked about on this blog is constantly popular: North Cascades Highway  -- and also another one Stevens Pass (lots of railroad history there). It has gone through several reprints and is very desirable still since publication originally for the Mountaineers and later Montevista Press,

If you find my books of interest, a more serious but unusual story is Ranald MacDonald, Pacific Rim Adventurer from WSU Press, the fascinating life of a half-Chinook and half English (Hudson's Bay pioneer) who made history along the Pacific coasts, in Japan, Australia, Canada, and the USA. It took two years of broad research in all those countries to put it together as armchair-readable history. Not the Ronald of MacDonald's burgers but Ranald. That is actually the way  a man's name in spelled in some areas of Scotland.

Happy leaf raking, readers.  JoAnn   www.joannroe.com

A lake on one of the San Juan Islands

1900s SAN JUANS SCHOOLHOUSE



Kootenay Lake, twin to Arrow Lakes

Sternwheelers like this once operated on both Kootenay Lake and the Arrow Lakes, through which the Columbia River runs. (photo (C))

The rugged country in Canada, rivers and lakes that included the Columbia River, theme of my book, The Columbia River (Caxton Press, 2013) was not easily accessed by significant highways or even good roads. Later the major highways #1 and #3 crossed this scenic country. Those residents living along the Arrow and Kootenay lakes more easily traveled on these sternwheelers.

Some like the one shown here were quite luxurious and a few had limited cabins. Even so, the winds on these large lakes and even broad stretches of river could be hazardous. Records tell of harrowing river trips and sinkings. Those early pioneers were tough, man! Conditions on smaller boats and the little hotels that served passengers were like living in barns. Overnight a man might actually sleep on straw mattresses or none and share rooms and even a bed with total strangers of dubious cleanliness and honesty.

                                               Lake Roosevelt (Columbia River)

The Grand Coulee Dam in WA backs up the Columbia River almost to the Canadian border and, no doubt, all the way if there were extremely high water.  It is  benign lake with pleasant coves bordered with trees for anchoring a boat overnight to swim, barbecue aboard your boat or go water skiing farther out in the lake..

I was a speaker on North Cascades Institute outings on several occasions. These were trips on a large, sturdy houseboat that accommodated several people and their sleeping bags overnight. As the speaker, I did not expect that I was expected to operate the boat, too, but it was true. I had little trouble, though, because the lake has few or no hazards, smooth water, and few waves. Of course, the latter can change if a big wind storm comes up, but one can easily find a sheltered place along the shores.

Such a windstorm did come up during research for the book, The Columbia River, I was (by auto this time) at a marina on Lake Roosevelt operated by a few people. The managing couple would not let me leave the marina, because they said -- even though it was calm and quiet on the lake -- advisers from above told them a major dust storm had erupted along the highway. They said it was not safe for me to drive back up to the flats, that collisions in such conditions were common. I wound up staying the night with this friendly pair in their home, who were looking out for me, the roaming author. Much of eastern Washington is fertile farmland that stretches in all directions, and such dust storms are not uncommon; subsequently local television news described multi-car collisions that occurred. Of course, one need not worry about them if you just stay off the busy freeways or highways and just wait until the winds subside.

Back to the houseboat trips, on one occasion the information sent out was mixed up somehow. I and houseboat guests arrived at the north end of the route, only to find the boat was at the south end. It was too late in the day to do anything about it until morning, so I had to find motel housing for the night for about eight people. Although I sincerely do not believe I was the one at fault, my "boss" did think so. I was not the most popular guide/historian that trip. At least for awhile.

I have had considerable boating experience in my life. I was not asked to guide any trip in the San Juan Islands during the writing of San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century, published in 2013 and very much in print. However, I had roamed all over the SJI often in a 20-foot Glasply day boat that we had at my cabin and, before that, in a larger old cruiser on the ocean.  The San Juan Islnds have friendly waters except perhaps along Haro Strait or Rosario Strait, lengthy bodies of water that can get rough from sea swells or from the wakes of larger vessels -- not often in summer, though.

COLUMBIA RIVER AND SAN JUAN BOATING ADVENTURES

The Columbia River shoulders its way through narrow gorges in places and spreads out like the photo to be wide and remote. The photo was taken between the Snake River entrance to the Columbia and The Dalles, where the familiar Columbia Gorge begins. Here, though, the few inhabitants along the river are engaged in grape-growing and ranching.

Historically, down river a short way the river plunged over Celilo Falls, a mainstay site for Indian fishermen. The locals accepted an offer to purchase the Falls by the government, and a dam eventually was built there to smooth the way for upriver transportation by barge or boats. Although it appears that, for once, the government did reimburse the Indians fairly, the tribes still mourn the decision, as the Falls were an important part of everyone's lives and traditions.

Downriver a bit more is a mecca for wind surfers because of the usual strong winds that are formed by the gorge. The area becomes a colorful panorama of bright sails skipping across the ruffled waters.

Back in Bellingham, my area, summers are hot, almost too hot at more than 80 degrees and generally dry for most summer months. Our refuges from heat become the San Juan Islands or Lake Whatcom, about 15 miles long at the very edge of the city, or other smaller lakes. Bellingham Bay blossoms with the sails of larger boats, sometimes host to major sailing races. I have enjoyed both boating on the Columbia, 200 miles distant, or locally in the San Juans and Bellingham Bay at my doorstep, especially the research for my book, Columbia River (Caxton Press, 2013) on the historical and present happenings along this 1200+ mile river. My own family has had a small cabin in the San Juans for decades, so I already had enjoyed many experiences and conversations with fellow islanders to contribute to the San Juans: Into the 21st Century, and to share them with you.

While doing a magazine article about a major race beginning in Bellingham some years ago, I had to brace myself on the deck above the "doghouse" and quickly crawl around to the other side when the sailors "came about." They told me not to fall in, because they wouldn't come back to pick me up until the race was over.  BRR, Bellingham Bay and San Juan waters are from the North Pacific and are COOLLLDD.) I stayed on deck on all fours or seated.

