We went to a Scandinavian restaurant called Broder Øst
for breakfast this morning which was basically my fantasy breakfast – cheese
and meat and smoked fish and a wee pastry. Please can I have this every day?
Everyone is a little antsy by now and I think it is because
we are closing in on the reason we are here.
Not that you need any particular reason to come here – it is beautiful
and there is lots to do and good food so who’s complaining? But the excitement is building about the Big
Dark. Everyone is talking about it,
making plans for pre-dawn wakeup calls, plotting routes and comparing proposed
viewing spots. It is THE topic of
discussion.
So we’ll spend today – surprise! – driving around and
checking out waterfalls and scenic vistas.
First stop, the ginormous Bonneville Dam and Fish Ladder. Now you may be thinking to yourself, that
sounds pretty dull, a dam and a fish ladder?
But I am here to tell you that fish ladders are really fascinating. Outside you can stand above the steps of the
ladder and see chinook and steelhead working very hard against the greenish
rushing current, to make their way into the next slot. But if you are investigative, you will go into
the underground viewing area where you will be mesmerized by the occasional
silvery fish that appears, struggling, in the window that says “A VIEW INTO THE
FISH LADDER.” Also attached to the
windows, and even more fascinating in a kind of gross way, are lamprey eels. They suction on to the window with their
mouths, so all you see are just round circles stuck to the window, at the
center of which is a black hole filled with Ws of teeth, and then tails
stretching out behind them in the current.
Izzy likes them so much that she wants a stuffed one as a souvenir, but
alas, the Bonneville Dam Gift Shop only sells plush salmon and eagles, no lamprey
eels.
At the Museum of the High Desert, we learned about how the
damming of these great rivers was devastating to the Native American
populations who depend on the salmon both physically and spiritually. The fish ladders are absolutely a way to
mitigate that, but from the inception, dams like the one at Bonneville
destroyed – by flooding, consolidation, or relocation – hundreds of acres of
Native fishing sites, burial grounds, and villages. The negotiations between the local Indians
and the US government have been going on for decades. There was some attempt to mitigate the damage
by providing in-lieu-of sites, or cash, but it has been slow and blocked and
generally not taken seriously by the Feds.
The dams provided thousands of badly-needed jobs when they were built
during the Great Depression, and they are the source of enormous amounts of
clean energy for the region. But they
come at a cultural cost. The least the
Army Corps of Engineers could do is tell this story in their visitors’ center,
highlighting the hard choices that these projects force a community to make. The most they could do? Well, they could pay up. But that is a response they chose not to
take, alas, with ease.
The story of the Columbia River Gorge is one of American
progress and setback. The setbacks came
for the First Americans, as noted above.
The progress is represented by the dams and by the Historic Columbia
River Highway a.k.a Route 30 that travels from Hood River to Troutdale. The Gorge, as any visitor will tell you, is
chockablock with stunning scenery, notably waterfalls (what?!) and spectacular
vistas. The road was built in the late-19teens/20s,
as the advent of the automobile made leisure touring a popular pastime. And no wonder, these waterfalls really are
beautiful. At Latourell Falls, Bill and
Peter clamber up a muddy path and cross under the water itself, while Izzy and
I balance on rocks below and try to take their picture. There is also the Vista House, a little
marble and glass confection way up on a bluff, built just so visitors can take
in some spectacular vistas if you are lucky enough to find a place to stop and
park. We take a billion same pictures of
it all, and sit in some traffic so heavy that we finally turn around before
getting to the most famous of all – Multnomah Falls – and then go back and
forth on the highway a couple of times looking for lunch.[1] At Cascade Locks, a stiff wind takes Bill’s
brand new Vista House hat and makes an offering of it to the Columbia
River.
Bumper sticker seen on the back of a Mini Cooper: this car is the proud parent of a Hummer.
Back in town, it is time to get serious. We provision for the coming adventure at
Rite-Aid: toilet paper, Pop-Tarts, soap,
tape, and rubber bands.
Bill to the Chatty Cashier: I have a question for you.
Chatty Cashier: I’m married.
Bill: That’s not my question.
Me:
He is too.
All that driving really wears a soul out so while Bill
checks out the windsurfing scene, Izzy and I make friends in the hot tub with a
couple who are here for - what else - the eclipse. They are riding a beautiful matched pair of
BMW bikes. They have a 4 a.m.
departure. We’ve planned for 5:30. Are we going to be late??
Dinner tonight is at a quietly hip restaurant called Kin,
where Peter has an excellent schnitzel, we all devour the most divine local mushroom
toast, and cucumber soup and hangar steak and some really excellent wine. My god you can eat well here in Oregon.
The car is packed, the wakeup call is set for 4:30 a.m. And now to bed, for tomorrow we ride before
dawn.
[1] Izzy would like it noted that she thinks one of the
best meals of the trip was this lunch at a country-store kind of place, where
she enjoyed the most excellent pulled pork.
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