The Columbia River: Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery, Its CommerceLyman, William Denison
History
The Columbia River: Its History, Its Myths, Its Scenery, Its Commerce
Lyman, William Denison
Columbia River; Columbia River -- Description and travel; Columbia River -- History
Not of every scene on this lake of wonders can we speak. Yet every mile
brought its special revelation. Sometimes we found the lake in storms. As
we rowed in what seemed a summer calm, Winter from his throne eight
thousand feet above sent forth his cloud-legions, which, like the "thunder
birds" of Indian story, spread their wings and came down. The thunder
clash went echoing in long reverberations "from peak to peak, the
rattling crags among." "If a squall ever strikes you, put for the first
crack in the bank that you see," had been the parting injunction of the
lake sailors when we started on our cruise. We observed the warning and
made the best possible time to a cranny in the ill-omened "Windy Cape."
And there we lay till morning, when the tumult fell as suddenly as it
rose, and lake and sky smiled as serenely at each other as ever.
The chief point on the lake, for photographing, hunting, fishing, and
climbing, is Railroad Creek, fifty miles up the lake. Railroad Creek comes
from the "Roof of the World," having its source in the very heart of a
great group of glaciers. It descends probably six thousand feet in
twenty-five miles. It is swift! The fury with which it hurls logs and even
boulders down its cataract bed is fairly appalling. The very earth quivers
beneath its flail-like strokes.
Nowhere, perhaps, can one see more work done by rivers than here. The
entire course of one of these rivers can be traced from the lake. Rising
in a snow bank six thousand feet above, its route marked by a streak of
foam, sometimes falling in spray hundreds of feet, then hiding behind a
cliff, to burst forth in snow-white "chute," augmented by similar streams
from lateral canyons, it plunges into the lake with a perfect delirium of
motion. So great is the erosion that were not the lake of enormous depth,
it would soon be filled with the jetsam and flotsam of the hills.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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