The Steppes of Eastern Washington & Oregon
Today we moved up the Columbia River and encountered a landscape starkly different from what we viewed yesterday further west. The tall, barren basalt cliffs glowed a deep red in the early morning sun. Although we had transited two locks during the night, our first lock during daylight was the John Day Lock, with a vertical lift of 105 feet, highest in the Western Hemisphere. We marveled at the engineering skills involved in creating this massive aid to navigation. Those of us who glanced astern saw Mt. Hood in the distance.
Above us, on the plains above the cliffs, were thousands of acres of wheat, irrigated with water trapped by the dams. Freight trains rumbled down the valley carrying wheat to points west.
In the afternoon, Dr. Fred Frey from M.I.T. delivered a presentation on how a volcanic hot spot seventeen to fifteen million years ago produced the two-mile-thick layer of basalt that covers eastern Washington and Oregon and much of Idaho, some of which we viewed today from the ship.
When Lewis and Clark first passed this way in 1805, they were rarely out of sight of an Indian village. They stopped to meet with the Indians several times a day, sharing a pipe of peace, food, and conversation via sign language. The men of the Corps of Discovery played the violin and danced for the natives, who reciprocated by dancing in their style. Today, local Indians fished for salmon from their fishing platforms as we passed by on our way to the right turn onto the Snake River.
