Once the Columbia River was called Wauna by the Comanche Indians and The 
River Oregon by the first settlers.  Then in 1792 Captain Robert Gray 
named it for his ship called Columbia Rediviva.  The Columbia River 
starts in Canada and runs through Washington and Oregon for 1,240 miles 
creating one of the ten longest rivers in the United States.  At the 
west end of the Columbia River, which flows into the Pacific Ocean, is a 
lush rain forest of giant trees, ferns, and water falls.  

Ancestors of today from the Yakama, Warm Springs, Umatilla, and Nez 
Perce tribal nations lived and fished along the river banks trading the 
dried smoked salmon with Indians, who came from all over the western 
part of North America, as well as Mexico and the southwestern United 
States.   The Native Americans used big nets on the end of a very long 
pole to catch  salmon for dinner and to make money. The Indians would 
catch about 300 salmon each day. They used nets, spears, and traps to 
capture the fish. Their nets were made of the inner bark of white cedar 
trees or from the long roots of spruce trees. The biggest fish ever 
caught in the Columbia River was a 900 pound female Sturgeon.  It was 
eleven and one-half feet long.  


(From Rowena Crest looking from Oregon state to Washington state.  
Indian tribal ceremonial grounds left on the river's edge on the 
Washington side.)

In the 1780's the white fisherman invented the fishwheel (a frame with 
scoop nets made of wire arranged like a wheel).  The fishwheel was kept 
in constant motion by the river current picking up all the fish that 
tried to swim the channel.  Wheels measured from nine to thirty-two feet 
in diameter. It is recorded that one wheel scooped an average of three 
thousand salmon a day. At one time there were seventy-six wheels turning 
day and night along the river. The Old Columbia River highway, which is 
about 100 years old, wound along Bradford's Island near the Bonneville 
Dam. A fishwheel is visible in the distance where today the powerhouse 
dams the river. Mist Falls use to flow off the rim of the Columbia River 
before several dams backed up a lot of the water.


(A barge going by Rowena State Park)
  
Today the rocky cliffs are beautiful along the Columbia River. The 
bushes on the side of the cliffs turn into gorgeous reds, oranges, 
yellows, and yellowish greens during this time of year. A berry called 
the salmonberry grows by the Columbia River.  Columbine flowers grow by 
the river as well. On the edge of the river there are pools of water 
that look like tidepools on the flat smooth rocks. The air smells like 
salty seaweed to us even though we are over 100 miles from the ocean. 

There are a lot of birds that live by the river too, like seagulls, bald 
eagles, red-tailed hawks, swallows, and sparrows.  There are different 
kinds of transportation on and beside the river such as barges, cruise 
boats (like the Sternwheeler), pleasure boats, sailboats, cars, 
motorcycles, trucks, and trains. In the Spring, Summer, and Fall there 
are windsurfers on the river windsurfing all around.  They look like 
little butterflies flying all over, but sometimes they fall. 


On our side of the river 
we see two big mountains, 
Mt. Hood and Mt. Adams. 
The Native American 
name for Mt. Hood is 
Wy-east. The Native  
American name for 
Mt. Adams  is Pah- toe.  
The beach is very 
rocky in some parts 
and is sandy in other 
parts. The water washes 
up on the rocks 
bringing things from the 
bottom of the river onto 
the rocks. The sounds 
today are very different 
from when Lewis and Clark explored through  Oregon, and when 
the pioneers on the Oregon Trail first saw the river.  When the water 
hits the rocks today it makes a soft swishy sort of plop sound, 
which is also very different from when the Indians fished the 
roaring Celilo Falls which flowed before The Dalles Dam was built.  

Thinking about the Columbia River we wonder... Who and what has the 
river passed by through all it's travels?  What did the many people in 
our past see, hear, smell, feel, and think about as they sat by the 
river's edge?  What would the people of the past think of the "mighty" 
Columbia today?

Fritz, Katie, Megan, and Michael F.


Mrs. Drummond-Windle's 4th/5th Grade Class
Mt. Adams in Washington state in the background

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