The Columbia River Part 18

It is planned by the Government to overcome these obstructions by a ca.n.a.l and locks. The expense is estimated at four and a half million dollars.

The resulting advantages will be vast. The greater part of the Inland Empire will be thrown open to steamer compet.i.tion with the railroads. The freight tariff at the present time is heavier than in any other part of the United States. If the productive capacity of the region were not extraordinary, it could not have developed as it has with such a handicap.

It is estimated that by the reduction of freight which will follow steamboat navigation, the Inland Empire will save not less than two million dollars annually. In the tremendous movement now sweeping over our country to improve waterways, the Columbia will bear its part and receive its improvement. It will be a great day for the storied and scenic River of the West when some magnificent excursion steamer descends the thousand miles from Revelstoke to the outer headlands. And with ca.n.a.ls at Celilo, Priest Rapids, and Kettle Falls, with some improvements at minor points, at no immoderate expense, the thing can be done.

And now we reach the city of The Dalles. The traveller will find this a place hardly surpa.s.sed in historic interest by any other on the River. The old trading posts, the United States fort, the missions, the Indian wars, the early immigrations, the steamboat enterprises, all unite to give rare value to this picturesque "capital of the sheep country." For, aside from historic interest, The Dalles surpa.s.ses any other point in the United States as a wool s.h.i.+pping station. It is now becoming also the centre of a farming and orchard country. For it is now understood that the rolling hill land for many miles is adapted to wheat raising and to fruit of the finest quality. If our visitors to the River should happen to be in The Dalles in autumn they would find at the Wasco County Horticultural Fair one of the most attractive and appetising displays of fruit that the whole country affords.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Cabbage Rock, Four Miles North of The Dalles. Photo. by Lee Moorehouse, Pendleton.]

The scenery about The Dalles, with the majestic River, the great white cones of Hood and Adams, and wide sweeps of rolling prairie and hollowed hills, is n.o.ble and inspiring. It may be considered the gateway of the open prairie to the east and the pa.s.sage of the Cascade Mountains by the River to the west.

CHAPTER IV

Where River and Mountain Meet, and the Traces of the Bridge of the G.o.ds

The Most Unique Point yet on the River--River, Mountains, and Tide--The Only Place where the Cascade Range is Cleft--Distant View of Mt. Hood and Gradual Appearance of Lesser Heights--Limits of Region where River and Mountain Meet--Geological Character of this Region--Forces of Upheaval and Erosion and Volcano--We May Journey by Rail, by Steamboat, Horseback, Waggon, or Afoot, but we Prefer a Rowboat--Paha Cliffs--On the Track of Speelyei--Memaloose Island--Hood River and White Salmon Valleys and their Fruit--Beginnings of the Great Heights--The Sunken Forest--The Bridge of the G.o.ds--Loowit, Wiyeast, and Klickitat--Difference in Climate between the East-of-the-Mountains and the West--Sheridan's Old Blockhouse--Pa.s.sing the Locks--Petrified Trees--Fish-wheels--Castle Rock--Ascent of Castle Rock--Story of Wehatpolitan--St. Peter's Dome--Oneonta Gorge--Multnomah Falls--Cape Horn--Getting out of the Mountains--Cape Eternity and Rooster Rock--This Section of the Journey Ended--Comparison of the River with Other Great Scenes.

In the long journey down our River we have had a panoramic view of towering mountains and broad plains, foaming cataracts and tranquil lakes, fruitful valleys and volcanic desolations, growing cities and lonely wastes. All ill.u.s.trate that infinite variety of the River which imparts its unrivalled charm.

But now we are approaching a point which is unique even in the midst of the unique, varied in never-ending variety, sublime even in almost continuous sublimity, singular even upon our most singular River. This place is where the mountains and the River meet. By mountains we mean the great chain of the Cascades, which under various names parallels the Pacific Coast all the way from Alaska to Southern California. But not only do mountains and River meet here, but the ocean sends his greetings, for at the lower end of the rapids which here mark the gateway of the mountains, the first pulse-beat of the Pacific, the first throb of the tide, is discernible, though it is a hundred and sixty miles farther to where the River is lost in that greatest of the oceans. River, Mountains, Ocean,--a very symposium of sublimities.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Eagle Rock, just above Shoshone Falls in Snake River.

Photo. by W. D. Lyman.]

There is, too, another especially interesting feature of this spot, and that is, it is the only place for twelve hundred miles where the Cascade-Sierra Range is cleft asunder. In fact it is the only place in the entire extent of the range where it is cut squarely across. This fact imparts not only scenic interest, but commercial value. It is the only water-level route from the seacoast to the Inland Empire.

