Historic Lyons Ferry on Lower Snake River
At the confluence of the Palouse and Lower Snake rivers the Sea Lion anchored, today, in a crossroad of Pacific Northwest exploration and development.
The roll of early explorers here reads like a who’s who of Western travelers.
Lewis and Clark, Alexander McKenzie and David Thompson of the Northwest Fur Company, English botanist David Douglas, fur brigade leaders Jedediah Smith and Peter Skene Ogden, members of the U.S. Navy Expedition under Charles Wilkes and Samuel Parker of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions all tarried here and commented on the sweep of the surrounding Palouse bunchgrass prairies.
The lower Snake, where Lewis and Clark ran some 30 major rapids in their dugouts, was stilled by four high dams starting in 1961, and the river became part of the inland navigation system. Lewiston, ID. is a port connected to the Pacific Ocean some 500 miles distant.
The dams ended Lyons Ferry. It carried cars a few at a time across the river on a cable trolley with the river current for motive power. That ferry reposes at Lyons Ferry State Park in a back bay created by the backwater from Lower Monumental Dam. A pair of beaver are using the ferry as a platform on which to haul out, trim and peel their tree limbs.
Just downstream is Lyons Ferry National Fish Hatchery where young steelhead and Chinook are reared to supplement the depleted wild runs. The success of this effort is measured in this year’s all-time record run of fall Chinook in the Columbia system since counts first started in 1937 at Bonneville Dam.
From Lyons Ferry we traveled by bus to Palouse Falls State Park along the exact route of the first ever public road in the Pacific Northwest, the Mullan Military Wagon Road that connected between Fort Benton on the Missouri River and Fort Walla Walla on the Columbia River. This 624-mile route was laid out by US Army Lt. John Mullan in 1859.
The wildlife highlight of our day was with the Zodiacs on Palouse River when a pair of Oldsquaw or Long-tailed duck were found far out of their normal wintering range.
At the confluence of the Palouse and Lower Snake rivers the Sea Lion anchored, today, in a crossroad of Pacific Northwest exploration and development.
The roll of early explorers here reads like a who’s who of Western travelers.
Lewis and Clark, Alexander McKenzie and David Thompson of the Northwest Fur Company, English botanist David Douglas, fur brigade leaders Jedediah Smith and Peter Skene Ogden, members of the U.S. Navy Expedition under Charles Wilkes and Samuel Parker of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions all tarried here and commented on the sweep of the surrounding Palouse bunchgrass prairies.
The lower Snake, where Lewis and Clark ran some 30 major rapids in their dugouts, was stilled by four high dams starting in 1961, and the river became part of the inland navigation system. Lewiston, ID. is a port connected to the Pacific Ocean some 500 miles distant.
The dams ended Lyons Ferry. It carried cars a few at a time across the river on a cable trolley with the river current for motive power. That ferry reposes at Lyons Ferry State Park in a back bay created by the backwater from Lower Monumental Dam. A pair of beaver are using the ferry as a platform on which to haul out, trim and peel their tree limbs.
Just downstream is Lyons Ferry National Fish Hatchery where young steelhead and Chinook are reared to supplement the depleted wild runs. The success of this effort is measured in this year’s all-time record run of fall Chinook in the Columbia system since counts first started in 1937 at Bonneville Dam.
From Lyons Ferry we traveled by bus to Palouse Falls State Park along the exact route of the first ever public road in the Pacific Northwest, the Mullan Military Wagon Road that connected between Fort Benton on the Missouri River and Fort Walla Walla on the Columbia River. This 624-mile route was laid out by US Army Lt. John Mullan in 1859.
The wildlife highlight of our day was with the Zodiacs on Palouse River when a pair of Oldsquaw or Long-tailed duck were found far out of their normal wintering range.
