American Sabbatical 035: 10/18/96

10/18.. Astoria

We didn’t go close enough to the water this morning to step in quicksand. The storm had lulled during the night, but by the time we were done playing with puter in the AM it was winding up for another pitch. Long Beach, Washington, made from exhalations of the Columbia, boasts that it is “The Longest Beach In The World.” And you can drive 50 miles on the sands, if you so desire. We didn’t. It was surfing weather, and the megarollers were cresting-up way offshore, booming onto the beach, spume blowing off the tops. Dark squall-lines marched in from outside, and we cut our stroll short when bolts of lightening snapped in the darkness to the westward.

Peggy wanted to visit the World Kite Museum, just a block off the beach, so I sat in the Red Owl and played with pen and ink. KABOOM. Lightening and hail pounding on the Owl. Then SIZZLE-KABLAM. A hard strike real close. Maybe a kite museum isn’t the place to be when Old Ben starts playing upstairs. The fire sirens started screaming. Turns out the local school was ground zero, about half a block away. Small fire. Nobody hurt. But if He’s aiming for teachers.. we slunk out of Long Beach with our tailfeathers tucked low.

Before we left Washington State, I had one last quest to fulfill here. I’d read a journal kept by a drunken deadbeat husband from Boston who settled on this coast in the 1850’s, and I wanted to remember his name, and figure out where he’d acted out his tales. The director at the L&C center knew all. The ex-Bean Towner was James Swan, and his homestead at Gray’s Harbor had been where the road we took crossed over the Bone River (called Bone because of the remains of a Chinook village decimated by imported disease). I had a clear memory of the place, with a slow gig winding among drenched marshes, from the day before. Swan’s journal, incidentally, is a delight. All about a rowdy crew of outcasts, and the last natives, living in a communal paradise of oysters and alcohol until commercial zeal and government ambition spoiled the fun. Our interpretive informant also told us that Swan was a proto-anthropologist in his later years, who hung out with the Makah and sent materials and info to Papa Franz (Boas), Margaret’s mentor.. a nice circle of serendipity.

Today’s Astoria ranks, well it just ranks. We decided to roll on along the Columbia, so we put the Owl’s face back into the downpour. The thought of communing with the dismals at Lewis and C’s Fort Clatsop was too drear to contemplate. There were hills and woods just beyond the curtains of rain, but all we caught were dark impressions. We did see houses on barges (a local tax-dodge?) lined up along the John Day River (town managers take note), and got a marvelous view of the Trojan Nuclear Power Plant rearing its one macho cooling tower beside a black ball of a containment vessel. We thought that this was a perfect opportunity for Christo to make a safesex statement. Otherwise the drive along the big C to Portland was just a wet game of follow the semis. The tall timber may be out there somewhere, but all we saw was secondgrowth hardwoods, and “hybrid cottonwood” plantations (?). As you near the Portland metro the Columbia Valley widens into the rich promised bottomland of the 1840s, now thickly planted with suburban housing. Where the storied river of paradise, the Willamette, joins the flood, at the city limits, the industrial urb erupts and we were jammed into 10-lane rush-hour bumpercars between tanktowns and railyards with a view of the bulk loading docks. The muscles of commerce flexing to a late Friday beat.

The snowcapped Cascades were somewhere behind those towering black clouds to the north, hidden by sheets of rain. Mt. St. Helens, Mt. Adams, Mt. Hood. But like Rainier at Seattle, the sky gods made it all obscure to us. Rain goddesses were out dancing.

We sashayed off the multi-lane into clogged sidestreets, moreorless at random, and fetched up next to Powell’s City of Books, one of Seth’s must-sees.. and you must. Powell’s has to be the best bookstore in the world. Oops, there I go, Americanizing. It sure is a dandy place to while away a Friday rush in the rain. Course we were just windowshopping.. well, we did buy a couple.. anyhow. A store that mixes new and used, that has as many titles about American radical history as about U.S. military history, that shelves its periodicals in the cafe.. we could hardly scratch the surface in two hours.

Lewis and Clark ended their transcontinental journey at the mouth of the Columbia River (which divides the states of Oregon and Washington). We had followed in their footsteps at many places (especially through the Lochsa wilderness of Idaho) and we wanted to see where their travels ended. There is an interpretive center in a building on top of the cliff guarding the north side of the river entrance, across from their winter camp at Astoria. A slide show and exhibit gives many details about their journey. There were many artifacts associated with the men and trip in the exhibit’s display cases - trade goods, a commemorative medal given to First People chiefs, a uniform coat.

Lewis and Clark did not blithely start off. The trip was well-planned and well-provisioned. Their movements and actions were based on information they collected, and logic. Before they left they both studied useful skills - surveying, botany, geology, mapmaking,. They took a 7 tons of supplies with them - gunpowder, lead, blankets, axes etc., and the equipment to meet their needs - a forge, a mill, medicines. They selected men with army and frontier experience and took a black labrador pet named Seaman who was an excellent watchdog during the trip. They were particularly lucky in their choice of hired voyageurs, since one had a Shoshone wife (Sacajaweah) whose brother helped them secure horses in the Rockies. They took extraordinary notes accompanied with drawings and maps. They collected over 200 plants which they pressed and transported to Washington. Thomas Jefferson received and kept many artifacts from their trip.

Their success in dealing with First People is shown by the statistics - only two men from the many tribes they contacted were killed. They lost no men to hostiles.