The place where River and mountains meet had been heralded to us long before we reached it. For as we pa.s.sed the plains of the Umatilla we got an intimation of the mountain majesty which we were approaching.

Clear-limned against the south-western horizon, a glistening cone, cold-white in the earliest morning, rosy-red with the rising dawn, and warm with the yellow halo of noon, fixes our eyes and bids us realise that from the far vision of a hundred miles we can see and wors.h.i.+p at the shrine of Oregon's n.o.blest and most historic peak, Mt. Hood. As we speed on down the current we begin to see long lines of lesser peaks rising to the westward. The prairies of the Umatilla have been succeeded by picturesque bare hills, and these by ragged palisades of columnar basalt, with higher hills yet, crowned with gnarled oak-trees. Of the wheat-fields and orchards and sheep ranges centring at The Dalles, we have already spoken, and we have paused at Celilo and gazed on the historic "Timm," or the Tumwater Falls, and the "Big Chute," observing especially the Government ca.n.a.l and locks now started, from whose completion such vast commercial possibilities are plainly foreshadowed. Our present quest is therefore yet farther on, to the gateway of the mountains. This is found at the "Cascade Locks," fifty miles below Dalles City. The section of river which we have styled "Where River and Mountain Meet" may be considered as extending from the mouth of the Klickitat River, a few miles west of Dalles City, to Rooster Rock, about thirty miles east of Vancouver. The distance between these points is about fifty miles, and through this s.p.a.ce we may see all the evidences of a t.i.tanic struggle between the master forces of fire and water and upheaval. As we descend the majestic stream with the majestic banks on either hand and mark the apparent ancient water-marks hundreds of feet above our heads, we recall the Indian myth of Wishpoosh in an earlier chapter. The opinion of geologists in regard to this extraordinary pa.s.sageway of the River is that it represents ages of gradual elevation of the mountain chain and a cotemporary erosion by the River, so that as the heights became higher, the river bed became deeper. The one-time sh.o.r.e slowly mounted skyward, and as the new upheavals rose from the ocean deeps the lines of erosion were in turn wrought on them, and river sh.o.r.e succeeded river sh.o.r.e through long ages. With these fundamental forces of upheaval and erosion there were eras of local seismic and volcanic activity, more cataclysmic in nature, from which there came the magnificent pillars of columnar basalt and the first trenching of the profound chasms which subsequent lateral streams carved through the rising base of the great range.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Stehekin Canon, 5000 Feet Deep. Photo. by W. D. Lyman.]

To view this great picture gallery of history and physiography, we may have the choice of nearly every method of travel, horseback, afoot, by team (though the waggon roads are not continuous), or by train, on either bank. The river himself offers his broad back for any kind of craft.

Several swift and elegant steamers make daily trips between Portland and The Dalles, pa.s.sing through the Government ca.n.a.l and lock at the Cascades.

Launches, scows, sailing craft of almost every kind, are in constant movement, loaded with every sort of commodity. Of all the means of transit, however, we will, if you please, float down the stately stream in our well-tried skiff. Independent as the Coyote G.o.d Speelyei when he used to pa.s.s up and down the river, transforming presumptuous beasts or mortals into rock at will, we will drift with the current, partaking of the very life of the rich and multifarious nature about us. We can pause as we wish on jutting crag or fir-crowned promontory or at the foot of spouting cataract. We can camp for the night beneath some wide-spreading pine, and breathe the balsamic fragrance of the "continuous woods." We can trace the historic stages of bateaux or canoes or immigrant flatboats, and open and shut the camera at will amid the open volumes of our heroic age of discovery and settlement, or the yet vaster and grander epoch of Nature's creative day. No palace car or even floating palace of steamer for us when we can have two or three days of such unalloyed bliss in an open skiff moving at our own sweet will.

We shall find here a marked change in the movement of the river as compared with its prevailing character in the five hundred miles from the British line to The Dalles. The impetuous might above has become transformed into a slow and stately majesty. With the exception of the five miles at the Cascades round which the ca.n.a.l pa.s.ses, the river below The Dalles is deep and calm, seldom less than a mile in width.

Of the almost numberless objects at which we level eye and camera, we can here describe but few.

A fitting introduction to this stage of our journey is found in Paha Cliffs at the mouth of the Klickitat, a perpendicular bastion of lava rock, not remarkable for height, but of such regularity and symmetry as to seem the work of men's hands. A short distance below the Paha Cliffs, also on the Was.h.i.+ngton side of the river, is a most singular semicircular wall of gigantic area, surrounding on the west what seems to be an immense sunken enclosure. The Indians have a story to the effect that once Speelyei, being on his way up the river before this wall existed, paused here to perform some unworthy deed (for Speelyei was a curious mixture of the n.o.ble and the base). Having done the deed, he began to fear that it would become known. So he hurriedly built a wall to keep in the report.

