[Paddlewise] Indian Country

For some reason I always seem to choose the first winter storm of the season
to cross the Cascades and kayak. This is the third year in a row. One would
think that I'd get a clue. One would be wrong.

This time I challenged the tradition by leaving home knowing that a winter
storm was brewing. I even chose to take one of the highest passes through
the mtns: the 4500 ft White Pass. Two lanes, high, twisty, high, cold, high,
dark, high.... did I mention high? It took me an hour to wind the 25 miles
over the worst of it and all while towing "Princess", my 21-foot Streamline
trailer born in 1970. There were no incidents and I managed to make the
Wal-Mart parking lot in Longview, WA by about 11pm.

In 2005 Pam and I paddled to the site of the Chinook Indian village named
"Quathlapotle" which was visited by the members of the Lewis and Clark party
in November of 1805 and again in March of 1806 and written about in the
various journals. This ear;oer visit, and the ties between Cathlapotle (as
it is spelled today) and my wife's family, have drawn me back a couple of
times. I can't get over the fact that 200 years ago this area, only about 20
miles from Portland, Oregon, is nowhere near as populated today as it was
then. The journals of Lewis and Clarke - and those of other members of the
party - are full of descriptions of village after village and camp after
camp after they left the Columbia River Gorge and got to the vicinity of
Portland. Today our highways aren't so much water (although with the rain we
had last weekend they were mostly water) and many of the village sites are
only accessible by boat.

Pam and I had launched at Ridgefield, WA which is a small town located on
Bachelor Slough. The confluence of Bachelor Slough with the Columbia River
is the site of the former village of Cathlapotle - described by Clarke as a
village of 14 plankhouses which historians think would have housed some 900
persons. This was, to the expedition members, a "large" village. However
there were many more villages on Sauvie's Island just across the Columbia
River and even more around the corner and up the Lewis River. For the
Chinooks - a band of people held together mostly by their common language -
this was a major population center.

This time, when I got to Ridgefield, I was not impressed. There was a
strategically placed sign saying "Keep Out" at the head of the ramp leading
to the marina office and a kayak business. The "kayak launch" area next to a
hazardous waste site that had dilapidated docks and a wire cable across the
entrance along with a scattering of "no parking" signs in the parking lot.
Even so, the Port of Ridgefield still wanted the same $6 to park a vehicle
there as they did over at the new launch area; the one with heated toilets
instead of a 95% full porta potti. So instead of launching there and
repeating the trip Pam and I made in 2005 I retreated to make camp at a
nearby state park that boasted of some waterfront.

After cutting the Princess loose at our campsite at Paradise Point State
Park (hooked up to electricity and warming nicely) I discovered a sandy
beach launch under the I-5 freeway bridges on the east fork of the Lewis
River. No one knew whether there were any rapids between the beach and the
Columbia River but my GPS said it was only 3' and how bad could rapids that
had only a 3' drop be, anyway. I went back to the Princess and got garbed up
in my drysuit with poly undersuit and drove down to the beach and put the
Mariner II in the water.

I had chosen the Mariner II because it's the fastest kayak I've ever paddled
- by far - and is still stable and comfortable. I knew that I was going to
face some currents paddling rivers unless I lucked out in my choice of tides
(I didn't). It turned out to be the perfect choice as I still managed 2.5 to
3.2 kts even going upstream against the tide and river flow. Downstream that
sucker just rocketed along.

By the time I reached the railroad bridge my GPS chart seemed to me to say
that I had another 4 or 5 nm to go to get to the point that Cathlapotle once
sat upon and was thinking that maybe getting back to the launch site would
be a longer slog than I was ready for. Little did I realize - I only
discovered this the next day - I was less than a mile from the point and
could have easily reached it. Next time.

Even though I didn't get all the way to Cathlapotle this time, I did get
into the "feel" of the river as ancient freeways. And even though there are
many signs of modern man (dikes and poles - power, telephone, and moorings)
it still didn't take much imagination to think about what this must have
been like 200 years ago where canoes would pull out just to take a closer
look at the white guys in the canoes.

Photos and more words about the trip on www.nwkayaking.net. I returned home
via the Columbia River Gorge and was driving home in sunshine an hour after
I left Portland. For some reason, though, the dark brooding weather on the
coast seemed to highlight the trip instead of ruining it. But it could have
been worse without the drysuit. And the snappy rain hat Pam gave me. :)

Craig Jungers
Moses Lake, WA
www.nwkayaking.net
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