The Columbia Part II

 

  On Monday evening April 17 our ship American Empress left Vancouver, Washington for Astoria, Oregon. I don't want to call it a ship because it only carried a couple of hundred passengers compared with the thousands on the ocean-going cruise ships, though our vessel was a respectable 360 feet long.

  These river boats make week long passages up and down the river between Astoria and Lewiston, Idaho, about 400 miles apart. We happened to be on an upriver cruise, though our boat would go to Astoria first for a day before heading back upriver.

  As we headed downriver (west) that first evening, we could see distant mountains. There were curious lines of rotting pilings in the river. These were the ruins of the old salmon fishery that has been greatly reduced due to the dams on the river.

  The boat ran through the night. It was still dark when I woke up, but the boat had stopped. When I checked my phone map it said we were in the quarantine basin of Astoria Harbor. History was hiccuping. But we were not being quarantined, just waiting to tie up. It was a miserable day, cold and windy, with occasional showers.

In cabin bow camera--True reality TV

  We were determined to get out for our daily constitutional. We borrowed one of the boat's big umbrellas and started down the paved hiking trail along the waterfront. We had foolishly left our warm hats and gloves in our car back at the Spokane airport. "We won't need these," we had said optimistically. Teresa suggested we look for a thrift store for winter wear. We came across a work clothes store, where I bought a watch cap. Now I looked like a real sailor.

  As we hiked along, the wind picked up and threatened to disembowel our umbrella. We could hear sea lions barking, but they stayed hidden under the piers. Now I was wanting a pair of gloves since I was the one holding the jumping umbrella. I just needed a pair of cheap cotton ones like they sell in hardware stores.  I looked up hardware stores, but when we arrived it was a vintage hardware. Teresa got a deal on a tie-dyed tee shirt, and the owner directed us to the cotton glove hardware store.

  By the time my hands were warm, the rain had increased to a downpour and we were two miles away from the boat. Fortunately, our boat's bus was waiting at the maritime museum. This bus would be following our boat's route up the river and would make a regular circuit of the points of interest in each port we stopped in. We hopped aboard the bus and returned to the boat for a warming lunch. Since we couldn't walk, we got on the bus again and rode the circuit. The bus picked up boat passengers who had been visiting the various town museums. I just could not get into the museum mindset. I needed a nap.

Cleat seats.

  One museum I did want to see in Astoria was Fort Clatsop, six miles outside Astoria. This is where Lewis and Clark spent the winter of 1805-6. The thirty men, the woman Sacagawea, and the dog Seaman spent three months in the log fort they had built. It was rain free for only six days during those three months. They were three months of hunger, sickness and boredom. It made the Rocky Mountains look like a walk in the park.

  I've been to the reconstructed fort near Washburn ND where Lewis and Clark spent their first winter, and I really wanted to add Clatsop to my collection. But the bus ride to the fort was a Premium Excursion = $99. Before the trip I had looked up other options, local transit, cab, even walking the six miles. I probably would have just paid the $99, but when I saw what a miserable day it was, I filed the whole thing under "next time".

  The next day, Wednesday, was a river day. We sailed past ocean going ships waiting to get into Portland and Vancouver. Sea lions swam alongside the boat. We passed Vancouver where we had left from and by late afternoon we were approaching the first of the eight locks we'd be passing through. The passengers were agog, as was I. Many phone videos were made. I'd seen ships go through locks before but this was the first time I'd been on the boat in the lock. 

Fill 'er up

  Going through a lock is a magical experience. The boat passes slowly, carefully, into the bottom of the huge dark chamber. Gigantic doors close behind, and water pours into the giant's bathtub. In minutes you're sixty feet higher than you were. The front doors open and off you go. The lock is made necessary by the dam which was built to control flooding on the river and produce hydro power. There are water ladders for the salmon but the dams have been very hard on the salmon. Decimated means reduced by ten percent. If there's a word for reduced by ninety percent, that's what's happened to the salmon.

  (To be continued)

Rocking Chair Lock