But while he was engaged in building on the west, the report got out on the east. The wall that we now see is the remains of his building. Of a similar order of Indian fancy is the "Baby-on-the-Board" and the "Coyote Head" farther down the river, also on the north side. The Coyote Head is near White Salmon. It commemorates the transformation of a presumptuous Klickitat chief who wished to proclaim himself equal to Speelyei, so he crowned himself with a coyote skin and took his station on the great rock wall above the mouth of the White Salmon. And there he remains still, for Speelyei with a wave of the hand transformed the offending chieftain into rock.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Steamer _Dalles City_ Descending the Cascades of the Columbia.]

A few miles below the mouth of the Klickitat, there stands in mid-channel one of the most curious and interesting objects on the river, "Memaloose Island." This desolate islet of basalt was one of the most noted of the frequent "death" or burial places of the Indians. They were accustomed to build platforms and place the dead upon them. Apparently this island was used for its gruesome purpose for centuries. A large white marble monument facing the south attracts the attention of all travellers, and as we pa.s.s we see that it is sacred to the memory of Vic Trevett. He was a prominent pioneer of The Dalles, and in the course of his various experiences became a special friend of the Indians, who looked upon him with such love and reverence that when his end approached he gave directions that his permanent burial-place and monument should be on the place sacred to his aboriginal friends.

We have spoken of the region between the mouth of the Klickitat and Rooster Rock as the mountain section of the river. But as we move on down the stream we discover that there are numerous nooks and glens adjoining it which are the choicest locations for fruit and garden ranches. At a point just about midway from The Dalles to the Cascades there is a remarkable break in the otherwise unbroken and constantly rising mountain walls. This break const.i.tutes one of the most charming residence regions on the Columbia sh.o.r.es, and at the same time the avenue of approach to the most magnificent of mountains. There are here two great valleys. One of these is that of Hood River, better called by its musical Indian name Waukoma, "The Place of Cottonwoods." It proceeds directly from the foot of Mt. Hood, twenty-five miles distant to the south. The valley on the north bears a similar relation to Mt. Adams, forty miles distant, and is drained by the White Salmon River. From favourable points on the River, or from the heights which border it, we obtain views of the two peaks which create an unappeasable longing to tread their crags and snow-fields. Though truly mountain valleys, these two valleys are of s.p.a.cious extent. They are moreover so richly provided with sun and water and all the ingredients of soil necessary to produce the choicest fruit that they have become the very paradise of the orchardist. The Hood River apples grace the tables of royalty in the old world and delight the palates of epicures in both hemispheres, while to the eyes and the nostrils of any one of delicate sensibilities their colour and fragrance impart a still more aesthetic charm.

As we pa.s.s on down the river from those two vales of beauty and plenty, we begin to see the first of those lofty crags on either hand, the basaltic pinnacles, turretted, spired, castellated, which make the distinguis.h.i.+ng feature of Columbia River scenery for these fifty miles. Mitch.e.l.l's Point, Sh.e.l.l Mountain, Wind Mountain, Bald Mountain, and Mt. Defiance are the first group. The lowest of the group attains an elevation of nearly two thousand feet, almost perpendicular, while at the summit of the crags rise a thousand feet higher yet long gra.s.sy slopes alternating with splendid forests.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Memaloose Island, Columbia River. Photo. by E. H.

Moorehouse.]

As we near the Cascades we note another curious phenomenon. This is the sunken forest on either side. At low water these old tree trunks become very observable, and their general appearance suggests at once that they are the remains of a former forest submerged by a permanent rise in the river. This explanation is confirmed by the fact that from The Dalles to the Cascades the river is very deep and sluggish. When we reach the Cascades a third fact is revealed and that is that at the chief cataract the river bank is continually sliding into the river. Trees are thrown down by this slow sliding process, railroad tracks require frequent adjustment, and on clear, still nights there is sometimes heard a grinding sound, while a tremor from the subterranean regions seems to indicate that the upper stratum is sliding over the lower toward the river. In fact, the mighty force of the stream is all the time eating into the bank and gradually drawing it down.

From those and other indications the conclusion has been drawn that some prodigious avalanche of rock at a not long distant time dammed the river at this point, creating the present Cascades and raising the water above so as to submerge the forest, whose remains now attract the attention of the observer at the low stage of water.

To confirm this theory we have the Indian story of the "tomanowas bridge,"

the quaintest and most interesting of the long list of native myths.