The Columbia River in Canada, where three or more rivers and streams add their waters to the mighty Columbia, not far from the Columbia Icefields.

It is here that David Thompson and his crew, working then for Hudson's Bay Company, came down into the Columbia Valley. They were fleeing from hostile Indians on  the eastern side of the mountains. Since this was not a regular crossing to the upper Columbia  Valley from the high plains, the discovery of the site verified Thompson's tentative belief that this river really was the fabled Columbia River. This realization was because here the Columbia turns abruptly back south toward the United States border just around the corner to the left from this photo & plaque erected years later.  Before this, the birthplace of the Columbia River in the United States was unknown or often mis-identified.

And what a river! As described in the book by Caxton Press, the Columbia is one of he continent's greatest. It has carried explorers' canoes and makeshift steamers, hosted spawning salmon that fought upriver all the way from the Pacific Ocean, still today is a major waterway for barges, steamships, and ocean-going ships. Also, it is one of the most beautiful rivers in the world.  Enjoy it.

MUSING, CONTINUED FROM AUG. 3

Sorry, readers. The post cut itself off after the first paragraph. Here is the rest of the post (I have a new computer with 8.1, and must be guilty of some errors).

Salmon runs this years in both the San Juans and the rivers are beyond expectation. The waters must be healthy. In my book on the Columbia River I mentioned the sea lions that hang out near the base of Bonneville Dam neat Portland and Vancouver WA. They wait for easy pickings of salmon heading for spawning streams upriver, who use the special ladders built into Bonneville to access them. Because laws prevent harming the sea lions that come in from the Pacific and go upriver, all fisheries people can do (at least mostly) is to net the most aggressive predators and truck them back down to California and turn them loose again in the Pacific. However, the sea lions are back to Bonneville almost as soon as the trucks. Well, Nature at work, I guess.

Northwesterners are opinionated about how to cook salmon; mostly they deplore cooks who over-cook the fish. Barbecuing salmon is very popular, and one cook adds brown sugar to coat them first, other teriyaki sauce, another adopts the native American way of impaling filets on leaning sticks or boards as far away from an open campfire that one could place his hand between fire and stick and not get burned. It takes hours for the fish to but taste great. The types of wood used for the fire are important. 

I found it interesting while researching the settling of the Northwest by non-natives to learn that settlers from the sea took up residence here while Midwesterners still fought with local natives. Also, with no Panama Canal yet built, explorers had to sail around South American and the infamous Cape Horn to be able to sail north all the way of what is now western Canada or Alaska. I was lucky enough to stand on Cape Horn about 12 years ago and muse about the many ships that lay beneath the turbulent waters adjacent to it. Even the supply ship for Hudson's Bay post at Vancouver WA had to sail all the way around that obstacle to get to and sail up the Columbia River to the HBC post.  What intrepid ancestors we have!

MUSING ABOUT EXPLORATIONS AND SALMON

Summer is here for sure with 80-degree temps most days in Washington State. At least it cools off at night and even need a blanket by early morning. Waters are cold -- the North Pacific sea swirling around the San Juan Islands, and in the Columbia River farther south melting glaciers feed the streams that join the river -- from the Columbia Glacier in Canada to the North Cascades Range adjacent to the river in Washington, and run-off along the Columbia Gorge from Mt. St. Helens and Mt. Hood

Revisiting the San Juans and Columbia River

You the reader will wonder what happened to my blog.  Ten days ago when I was at a island with no ferry, my computer died. I got a new one just two days ago and am dealing with the Windows 8.1 differences. After 48 hours I have not yet learned many basics, including transferring photos to this site, so please excuse the limits.

I spent two days again in the San Juan Islands re-connecting with some of the people and sites discussed in my book, San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century (Caxton Press, 2013). Roche Harbor teems with boats and car tourists, too. Summer weather in the NW is usually bone dry for about three months and the temperatures have been ideal at 75-85. Kayaking is getting ever more popular and rentals abound. At Friday Harbor or Bellingham whale watching boat trips begin, because several pods of orcas live year-round in the islands. All boat traffic must obey rules about keeping a distance from pods to avoid annoying them, but still they are often just hanging around.

One day I was on a small commuter boat between Bellingham and San Juan Island when we encountered a pod just playing around in the sea between Sinclair and Cypress islands, jumping out of the water, babies and parents having fun. We complied with distance restrictions but watched them for at least 20 minutes.

Meanwhile, at the site of my most recent book, The Columbia River (doing VERY well, by the way and on Kindle a well as print), residents expect a huge sockeye salmon run this year, arriving pretty soon.

Did I ever mention that an older book of mine, Stevens Pass, is still very much in print? It has been praised by visitor and train buffs (and their magazines) for its coverage of the effort to get through the formidable North Cascades Mountains in the late 1800s. Also by Caxton Press. It also deals with the renovation of popular Leavenworth town with a Swiss or European look from its one-time importance as  railroad center..

Back to the instruction manuals for me, so I can continue to send photos of this scenic Northwest.

BOOK CAPTURE PACIFIC NORTHWEST LIFE

(C) photos

A sample of the mountain range that lies between the north-south Columbia River channel and the westernmost coastline of Washington State (except for the Olympic Peninsula), where myriads of islands dot the waters of the Salish Sea (Puget Sound) between Bellingham WA and Victoria BC. Publisher Caxton Press has released two of my books about this paradise of beautiful lands: San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century(2011) and The Columbia River.(late 2013).

