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