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.
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