I am fortunate enough to live in the northwesternmost part of this Pacific Northwest for half my life (after leaving Los Angeles CA). For research on the Columbia River I traveled its entire length. To comprehend the happenings of a 1243-mile river, and with 12 months to complete the original book, I began at the first mile far up in Canada and researched 100 miles of river for two weeks, then returned home to my office to write for two weeks. I returned to pick up where I left off at mile 101" for the next 100 miles, and so on. As I came to the Pacific Ocean at Astoria OR on the last miles, I found that a drama was unfolding right then where the Columbia enters through a turbulent channel into the salt water.. Furthermore, a group happened to be in Astoria that day to remember friends lost  by the Coast Guard and other rescue personnel years ago in that same entrance, who tried to save an incoming commercial ship. How strange timing for me as I ended the Columbia River's story..

The mountains above are in the heart of the North Cascades Range , a photo taken in May 2014, just as the snow was melting. The peaks average 8,000 feet and above (some peaks to 14,500''), Over several years I have backpacked and ridden my horse along many trails in these mountains, marveling at the intense beauty of this country. I had a well--trained and reliable leopard Appaloosa mare that I trusted with my life, and she with me. Sometimes we were on park or forest trails only four feet wide with a cliff at one side. One would not want a skittish mount there, indeed.

Moving farther west again off the coast of mainland Washington into the Salish Sea, my family had a cabin on one island that was restricted only to a few residents. This meant long summer days lolling under red-trunked madrona trees, hiking old logging roads, swimming in a couple of small lakes, and admiring sunsets over other islands nearby. Visitors truly do not understand this Pacific Northwest and its climate. West of the mountains it rains often from November to March and virtually not at all from late June to October. Average rainfall is about 35" at Bellingham annually, almost all in the winter months when the temperatures are usually about 45-55 degrees. The exception is a part of the Olympic Mountains that border the outer mainland coasts south of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, which intercept incoming showers borne on a normal southwest wind and absorb as much as 100 inches there.

Researching these two books and others meant learning about international sailing and fishing, logging verdant forests and having the good sense to start conservatively "farming" the woods, instead of cutting it all down. It is a renewable resource. I talked to ship and barge captains on ocean and rivers, ranchers and farmers, railroad workmen and the corporations that managed to push railroads through mountains such as the ones above (actually, they never were able to get through the first 70-90 miles of  USA mountains south o9f the Canadian border .) The tales of railroads are part of the book, Stevens Pass, also published by two different companies -- Mountaineer Books and later Caxton Press again , I have been lucky to ramble and boat through such unusual lands and hope this vibrant spirit of the land itself comes through to you, a hoped-for reader.

SAN JUAN ISLANDS bet. Bellingham WA & Victoria BC

The San Juan  Islands Winery on San Juan Island is a popular stop near the town of Friday Harbor, the county seat of the islands. The islands are mostly forested but do have large, grassy plains or valleys, where early farmers were and are able to make a living. The San Juans are far from the Columbia River about which I have been blogging more often. Indeed, the San Juan Island group lie between Bellingham WA on the mainland and Victoria BC on Vancouver Island in an arm of the North Pacific Ocean, really. The Columbia runs down the eastern side of mountain ranges that go north and south (more or less) of eastern BC and Washington.

I just returned from a cabin on one of the islands that my family has enjoyed for more than 40 years. It was sunny and warm, so warm that a group of guys celebrating their college graduation actually went swimming VERY briefly in the 59-degree waters of the Salish Sea (as Puget Sound is recently named by scientists). The islands lie in the shadow of the Olympic Mountains that form a barrier between them and the open ocean and enjoy only 20-24 inches of rain annually, almost all of it in fall-winter, and a spring and summer temperatures daily of about 60-75 degrees. (My educated estimates as a part-time resident.)

My children have grown up wandering this one island, swimming in a deep water lake at about 1,000 feet elevation there, and roaming the old logging roads that date back to 1900 and earlier. No dangerous wild animals inhabit the islands. I guess they just did not want to swim there from the mainland. Just raccoons and deer abound and, on some islands, squirrels. No snakes other than garter snakes near ponds sometimes. Such an ideal place. It is said to be similar to northern France.

I must share a personal story about the garter snakes. A Los Angeles friend of my son who was visiting said the pet shops in LA would pay good money for such snakes to be sold as pets. My son and the boy (both about 12 years old) caught about 20 of them before the visitor returned home. With his mother's permission and stern warning about the matter the boy personally had them in a sturdy container on the plane while flying home. Can you imagine the chaos if the snakes had gotten out, regardless of how small and harmless they are!

Next weekend I must talk to a group on Lummi Island, not officially one of the San Juans but considered one. It is accessible from Bellingham area's mainland by a small ferry for a 10 minute trip. I must speak about the last 75-100 years of the San Juan Islands, based on my 2011 book about them published by Caxton Press, which also published The Columbia River and Stevens Pass that I wrote.

Getting to the islands and getting marketable products off the islands has always been a problem, since most of them lie a few miles from any mainland access. Ferries and steamers of the past have been the only access, no bridges. Today the Washington State Ferry system stops at only four of the larger islands; others use private or commuter boats, fly small planes, or hire one of the barge companies to take vehicles or large items to and from the islands. The islands had just one doctor in 1950, who would care for his patients day or night by reaching them on a small boat, later a small plane for some.

In the book I write about the changes from raising cattle to alpacas or from grains to lavender, about the resident pods of black-and-white orcas (once called killer whales), tourism and summer home building, very active conservation efforts by almost all residents, the beauty of the madrona trees and lush flowers, and the benign living afforded residents and visitors by these stunningly lovely islands.

MORE ON SPRING RUSH OF WATER & MISSOULA FLOOD, TOO

 

The Chief Joseph Dam, a few miles downstream from the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington.

In late May I followed the Columbia River upstream from the little town of Brewster, just for fun and to see the rush of water following the high mountain snow melts. The first dam I encountered was this one, and I literally gasped at the mist thrown up possibly 40-50 feet by the water coming over the dam. An access road on the left was deserted and brought me within a few feet of the left side of the picture. Only a sturdy, high fence separated me from the rush of water drenching me with mist. I took photos impossible to do justice to the grandeur and noise of the water. As I said in my 5/27 blog, I would continue explanation of the unusual geology of this part of central Washington.