The region around the old site of the "Bridge of the G.o.ds" may be considered as the dividing line between the Inland Empire and the Coast Region. Above, it is dry, sunny, breezy, and electrical, the land of wheat-field and sheep ranges, cow-boys and horses and mining camps. Below, it is cool, cloudy, still, and soft, the region of the clover and the dairy, the salmon cannery, the logging camp, and boats of every sort.

Above, the rocks look dry and hard, and glitter in the sun. Below, the rocks are draped in moss, and from every canon and ledge there seems to issue a foaming torrent. It is, in truth, the meeting place of mountain and River.

On all sides around the Cascades there are objects of natural and historic interest. Stupendous crags, often streaked with snow, lose themselves in the scud of the ocean which is almost constantly flying eastward to be absorbed in the more fervid suns.h.i.+ne of up-river. Perhaps the most impressive of these vast heights is Table Mountain, on the north side of the River, near the locks, said to have been one of the supports of the "Bridge of the G.o.ds." Its colours of saffron and crimson add to the splendour and grandeur of its appearance. Just below the locks on the north side stood the old blockhouse built by a young lieutenant in 1856 as a defence against the Klickitat Indians. The blockhouse is now in ruins, but the name of its builder has been fairly well preserved, for it is--Phil Sheridan.

The total extent of the cataract at the Cascades is five miles and the descent is about forty-five feet, of which half is at the upper end at the point pa.s.sed by the locks. We enter the locks in the wake of one of the steamers, and in a few minutes find our craft emerging from the lower end of the ma.s.sive structure into the white water which bears us swiftly down the remaining part of the Cascades. It looks dangerous to commit an open boat to that sweeping current, but as a matter of fact the course of the river is straight and deep, though swift, and it is entirely feasible for any one of reasonable skill to manage a small boat in the pa.s.sageway to the tranquil expanses below.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Horseshoe Basin, near Lake Chelan, Wash. Photo. by T. W.

Tolman, Spokane.]

As we speed swiftly down the river, we note the little station of Bonneville, named for the historic fur-trader whom the fascinating pages of Irving have brought down to this era. A short distance below Bonneville our eyes catch sight of a white sign-board bearing the words, "Petrified Tree." Sure enough, there is the tree, and a marvellously fine specimen of silicification it is, too. When the railroad was built along the river bank at this point, the graders ran into a perfect forest of petrified wood. The logs and limbs were piled up by the cord near Bonneville, but the larger part has been taken in various directions for cabinets and ornaments.

But a short time is needed to fly down the Cascades, and at their lower end we reach what may be called the Lower River. For here a slight rise and fall of tide betokens the presence of the ocean. No more rapids on the River, but a tranquil, majestic flood, broadening like a sea toward its final destination, a hundred and sixty miles away.

If we were to describe in detail all the marvels of beauty and grandeur and physical interest which engage our attention at every stage of the journey, our volume would end with this chapter, for there would be no room for anything more. One cla.s.s of objects of curious interest to almost all travellers, though of no special charm to scientist or nature lover, is the fish-wheels at the Cascades. These are very ingenious contrivances set in the midst of a swift place in the stream and made to revolve by the current. As they revolve, the huge vans dipping the water scoop up almost incredible numbers of the salmon which have made the Columbia famous the world over. A weir is built to turn the fish from the outside course into the channel of the wheel, with the result that numbers are taken almost beyond belief, sometimes as high as eight tons a day by a single wheel.

Another picturesque sight, both at the Celilo Falls and the Cascades, is the Indian fishermen perched upon the rocks and with spear and dip-net seeking to fill their larder with the n.o.ble salmon.

But now to contemplate the works of G.o.d and Nature rather than those of man. We must, as already seen, by the necessities of s.p.a.ce, ask our readers to share with us only the masterpieces of this gallery of wonders.

Probably all visitors to the River would agree that the following scenes most nearly express the spirit and character of the sublime whole: Castle Rock, St. Peter's Dome, Oneonta Gorge, Multnomah Falls, Cape Horn, and Rooster Rock. To these individual scenes we should add, as the very crown of all, the view at the lower Cascades both up and down the great gorge.

With the majestic heights, scarred with the tempests and the earthquakes of the ages, swathed in drifting clouds and oftentimes tipped with snow, and the s.h.i.+mmering of the River, and the answering grandeur of sky and forest,--this grouping of the whole is more inspiring than any one scene.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Castle Rock, Columbia River. (Copyright by Kiser Photograph Co., 1902.)]

