The Volcanoes of
Lewis and Clark
Lewis and Clark
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April 4 - 5, 1806 Back on the Columbia - The Willamette Valley |
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The Volcanoes of Lewis and Clark Map of the Journey Volcanoes, Basalt Plateaus, Major Rivers, etc. The Volcanoes Mount Adams, Mount Hood, Mount Jefferson, Mount Rainier, and Mount St. Helens CALENDAR of the Journey October 1805 to June 1806 Along the Journey Pacific Northwest Maps - Columbia River, Volcanoes, Flood Basalts, Missoula Floods, Geology, etc. The Corps of Discovery The Journey of Lewis and Clark About the Reference Materials The Journals, Biddle/Allen, DeVoto, Gass, Moulton, Topo Maps, and others USGS Lewis and Clark Links Links to USGS Websites highlighting the Lewis and Clark Journey Resources Publications Referenced and Websites Visited |
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April 3 Five Volcanoes and a Side-Trip Up the Willamette |
April 4-5
Back on the Columbia, The Willamette Valley Cottonwood Beach, Sauvie Island, Willamette River, Multnomah Channel, Puget Trough and Willamette Valley and Boring Lava Field, Willamette Falls and Oregon City |
CONTINUE
April 6-8 Columbia River Gorge, Cottonwood Beach Camp to Shepperd's Dell |
On October 7, 1805, Lewis and Clark and the
"Corps of Discovery" began their journey
down the Clearwater River and into the volcanics
of the Pacific Northwest. The Corps travelled from the
Clearwater to the Snake and down the
"Great Columbia", finally reaching the
Pacific Ocean on November 15, 1805.
Along the journey they encountered the
lava flows of the Columbia Plateau,
river channels carved by the great "Missoula Floods",
and the awesome beauty of five Cascade Range volcanoes.
[Click map for brief summary about the area] |
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Heading for Home - April 1806
Back on the Columbia - The Willamette Valley |
| Between March 31 and April 5, 1806 Lewis and Clark camped near present day Cottonwood Beach, just upstream of Washougal, Washington. |
| Friday, April 4, 1806 |
| The hunters were still out in every direction. Those from the opposite side of the river returned with the flesh of a bear and some venison, but the flesh of six deer and an elk which they had killed was so meagre and unfit for use, that they had left it in the woods. Two other deer were brought in, but as the game seemed poor, we despatched a large party to some low grounds on the south, six miles above us, to hunt there until our arrival. As usual many of the Indians came to our camp, some descending the rivers with their families, and others from below with no object except to gratify their curiosity. |
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Cottonwood Beach: Between March 31 and April 5, 1806 the Corps of Discovery camped near present day Cottonwood Beach in Washougal. From this campsite, William Clark also led a group of men back down the Columbia to discover the Willamette River, which they had missed on both their outward and return voyages. Presently, the cities of Washougal and Camas, Port of Camas/Washougal, and the Clark County Parks Department, are collaborating on creating a regional park at this location and it has been named Capt. William Clark Park at Cottonwood Beach. -- City of Washougal, Washington, Website, 2002 
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| The visit of captain Clarke to the Multnomahs, now enabled us to combine all that we had seen or learnt of the neighbouring countries and nations. Of these the most important spot is Wappatoo island [Sauvie Island], a large extent of country lying between the Multnomah [Willamette River], and an arm of the Columbia, which we have called Wappatoo inlet [Multnomah Channel], and separated from the main land by a sluice eighty yards wide which at the distance of seven miles up the Multnomah [Willamette River] connects that river with the inlet. The island [Sauvie Island] thus formed is about twenty miles long, and varies in breadth from five to ten miles: the land is high and extremely fertile, and on most parts is supplied with a heavy growth of cottonwood, ash, the large-leafed ash, and sweet willow, the black alder, common to the coast, having now disappeared. But the chief wealth of this island consists of the numerous ponds in the interior, abounding with the common arrowhead (sagittaria sagittifolia) to the root of which is attached a bulb growing beneath it in the mud. This bulb, to which the Indians give the name of wappatoo, is the great article of food, and almost the staple article of commerce on the Columbia. ...... |
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Sauvie Island: Sauvie Island contains approximately 24,000 acres of land and lakes, and had its origin in alluvial deposits from the Columbia and Willamette rivers as their velocities decreased by changes in direction and by lava extrusions located on the north end. The island is 16 miles long and 4.5 miles at the widest point. The Sauvie Island wildlife area includes 8,053 acres of deeded land and 3,490 acres of land leased from the Division of State Lands for wildlife management purposes. The island is bounded on the east by the Columbia River; on the south by the Willamette River and on the west by the Multnomah Channel. Across the river on the Washington side, Scappoose Bay provides fish and wildlife habitat. -- Columbia Basin Fish and Wildlife Authority Website, 2002, Oregon State Archives Website, 2002, and Washington State Historical Society Website, 2002 