I continued to Grand Coulee and marveled at the width of the lake above it in spring, then went on southward through the coulee itself. It was a living natural painting of green on the stark cliffs. Even the rocks far above managed to host some small greenery.  This led me to the Dry Falls area where the Missoula Flood had plunged over cliffs this high to dwarf Niagara Falls in depth and width at the time. Today those cliffs and the almost round depression into which the water fell are still there but little water falls, because of the Coulee containment.  In the geologic past the Columbia had then ravaged onward to leave a few smaller lakes still functioning today, then continued all the way to today's Oregon border when it finally turned westward to the ocean, continuing to rip its way through ancient basalt and rock. I would like to have hovered above this floods (for they recurred a few times) to view this spectacle, wouldn't you?

The cliffs above the Columbia in places still retain a few bones and artifacts of evolutionary life, and several caves remain in the remote areas. One was used to keep their food and water cool by 19th century railroad construction crews.

MORE PEACEFUL COLUMBIA!

I will talk about the Missoula Flood next time. Last weekend I passed this tranquil river shore at Pateros WA ad the southeastern end of the North Cascades Highway #20. Before a dam below this location was completed, steamers came north from Wenatchee up the Columbia River to deliver people and supplies to little towns . This particular stretch then was a rugged rapid. Depending on the water flow a steamer could make it up through the rapids or not. Hurtling through again downstream was also a problem. When needed, teams of horses hooked onto the steamer to help. Also at Pateros is still a large anchoring ring. The local historical society has a small museum adjacent to this lawn. Today Pateros is one of the favorite spots for boating or kayaking.  Not far beyond this little town, around the corner to the right in this photo, another river runs into the Columbia -- the Okanogan River coming in from the north. Its origin is far up in the Okanagan Valley of Canada,(spelled with an o in the USA, an a in BC). The valley is a paradise for visitors as the river runs through two large lakes or more and in winter ski resorts galore flourish on nearby mountains.

The Okanogan River (USA) skirts the Colville Reservation, home to several original tribes and where Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce is buried. He was not an original resident there but was from farther south in the Wallowa Mountains of Oregon. During the relocation of many tribal entities, in death Joseph wound up among original tribal residents who once had been at odds with the Nez Perce. Remember the famous flight of this group of Nez Perce from the USA military troops toward Canada to avoid going on the required reservation?  "I will fight no more forever.....?" Chief Joseph??

The Missoula Floods ripped out Grand Coulee

I just returned from a trip along part of the Columbia River near Grand Coulee Dam and Wenatchee. The photo is Steamboat Rock in Banks Lake.  Here is the greater explanation:
The CR comes southward from the international border through Roosevelt Lake, a large and wide section of the Columbia, really, formed by the backup from Grand Coulee Dam. This large facility is complex, and management stores water according to how much and when power is created at the dam itself. Some is in Roosevelt Lake. More is the water pumped uphill to what was called Banks Lake after it became part of the total facility. It can be used with care for boating and recreation, and naturally its borders change with power needs and climate. The large body of water narrows down at Coulee City, where major east-west highway 2 crosses the Columbia. A person visiting the area by car should be sure to travel the road from the dam to Coulee City, not only for the lake's views, but the spectacular and ragged rocky cliffs or walls that soar almost a thousand feet on either side. It is a vista that is reminiscent of Utah's canyons, only this one has water. This week with spring sun at work the cliffs sported green shrubs and even green growths on some of the rocky faces. Mid-May was a perfect time to review my earlier research observations.

There is more to this story, a thrilling geological saga I will try to abbreviate. During the most recent Ice Age what is now central Washington State and on into adjacent British Columbia, Canada the land was covered with glaciers that extended roughly to a point a bit north of today's Highway 2  Other glaciers abounded across many parts of the nation. A glacier of the same period extended beyond Seattle from Canada.

 Then a climate change took place naturally, melting the glaciers. Over in Montana a lake called Missoula  swelled  with water. Meanwhile, the portion of the glacial ice between the North Cascades Mountains and eastward was stubborn and failed to melt as fast. Lake Missoula's ice barrier melted and fractured, permitting all the stored water to plummet roughly west and south along what is today part of the tributaries and the original Columbia River's ancient channel. This freezing and thawing went on several times before it all settled down for Lake Missoula. What a sight it would have been to see this torrent of water raging through the land.

Well, all went smoothly until the flood encountered the solid ice still present near today's Grand Coulee Dam and could not continue along the old Columbia River channel. Soooo, the river turned and headed south along an old earth fault that ran through the Grand Coulee (today's Banks Lake). It ripped open wide that fault through the layers of rock that now form the boundaries of Banks Lake, then fell over a plateau at Dry Falls (south of Coulee City) with a spectacle that was several times the width and descent of Niagara Falls. The flood quieted some but carved away a few more smaller, natural lakes before it again reached the ancient Columbia River channel not far from today's Hanford Project and  turned to wreak havoc as sit headed for the ocean at today's Astoria.  You who are geologists, bear with me in my simplistic tale of this unimaginable flood.

More about Steamboat Rock and this saga next time I share with you, probably next week. More new CR photos, too.

North Cascades Mountain valleys

One of the most beautiful North Cascades Mountain valleys is the Methow Valley that begins high in the mountains and was carved -- chiefly by the Methow River and ancient glaciers -- through the eastern North Cascades foothills to end at the edge of the Columbia River miles below. Deer and cougars, black bear and a few grizzlies, too, in the border country of USA and Canada thrive in the forests and a few mesas. This pond is manmade and helps to support resident deer that seldom leave this mountain resident's property. During winter storms the deer often gather in the holes around trees made by drifting snow. Deer are browsers more than grazing animals, so trees and brush are preferred foods. In these remote valleys the few settlers live each day side by side with the creatures, mostly in harmony.  Pet cats and small dogs, though, must be careful  to avoid becoming a wild animal's choice meal.