The first special object to fix our attention below the Cascades is Castle Rock. It is an isolated cliff of basalt, nine hundred feet high, covering about seventeen acres, its summit thinly clothed with stunted trees. It stands right on the verge of the River, nearly perpendicular on all sides, marvellous for symmetry from every point of view. At first sight one gets no conception of its magnitude, for it is dwarfed by the stupendous pinnacles, three thousand feet high, which compose the walls of the canon.

It is said that some Eastern lady, seeing it from a steamer's deck, exclaimed, "See that fine rock! I wish I had it in my back yard at home."

Being informed that she would have to find a pretty s.p.a.cious back yard to accommodate an ornament covering seventeen acres, she was too much astonished to believe it. But to any one viewing it deliberately and from every point of view, and especially landing, as we in our happy method of travel can do, and going about its base, it becomes evident that Castle Rock might be called a mountain in almost any other place. It was for a long time regarded as an impossible thing to reach the summit. For some years there was a standing offer of one thousand dollars for any one who would place the Stars and Stripes on the summit. But no one took the dare.

At last in 1901, when the rivalry between two steamboat lines was keen, Frank Smith of the Regulator Line, with George Purser and Charles Church, accomplished the seemingly impossible, and, by ropes and staples and fingers and teeth and toenails, scaled the almost perpendicular walls, and unfurled the Regulator banner to the breeze where no flag ever flew before, nor human foot ever trod. It was probably the most risky climb ever taken in the North-west. A little later, by the aid of the experience of this party, several others attained the summit. Among these were George Maxwell, who set the Oregon Railway and Navigation flag as high as that of the Regulator had gone, and two photographers, W. C. Staatz and George M.

Weister. With them went a young lady, Lilian White, who, though she did not reach the summit, went higher than any of her s.e.x have gone. Later Mr.

Whitney, manager of the great McGowan Cannery, went up and placed the Stars and Stripes upon the top.

[Ill.u.s.tration: The Lyman Glacier and Glacier Lake in North Star Park Near Lake Chelan. Photo. by W. D. Lyman.]

We said that no earlier human steps had trodden that beetling height and that Miss White had gone higher than any of her s.e.x. But if we accept the romantic Indian tale of Wehatpolitan, our statement needs correction. For this story is to the following effect. Wehatpolitan was the beautiful child of the princ.i.p.al chieftain in these parts. She loved and was loved by a young chief of a neighbouring tribe. But when she was sought by her lover in marriage, the stern father denied the request and killed the messenger. But the lovers were secretly married and met clandestinely at various times. In course of time the father, thinking the infatuation of the forbidden lovers to be at an end, gave Wehatpolitan to a chief whom he had favoured. The latter kept constant watch of the girl, and one night he saw her stealing steathily away, and tracking her he found the secret of her midnight wanderings. As soon as the new lover had imparted to the father these tidings, the latter with deep duplicity sent word to the other chieftain that if he would come to the lodge, all would be forgiven and he and Wehatpolitan would be duly wed. Rejoicing at the happy outcome to all their troubles, the faithful lover hastened to his own, but no sooner had he arrived than he was seized upon and slain by the revengeful parent. Not long after this the heartbroken girl gave birth to a child, but her father at once decreed that the child must share its father's fate. Hearing this pitiless word, Wehatpolitan caught up her child and disappeared. All that day they searched in vain, and on the next day, the Indians heard wailings from the top of Castle Rock, from which they soon discovered that the poor girl with her child had gone to that apparently inaccessible height. The old chief, repenting of his harsh course, called aloud to his daughter to come down and he would forgive her. But fearing new treachery she paid no heed, and the wailings continued. Overcome with grief the remorseful chief offered all kinds of rewards for any one who would climb the rock and save Wehatpolitan and her child. But though many tried, none could succeed. On the third day the wailings ceased. Then the half-crazed father himself essayed to climb. He seemed to succeed, for at least he disappeared among the crevices of the rock high up toward the summit. But he never returned. The Indians thought that he reached the top and that finding the lifeless bodies of his daughter and her child he had probably given up all hope of getting down and had lain down and died with them. But even yet heart-breaking wailings come down from time to time, especially when the Chinook blows soft and damp up the river, and these wailings have been thought by Indians to be the voice of the spirit of the unhappy Wehatpolitan, because it could never descend to the happy hunting grounds of the tribe.

Another native idea is to the effect that Castle Rock (which ought to be called Wehatpolitan's gravestone) is hollow and is filled with the bodies of former generations now turned to stone. As a matter of fact, the party of 1901 found evidence of a great cave, but so far there has been found no practical ingress. So the interior is still an unexplored mystery. Immense quant.i.ties of spear-heads and arrow-heads are found along the river at this point, and these are apparently of an earlier age than most of those found in this country.