Willamette River: Most of Oregon's population, technology and agricultural centers, and important transportion, power, and communications lifelines are located in the Willamette Valley of western Oregon. The lowlands of the Willamette Valley extend approximately 75 miles along the Willamette River and contain the major cities of Portland, Salem, Corvallis, and Eugene. The valley is part of the Willamette River drainage basin, which covers 12,300 square miles between the crest of the Oregon Coast Range on the west and the Cascade Range to the east. The Willamette River is the largest river in the valley and is fed by several major tributaries, including the McKenzie, Calapooia, Santiam, Tualatin, Yamhill, and Clakamas Rivers. The valley is the major source of ground and surface water for the population centers. -- Givler and Wells, 2001
Multnomah Channel: Multnomah Channel has also been known as the Willamette Slough (1887 map). The channel separates Sauvie Island from mainland Oregon, and is a favorite recreation spot of boaters.
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| This valley [Willamette Valley and Puget Trough] is bounded westward by the mountainous country bordering the coast [Coast Range], from which it extends eastward thirty miles in a direct line, till it is closed by the range of mountains [Cascade Mountain Range] crossing the Columbia above the great falls [Celilo Falls]. Its length from north to south we are unable to determine, but we believe that the valley must extend to a great distance: it is in fact the only desirable situation for a settlement on the western side of the Rocky mountains, and being naturally fertile, would, if properly cultivated, afford subsistence for forty or fifty thousand souls. The highlands are generally of a dark rich loam, not much injured by stones, and though waving, by no means too steep for cultivation, and a few miles from the river they widen at least on the north side, into rich extensive prairies. ...... |
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Puget Trough and Willamette Valley:
The Puget-Willamette Lowlands extend from the United States-Canadian border south to Eugene, Oregon, between the Coast Ranges and the Cascade Mountains. The climate is subhumid to humid. The northern part is a flat glacial plain interrupted by the complex bays and inlets of Puget Sound. The southern part of the lowlands consists of alluvial valleys along the Cowlitz, Columbia, and Willamette Rivers. Most of Oregon's population, technology and agricultural centers, and important transportion, power, and communications lifelines are located in the Willamette Valley of western Oregon. The lowlands of the Willamette Valley extend about 75 miles along the Willamette River and contain the major cities of Portland, Salem, Corvallis, and Eugene. The valley is part of the Willamette River drainage basin, which covers 12,300 square miles between the crest of the Oregon Coast Range on the west and the Cascade Range to the east. The Willamette River is the largest river in the valley and is fed by several major tributaries, including the McKenzie, Calapooia, Santiam, Tualatin, Yamhill, and Clakamas Rivers. The valley is the major source of ground and surface water for the population centers. -- Radbruch-Hall, et.al., 1982, USGS Professional Paper 1183, and Givler and Wells, 2001
Geology of the Willamette Valley: The Willamette valley consists of four sub-basins: the southern and northern Willamette basins, the Tualatin basin, and the Portland basin. The Waldo Hills separate the southern Willamette basin from the northern basin, and the Chehalem Mountains separate the northern basin from the Tualatin Basin. Northeast of the Tualatin basin, the Tualatin Mountains form the divide with the Portland Basin. The Willamette Valley lies within a fore-arc basin between the Cascade Volcanic Arc and the Coast Ranges that may have originated in early Tertiary time. Some of the sub-basins have accumulated several hundred meters of sediment in late Cenozoic time. The northern basins also contain lavas of the Miocene Columbia River Basalt Group (CRBG). Flows of the CRBG entered the valley approximately 16 million years ago through a low in the Cascade Range and spread into the Portland and northern Willamette basins. The Tualatin Mountains, Chehalem Mountains, Waldo Hills, and Salem Hills are largely composed of CRBG flows that dip inward toward the basin centers. Approximately 3.0 million to 260,000 years ago, the Boring Lavas were erupted from several vents throughout the northern Willamette, Portland, and Tualatin basins. Boring Lavas capped the Oregon City plateau and created many of the prominent small cone-shaped hills and mountains southeast of downtown Portland. Between 15,000 and 12,700 years ago catastrophic floods from glacial Lake Missoula inundated the majority of the Willamette Valley. These floods reached up to 120 meters above sea level covering the valley with up to 35 meters of sediment and depositing ice-rafted boulders foreign to the Willamette Valley as far south as Eugene, Oregon. -- Gannett and Caldwell Boring Lava Field: Metropolitan Portland, Oregon, and an area east of Vancouver, Washington, includes most of a Plio-Pleistocene volcanic field. which erupted from several vents throughout the northern Willamette, Portland, and Tualatin basins. The field was identified by Trimble in 1963, who named it after the hills east of Portland. It consists of at least 50 small monogenetic centers, composed chiefly of mafic andesite. The eruptive features mostly are short stubby lava flows, who compositions are very similar to comparable units in the High Cascades. The field ranges in age from about 3 to 1 million years. -- Allen, 1990, IN: Wood and Kienle, and Hammond, 1989. 