Along its 1243-mile length in Canada and Washington State the river mostly is forested except for parts of eastern Washington with its drier climate. Certain river waterfalls always were prime fishing spots for native Americans who used self-made baskets on poles to simply put into the falling water to catch unfortunate salmon within.

The river drains thousands of square miles of both countries, including water in tributary rivers as far east as the Rocky Mountains. What a thrilling waterway that has also carried explorers of the continent and later new settlers on its challenging, swift waters. Not a few people tell me that they have read my book, The Columbia River, and plan to travel its waters (taking their canoes or boats out and back in below dams) from beginning to end. Before any dams in the 1800s a handful of people did exactly that in small boats, one in a rowboat, overcoming not dams as obstacles but raging rapids in places.

RESEARCH FOR STORIES SOMETIMES ADVENTUROUS

--

Above Mica Dam at the Big Bend of the Columbia River in northern BC the river always was wide and active.  Canoe River and others added their drainage to the Columbia, too. At the right in this photo is Lake Kinbasket, always a natural lake that received the melt water from the huge Columbia Icefields that lie between the Columbia and Jasper AB. Kinbasket was known as one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, and still is, just even larger than its original lake and very remote. Its only access, essentially,  is from the south end of the lake or, as shown here, above Mica Dam. At a point at upper right in this photo was Boat Encampment on the original river, to which  David Thompson and his exploring crew came originally to escape attacking First Nation warriors on the flats above.

Yes, research can sometimes be dangerous or, at least, adventurous. When I was at the point shown, a dam employee agreed to take me out on the above body of water. I soon asked to return. The water was rough and filled with many loose logs, any one of which could have collided with our small rowboat only about 15 feet long. However, in explorer days well before dams, this particular junction of rivers was really a suicide trip.. It led (to the left of photo) through a narrow gorge and rapids that upset explorers' early boats and drowned not a few persons. Most detoured around it.

I am a lifetime writer for diverse magazine articles, as well as books.  One of my adventures was in the North Cascades Mountains of Washington. A group of Texas prospectors was exploring for gold on the face of a very steep peak called Church Mountain near Mount Baker. Seeking publicity for the work, which was the first time anyone had moved a gold drill by helicopter from one site to another on a mountain, the company sent its helicopter to pick me up to photograph this event. Fine... I left my kitchen (as I was more housewife and mother and less roving writer at the time) and climbed in. Within a half hour's flight the pilot set down the helicopter on a platform barely larger than itself that was attached to the mountainside. Another such platform served as a kitchen and eating site, and a third was for the six crew members  for their sleeping bags.

With little delay I followed the directions of the pilot and gold crew and climbed with my big camera (not a point-and-shoot type) up a slope to position myself where I could photograph the helicopter as it hovered over a prospect hole to pull out the drill and move it elsewhere. I was well aware of the slope's danger, as it must have been about a 60-70 degree rocky site. I positioned myself up-slope from a small tree. If I lost my balance, I thought I would be able to stop rolling by grabbing it. OK, the helicopter hovered. I clicked away at the drill gradually arising from the hole. What none of us had considered was that the helicopter's blades stirred up a torrent of snow and mud that landed all over me and the camera!

The photos completed, I started across a landslide of old rocks bisected by a foot trail maybe two feet wide to the other side of the slope about 300 feet across. Halfway there (with my bulky camera, mud and all) I noticed the dense cloud of fog rising up toward me from the canyon below. I was supposed to get across the rockslide, then ascend about 600 feet on the mountain to take photos of the drill being lowered into a new hole. However, I had been hiking in mountains forever and recognized that I must return or I would be unable to see anything on this dangerous foot trail. This was verified by the crew member that I met coming to get me off the mountain after I had turned back voluntarily. He said, "You have to get on the helicopter pad right away and get off the mountain or you will have to stay here overnight with the crew." The pilot tucked me into the copter and we rotated down again. He immediately left and returned uphill, and I was left alone to find my way back the short way to a small coffee shack and arrange to get back to my home, 50 miles away. I sat and drank coffee for a long time first, reviewing this adventure and asking myself, "What am I doing, anyway!"

True, not all a journalist's life is that exciting, but every now and then....well.... The story and photos, mud spots and all (film not digital), was published in an aviation magazine.

Spring certainly has arrived in Washington State. Hosts of flowering trees line streets. Evergreen trees that cover so much land in the state is interspersed with lighter greens of the deciduous trees leafing out. This morning I had time to monitor about a quarter of the terraced gardens in my yard and plant marigolds, geraniums, and a daisy called osteo..something-or-other. I will tackle another quarter tomorrow after dealing with my writing tasks.

The San Juan Islands between Bellingham WA and Victoria BC  enjoy such a benign climate that foxglove four feet high grow wild. Wild strawberries are coveted by islanders. Of course, shell fish thrive on beaches, a portion reserved for native American harvesting. Because the islands are surrounded literally by the North Pacific Ocean, even if it is within a huge inlet and outlet, sea life abounds. Orca whales are residents, and gray whales sometimes thread through the island channels during migration.

 One morning my young teenage son, an avid fisherman, returned from an early foray, his eyes wide and voice up an octave. He told us of seeing a large weird-looking sea creature next to his small boat. It was, indeed, an unusual sighting for this area of an elephant seal. Perhaps it was because sea otters were hunted so mercilessly by early explorers of the northwest coast, or perhaps other factors prevailed, but in the SJI river otters are commonly seen on island beaches. A fresh water or river variety they have adapted to salt water with ease.  One day at a marina my four-year-old daughter was lying on her stomach peering into the sea, when a young sea otter popped up in the water just inches away.

