ENHS Nature Trails Apr. 98 Article 1

Sailing the Columbia River
by Dennis Todd

It was winter when I first drove west over the Cascade Range. With breathtaking suddenness, the forest at the summit changed from snow-covered pines scattered across a dry landscape to firs, cedars, and hemlocks blanketing wet mountain slopes. Water cascaded down every sidehill. A river rushed down every canyon. Having grown up in the rain shadow of the continental divide, I was unprepared for verdant life that surrounded me. I stopped my car and stood awestruck in the rain. So much green! So much water! So much life! I was hooked. I don't know whether it was my nordic genes--my mother's family all came from the rain-soaked fjords of Norway--or a reaction to the dry years I'd spent searching for puddles and streams in the high desert where I grew up, but for the first time in my life, I felt at home in the environment.

A few years later, I built my home near a seasonal stream that chatters down a forested hillside. Trying to understand the history of the landscape, I followed the water down to Spencer Creek, to Coyote Creek, Long Tom River, Willamette River, and finally, the mighty Columbia, always looking for the bigger picture, always trying to grasp what the streams, rivers, and watersheds were like before white colonization.

I bought a canoe, then a sail rig for the canoe, then a share of a 23-foot cruising sloop. My fascination with water and wind escalated. One day, it occurred to me that a sailboat could probably navigate the Columbia River from its headwaters to the sea, because virtually the whole river was impounded by dams. I suggested the hare-brained idea to my friend Ed Moye, who was immediately intrigued. I found that several people had taken rowboats, canoes, and kayaks down the river, but there was no record of a sailboat navigating the length of the river. We could be the first!

I read the journals of Lewis and Clark, histories of the fur trade, reports of the Corps of Engineers, accounts of the discovery of the river's mouth, narratives of David Thompson's exploration of the upper river. At the University of Oregon library, I stumbled across a rare treasure The Columbia Unveiled, by M. J. Lorraine. It was a narrative of a lone man's voyage down the largely unknown river, through fearsome rapids and challenging conditions. He was the first on record to navigate the whole river in one voyage and the last to do so before the river was changed forever by dams.

In 1920, on Lorraine's 67th birthday, the idea had come to him to navigate the Columbia River from its headwaters to the sea. The following spring, he assembled his camping gear and a small set of hand tools, then set off by train for the headwaters of the river. He bought lumber, paint, nails, and oarlocks along the way, and, after arriving at the headwaters, built his 17-foot boat in 10 days.

Without fanfare, he set off downriver. Sometimes he ran rapids, sometimes he emptied his boat and lined it down, sometimes he hired men to help him portage around cataracts. He endured clouds of mosquitoes, incessant rain, occasional hunger, arduous physical labor, and adverse winds. Always the analytical engineer, he methodically recorded his observations. One hundred fifty days later, he reached Astoria, fit and vigorous though he had lost 30 of his normal 165 pounds.

Seventy-five years later, when Ed and I finally beached our catamaran at Clatsop Spit, a mile from the river's mouth, and walked across the sand to jump into the Pacific Ocean, I felt the same exhaustion and satisfaction that Lorraine must have felt when he finished his voyage. I will forever remain in awe of the old riverman. Compared to his voyage, ours was a paddle in the park. I thank him for showing me the way.

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