File:The Columbia River (1918) (14783244092).jpg

Identifier: columbiariver00lyma (find matches)
Title: The Columbia River
Year: 1918 (1910s)
Authors: Lyman, William Denison, 1852- (from old catalog)
Subjects:
Publisher: New York and London, G. P. Putnam's sons
Contributing Library: The Library of Congress
Digitizing Sponsor: Sloan Foundation

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t of power of the Multnomah tribe.The scene of the book known as the Bridge of theGods by Frederick Balch is mainly upon this island,and in that book will be found some glowing descrip-tions of this beauty spot. To the Indians it wasknown as Wapatoo Island. In the ponds grew theplant called the wapatoo, an onion-like root, verynutritious and palatable, and, with salmon, constitutingthe chief food of the natives. Not only so, but theMultnomah Indians used the wapatoo as a com-mercial stock, carrying on regular trade with boththe coast and the up-river tribes. According to the early explorers there were greatannual fairs on Wapatoo Island, when Indians fromocean beach, from valley, from mountains, and fromRiver, both up and down, would gather to exchangeproducts, to gamble, race horses and boats, and havea general period of hilarity and good fellowship. The gathering of the wapatoos devolved uponthe patient klootchmen (women) of the tribe.They would go out in canoes to the shallow water
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:3 0 o CA ^ ^ u r*; 03 p K I-. c s iH K 4^ u 0 W f^ > The Lower River and the Ocean Tides 389 where the roots grew and then, stripping naked, wouldhang over the side of the boat and dislodge the wapa-toos with their toes from the soft mud. Soon the sur-face would be covered with the floating roots. Thesquaws would gather these into the canoes. Thenthey would move to another place for another load.Sometimes they would spend almost the whole day inthe water. The wapatoo still grows in the pondsand lagoons of the island. These ponds formerlyabounded in ducks and geese and cranes and swans.Even yet there is fine hunting. During the dampsoft days of the Oregon winter, the Nimrods ofPortland betake themselves thither in great numbers. From the steamer, as we enter the mouth of theWillamette, or from the greater elevation of the light-house, one may command one of the lordliest viewsthat even this land of lordly views affords. Fivesnow-peaks, Hood, Rainier-Tacoma, St. Helens,Adams, and Je

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