The lore of settlers who came to this semi-remote and lovely world entertain readers in the book: San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century.

HUGE GLACIERS ONCE COVERED THE SAN JUAN ISLANDS

Horseshoe Lake on Blakely Island in the San Juan Island group probably once was carved out by moving ice.  In the distant past glaciers from what is now Canada continued on to an area beyond today's city of Renton WA, south of Seattle. The ice overhead at Bellingham and the North Cascades (yes, all the way over the Columbia River, too) is estimated to have been 5,000 to 6,000 feet deep in most areas described. When climate changes occurred and the glaciers melted, the huge volume of water overwhelmed the mountains and valleys west of today's Bellingham, drowning them to create the islands of today, most of them just the mountain tops of the prior range and valleys. This leaves a pleasant group of 172 islands and islets we call the San Juan Islands. Marks from this prehistoric glacier can be seen in the North Cascades Mountains west of Mount Baker at Church Mountain. Imagine this ice deposit thousands of feet thick!  Several San Juan islands still have deep lakes for people and trout to enjoy.

Today the islands are a playground for boaters and kayakers, as well as encompassing fertile lands with crops and animals. The North Cascades range running roughly north and south and parallel with the Pacific Ocean shores about 40 miles west remains as a barrier between western and eastern Washington, causing widely different climates in the state. It is cool and seldom snowing on the west with daytime temps from about 45 to 80 degrees year round and an average of about 33 inches of rain annually. The east side is partially a former lava plain interrupted by valleys, hills, flatlands, and forests that averages more like 25 to 100 degrees annually but is rich in rivers and water so is a farming paradise. (Temperatures are my estimates and not official.)

Several of my published books carry tales of what went on in this extremely variable land: The Columbia River, Stevens Pass, North Cascades Highway and The North Cascadians, San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century, and others that touch on featured people or occurrences of the humans that settled these beautiful and challenging lands. I have traveled along all 1243 miles of the Columbia River, and my family has had a log cabin in the San Juans for more than 50 years.

Washington's dramatic mountains and islands vs. desert

I had to visit Arizona this past week for the sad reason of attending the interment of my oldest sister. However, visiting Phoenix's Botannical Gardens was a pleasant respite. Here I found my own Washington State's Dale Chihuly's creations enhancing desert displays. Chihuly's famous works are created only minutes from the tragic Oso mudslide that has made international news this past month. Perhaps his colorful work helps to heal the sadness of both my personal and our state's citizens. The tube like creations were featured in several different colors and enhanced large desert shrubbery, too, if it is even possible to enhance Nature's beauties. 

So much beauty at all seasons is in our Washington State. Now spring along the Columbia River and in the warmer areas of the San Juan Islands is helping natural flowers to open their blooms to accent the already lovely forests and island seascapes of both areas. Rhododendrons, foxglove, and lupine, and acres of daisies of several kinds grow wild in the Northwest spring. Rhododendron are wild mostly on the Olympic Peninsula, foxglove waist-high in the islands, and lupine lines higher mountain roads and clearings.

You may wish to read about the Northwest in several of my books available nationwide and online, especially the recent San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century and The Columbia River. There are others, too.

CA and WA both wonderful states.

CA flowers in
Februaary.  A former LA resident, I enjoyed soaking up desert charms in February, while home in WA enjoyed the beauty of unexpected snow in significant quantities. However, I was told that it did not last but a few days, and it seldom ever does stay. We all live in a beautiful world. Deserts with their own special beauty, islands scattered off our coasts, majestic mountains that start north of the Canadian border and never slow down until close to Mexico, and even then, pick up again to adorn the lovely Baja California lands. Rivers like the Columbia River and Mississippi, and islands like the San Juans and Gulf Islands in the West Coast waters. Add these sights to the beauties of rolling wheat fields and blue lakes farther east, endless sand beaches in the southeast, and forests of the northeast. Be sure to help Nature take care of all this, and help us to share with the world.

San Juan Islands, Washington Staqte, Fun in the Water

The book, San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century was published less than two years before The Columbia River. The San Juans are scattered across the Strait of Juan de Fuca, recently renamed the Salish Sea, between Bellingham, Washington State and Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. They enjoy a relatively warm temperature -- average about 75 days and 60 nights in summer. The waters are part of the North Pacific, so never really get warm. However, with the sun overhead, islanders and visitors enjoy paddling around and waterskiing, sometimes in dry suits. This man could use a couple of kayak paddles but doesn't seem to care.

The San Juan Islands are a vacationer's paradise at least six or eight months of the year. Even in winter it is rare to have any snow in this part of the world, but it does occur occasionally -- and leaves within days.  In the 1800s would-be gold prospectors headed for the Fraser River of Canada had to go first to Victoria to get a license and often paddled their boats through the calm San Juan group. Only four of the larger islands (about 172 islands plus others more popularly called rocks) are served by Washington State Ferries. Residents on other islands must take a small boat, commercial small boat, or a barge rented to take vehicles or other heavy gear on and off islands.

The North Pacific Ocean waters farther south at the mouth of the Columbia is the villain that sends formidable swells at times to confront the outflow of the river and make it difficult for boats to enter the ocean. Essentially, the north-to south coastal shore of Washington stretches from around the San Juan Islands and Olympic Peninsula to the mouth of the Columbia River.

Pacific Northwest -- water everywhere. Columbia River. San Juan Islands

Winter rains bring wonderful spring blooms. The rhododendrons shown here are in a garden, but they grow wild in some Northwest areas, too, especially the Olympic Peninsula. The Columbia River shores around Portland, Oregon, warm and protected from most strong winds provide ideal climates for roses, resulting in a major Portland Rose festival. The San Juan Islands near the north end of Washington have acres of wild foxglove and wild strawberry plants, too. San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century was published a year before Columbia River by Caxton Press. It is as enjoyable to read as the river sagas. I like to tell about history, what happened in an area, through the tales of the people who actually lived and worked, dreamed and died at a site, thus creating the history. I realize that dates, treaties, governmental actions, and some structure is required to make sense of it all. People
and what they did are more fascinating to me, though.
Enjoy your life stories and smell the flowers.