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| The nations who inhabit this fertile neighbourhood are very numerous. The Wappatoo inlet extends three hundred yards wide, for ten or twelve miles to the south, as far as the hills near which it receives the waters of a small creek whose sources are not far from those of the Killamuck river [Wilson River ??]. On that creek resides the Clackstar nation, ...... Forty miles above its junction with the Columbia, it receives the waters of the Clackamos [Clackamas River], a river which may be traced through a woody and fertile country to its sources in mount Jefferson, almost to the foot of which it is navigable for canoes. ...... Two days' journey from the Columbia, or about twenty miles beyond the entrance of the Clackamos [Clackamas River], are the falls of the Multnomah [Willamette Falls, Oregon City]. At this place are the permanent residences of the Cushooks and Chahcowahs, two tribes who are attracted to that place by the fish, and by the convenience of trading across the mountains and down Killamuck river [Wilson River ??], with the nation of Killamucks, from whom they procure train oil. These falls were occasioned by the passage of a high range of mountains; beyond which the country stretches into a vast level plain, wholly destitute of timber. |
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Willamette Falls and Oregon City: The Willamette Falls area, now known as Oregon City, was the center of commerce and culture to native American tribes long before pioneers crossed the continent in their covered wagons. The falls were one of the biggest salmon fishing holes in the American West. Willamette Falls Locks opened its gates on January 1, 1873, allowing river traffic along the Willamette River safe portage around the 40-foot high Willamette Falls. The locks were the first water resource project in Oregon, and has been designated a National Historic Site and an Historic Engineering Site. The original lockmaster's office has been converted into a museum, and displays photographs of the historic locks that have been in operation since 1873. -- Library of Congress Website, 2002, "End of the Oregon Trail", and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Website, 2002.
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| As far as the Indians, with whom we conversed, had ever penetrated that country, it was inhabited by a nation called Calahpoewah, a very numerous people whose villages, nearly forty in number, are scattered along each side of the Multnomah [Willamette River], which furnish them with their chief subsistence, fish, and the roots along its banks. ...... |
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The Camp - March 31 through April 5, 1806:
Cottonwood Beach, Washougal, Washington. |
| Saturday, April 5, 1806 |
| We dried our meat as well as the cloudy weather would permit [April 5, 1806] ...... Having made our preparations of dried meat, we set out the next morning [April 6, 1806] |
| "... Sergt. Gass & 2 other of the hunters returnd. with 3 Small black cubs which was sold to the Savages I and 5 more men went over to the S. Side and climbed a high River hill on which is excelent rich land ... the River hills are high above Quick Sand River Some of the clifts is 200 feet high. on the tops of those hills the land is excessively rich and thickly timbred with different Species of Fir intermixed with white cedder. I Saw one of the Fir trees which is 100 and 4 feet in length ..." [Ordway, April 5, 1806] |
| "... The weather was pleasant. There is a beautiful prairie and a number of ponds below the mouth of Sandy river; and about two miles from the Columbia the soil is rich with white cedar timber, which is very much stripped of its bark, the natives making use of it both for food and clothing ..." [Gass, April 5, 1806] |
| "... The Hunters & Serjt. Pryor informe us that they had measured a tree on the upper side of quick sand River 312 feet long and about 4 feet through at the stump. ..." [Clark, April 5, 1806] |
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The Camp - March 31 through April 5, 1806:
Cottonwood Beach, Washougal, Washington. |
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June/July 2004, Lyn Topinka
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