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.