A virtual wilderness of water

The Columbia River makes a U-shaped turn after passing the Tri-Cities (WA) area and heading west to the Pacific, still hundreds of miles away. Here it is unfettered and wide. Add the winds that narrow down through the Columbia Gorge to these waters and you have turbulent waves as large as the ocean swells. Few settlements grace the shores, either, except for rows of vineyards  that stretch almost to the water's edge making gardens out of the eastern Washington and Oregon desert-like lands. From a boat I found this stretch lonely  but dramatic.

Adventurers whose pathways were rivers and oceans

Water. It is one of the hottest topics in today's world. Today it is distribution of its life-giving properties. Yesterday it was more discussions of water -- rivers and oceans -- as the pathway to finding new lands. Imagine you yourself setting out on a boat, large or small, to find out what lands, if any, were out there. I have always been fascinated with the stories of those who dared to explore the unknown. At least three of my current books tell of their adventures, personal and sometimes commercial: The Columbia River, San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century; and Ranald MacDonald, Pacific Rim Adventurer.

In the book, The Columbia River, coastal native Americans traveled through rapids to trade salmon with landlocked "brothers" for deer and bear skins. Hudson's Bay Company voyageurs,  mostly French boatmen, would dress in their finest before landing at Fort Vancouver to bring messages from the home office in central Canada. Early settlers, half starved and ragged, took to the river in today's eastern Washington, to reach the fertile farmlands of Oregon. After farmers grew wheat on the high mesas of eastern Washington, bold rivermen brought boats through vicious rapids to bring oil for farm machinery and take back to coastal ports the farmers' wheat -- loading it from the tops of mesas down to the river in chutes. In Canada gold prospectors struggled up toward Barkerville on the Fraser and Columbia rivers and, as late as the 1900s found the only way north from parts of the international border was on genuine steamboats on the Arrow Lakes (wide parts of the Columbia River). The river's path wandered through Canada and the United States (today's names) in such a convoluted way that no one realized until the early 1800s where the river had begun. I love the stories of those extraordinary people as they created their daily lives. Never mind who made the treaties and rules. I am far more interested in the adventurers who actually lived the tales mentioned and more. They worked, were eaten by wild animals, drowned, cheered their comrades, killed each other for various reasons, vied with authorities.  Real, live people. Those are my characters in the books.

Widely publicized were the stories of the temporary difficulties between the local Indian tribes and those from  southeast Alaska, between the British government and early prospectors or settlers. Shooting of a British  pig rooting in an American's frontier garden resulted in the Pig War, a war where the two sides were more apt to meet halfway for picnics than shoot each other. Instead I tell the individual stories of those who settled the islands, most so remote from commerce that a family had to row over testy ocean waters in makeshift rowboats to get supplies. About the early boats that linked the islands like a horde of mosquitoes, and the later barge companies usually owned by one or two people or a family to take supplies to the islanders and bring machinery to them. A doctor, the only one in the islands for some years, who waded ashore on any island in stormy weather to save a critically ill person. Later he learned to fly so he could get care on mainland hospitals for his patients. The changes in farming from livestock and fishing to growing lavender and starting tourism-related business. Again these brave  adventurers encountered the water -- the ocean which is their constant companion, friend, and enemy while merely living on remote islands.  Bold, flexible people.in San Juan Islands: Into the 21st Century.  Both of these books by Caxton Press, a pioneer itself as an early Northwest publisher of the Boise area that has told the history of the Pacific Northwest throughout two generations of publishing.

Adventurers are certainly not confined to the early Europeans. The astonishing true story published by Washington State University Press as Ranald MacDonald, Pacific Rim Adventurer tells of Ranald's birth at Astoria (mouth of the Columbia River)  to a Hudson's Bay Company factor and a Chinook tribal princess, who died a few months after the birth. Few mixed race Northwesterners could rival his courage and imagination in leaving his bookkeeping job at a HBC post in Canada to go to sea on several different types of vessels in the 1800s. Believed lost at sea, Ranald was very much alive but -- even more risky and with the permission of his sea captain -- he deliberately had himself appear to be a shipwreck survivor in a leaky boat just off the Japanese island of Hokkaido so that he could find out what manner of people were the Japanese. He was rescued by the Japanese, went before the authorities, eventually was transported all the way to south Japan and sustained what we would call house arrest for months. He was ordered to teach English to 14 Japanese translators who had only learned Dutch at a commercial port in Nagasaki. Who could know that, much later, one or two students would meet and translate for Admiral Perry when he came to Japan. And meanwhile, he had been allowed to leave Japan on a U.S. military ship. Not through with his incredible adventures, he then was really shipwrecked from a commercial ship in the Indian Ocean, spent time in Australia where he knocked out the then champion Australian boxer, dug gold there, went back to Canada via England to visit his ancestral Scottish family and frightened his mother in Canada who had thought he was dead, and went on to even more amazing adventures during the development of Canada's gold and railroads. Stories like this of Ranald are about those who MAKE history not slide through it. Bold, imaginative people.

Who's my next subject, I wonder. JoAnn

In the earliest days of settlement of the USA and Canada most explorer and new

The baby Columbia River becomes a vast body of water as it enters the Pacific

Grand Coulee Dam Light Show

During the dry months of Eastern Washington State, Grand Coulee Dam stages a free light show after dark for visitors, who may watch from their parked cars or sit on the lawn or inside somewhere. At the appointed time a switch turns to permit the Columbia River's water behind the dam to flow down the face of the dam and create a sort of  movie screen. A prepared show, much of it historical in nature but including other topics or cartoons, plays across this watery backdrop. Families especially love the informal presentation that makes it easy to include children in an audience.

Grand Coulee, the town, and other small settlements near the official town have motels and restaurants today. When the dam was being built during the Great Depression years, at first nothing existed at the site -- no homes, no amenities. Workmen came on freight trains to the site, if they had no other means to travel. After all, it was a JOB. Eventually, wives and families joined them, mostly living at first in flimsy shacks that barely minimized the dust from construction. One housewife told a reporter that, when she picked up her baby after its afternoon nap, dust lined its eyelashes in that short time. And one always had to beware of possible rattlesnakes.

Astoria's "butterfly fleet"

The last town on the Oregon side of the Columbia River (before the river joins the sea) is Astoria. It was a teeming port for fishing in pioneer days. At one point many small boats plied the waters adjacent to Astoria town. They had a type of sail plan that caused them to become known as the butterfly fleet and, indeed, they were delightfully colorful during times when they held a sort of regatta, when not seriously fishing. 

A current marvel for Astoria visitors is the four-mile-wide bridge over the Columbia from Washington to Oregon. A part of the span is so high that major seagoing ships can go under the bridge comfortably on their voyages to and from river to ocean.

Steamboat Rock -- before Banks Lake -- was the site of a western ranch. Now it's surrounded by water. Banks Lake is where Grand Coulee Dam operators store excess Columbia River water until they need water for more power production.

Wide Columbia River at Astoria

As I earlier mentioned, the bridge from Washington to Oregon near the Pacific Ocean is fully four miles long. Not far beyond to the west in the haze, the Columbia River widens to include Baker Bay and becomes around six miles wide. Back a few blogs, remember the narrow channel way up in Canada with wild rapids. The river there is only a few YARDS wide!!! About a thousand miles later here is the river...wow!  The town of Astoria includes many Finnish residents, who came as immigrants to fish for salmon or to work in the fish canneries. The river you see is also the stretch entered by Captain Gray at his discovery of the river in 1792.

Recently I spoke of the difficulty of lining boats through difficult channels. This is the wild canyon below the Columbia River's turn from NW to S-SE. Imagine trying to walk along this cliff and keep a boat below from going on the rocks. Also think about the river that becomes four to six MILES wide near its junction with the Pacific crammed into this little canyon! Even if it does gather another 600 miles of water before getting to the Pacific.

Raging rapids of the Columbia River

We readers usually think of dams as being a way to store water & release it for irrigation. This is true, of course, but the dams on the Columbia River also restrained the river from flooding or smoothed the paths of boats. The 1243-mile Columbia was a killer river in many places. The shores narrow to force the river to run through restricted spaces, creating powerful currents and rapids. The river had an average descent of about two inches per mile. This may not seem like much but in restricted areas, it sort of "piles up" and rages through. In Canada at its northwesterly hairpin turn from northwesterly to south-southeasterly, the river ran immediately through a wicked canyon so dangerous that early canoeists "lined" their canoes through. That is a system where the handlers use ropes on both sides of a river to steady a boat/canoe through rough water, while they are walking along its shores as best they can. That canyon was a challenge even to walk through. Mica Dam smoothed out that hazard. The stunning Columbia Ice Fields contribute to the Columbia River waters now monitored by the dam, and three other significant rivers or streams join forces at the junction, too. I would like to have seen the roiling and raging Columbia before that dam.
Did you know that the Columbia dams in BC, Canada, were not particularly needed at the outset for creating power? Canada made a treaty with the USA  to create the power but store it to be released as needed. I never really understood how one can store power that already has been created, do you?? Anyway, the worse need for the Canadian dams and the USA dams was to control flooding. Parts of Portland and other cities downstream were flooded during some melt-offs to the  point of needing boats to get around town. It is interesting to read the accounts of residents along the river who had to cope with such disasters.

Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River

About a thousand miles after the Columbia's birth in Canada, it passed through the Columbia Gorge between Washington and Oregon. Because electrical power was desperately needed and because the river also was full of rapids that impaired navigation, Bonneville Dam was completed in 1937. One of the features became ever more important -- a fish ladder to help and protect spawning salmon returning to the miles of waterways of the Columbia River. Salmon varieties do this at different times and the numbers today are responding to greater care given to habitat and environmental issues. However, sea lions haven't read the rules and, being pretty smart, realized if they just hung out at the foot of the ladder, the salmon would follow the ladder, jumping up from one level to the next. Hey, a feast for an agile sea lion. For years these critters have become a real problem or enigma. They are protected from destruction, too, but increasing numbers found the the easy buffet of salmon at the ladders. Authorities have captured consistent eaters and removed them far down the Pacific, only to see them return as fast as their flippers can go. Can't win 'em all.  What to do. A real enigma for fish monitors. It's an ongoing puzzle.

I carry a limited number of my books that I must purchase from the publisher (yes, believe it or not) for local bazaars or promo talks. When someone contacted me and was not able to find The Columbia River book locally (sold out), I realized that I only had three copies myself. Amazing. The Christmas holidays in this extreme Northwest part of Washington featured mostly warm, dry weather, temps about 50 in the daytime, 40 at night. We have had lots of fog, though, and I hate to drive in limited visibility. Today the sun is shining, because it rained hard all yesterday. More typical for Washington winter. The mountain areas got some snow to make skiers happy. Where the Columbia River narrows down between Portland and The Dalles, it often blows hard through that "canyon." Boarders love that, especially favoring an area toward the east end of the Gorge. They dart around like water-borne birds. Before dams near The Dalles (which is a town) a big waterfall stretched across the river, a popular place for local Indians to fish for salmon. They stood on precarious perches similar to swimming pool diving boards to fish and occasionally fell to their death in the swift currents. However, using safety ropes or other means was considered by some to lack courage.