Twenty years ago, a massive dredging effort to deepen 103 miles of the mighty Columbia River held the promise of securing Oregon’s connection to the rest of the world.
At 43 feet, the channel — otherwise too shallow to compete with deep-water ports — could play host to today’s larger vessels and more efficiently send Northwest wheat and steel to markets around the globe.
But with the Columbia River Channel Improvement project drawing to a close by the end of this year, the environmental and economic promises of the now $178.4 million project could fall short of the taxpayer investment, especially in an economy that’s resulted in an unprecedented decline in international trade, a review by The Oregonian found.
It was impossible for me to read this passage without thinking of the famous passage from Antigone:
Many wonders there be, but none more wondrous than man. He sails the sea, plows the earth, traps birds and beasts, tames animals, builds shelter, cures plague; but a cure for death is beyond his cunning.
To better understand the meaning of “wondrous” in this context, let’s turn to the end of a sentence in a book that never fails to reward a rereading, Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows:
…the river they knew and trusted in all its moods, that never made them afraid with amazement.
The meaning of “wondrous” in Antigone is one with the meaning of the last word, “amazement,” in that sentence.
If you’re not afraid of the Columbia River Bar you’re not paying attention.
Well I don’t know, I’ve been in a lot of really dangerous bars in my life. Been thrown out of my share of ’em too.
You think I’m joking, don’t you? “Since 1792, approximately 2,000 large ships have sunk in and around the Columbia Bar” … “700 lives” … “Unlike other major rivers, the current is focused ‘like a firehose'” … “some of the roughest sea conditions in the world” … “16 bar pilots, earning $180,000 a year, guide ships across the bar, often approaching by helicopter”.
I wouldn’t cross it for a million bucks. Portland is a land destination.
Jesus, Fnarf, lighten up. I knew you weren’t joking. I, on the other hand, most definitely was.
Lightening up isn’t my style. You should come out our way and go look at it, 5280, it’s pretty impressive. Much cooler than your silly mountains.
One of these years I’m gonna do that. (BTW, our “silly” mountains have killed scads more people than your river.)
Ignore Fnarf. The Columbia Bar has been talked up a lot, but most tourists lured in by the hype have been let down by the mundane reality of what in the end is a big lump of wet sand. It got so bad that the Coast Guard actually officially named the viewing point “Cape Disappointment”, by way of warning people. As for our “silly mountains”, well there’s certainly no “Maroon Disappointing Bells” here in CO. There’s no “Pike’s Disappointment.”
@7, hah. Your mountains are poofters. They don’t even have proper glaciers on them. You can just stroll right up to the top, picking wildflowers with your soft, girlish hands and pressing them between the pages of your diary as you go.
And we certainly haven’t named our highest peak after a fat movie critic (Mount Ebert, I think it’s called).
Cape Disappointment is in the center of the Graveyard of the Pacific, and is named after the feeling you get when you realize there’s no frigging way you’re getting through that thing, not today, not in this boat. Much more frightening than some mountain you can DRIVE up.
I always thought it was kind of a bad joke that Mt. Elbert was our highest peak. Of all the “fourteeners,” it’s easily the ugliest. Just a lump of rock, really.
If you’ve never been there, Fnarf, you should make it to the San Juans sometime. Durango, Telluride – that general area. It’s a much younger mountain range, and therefore much more rugged. Pretty spectacular stuff.
Your quip re Mt Elbert is a bit rich, coming as it does from a man whose own state’s highest mountain is named after a watery beer brewed in Ohio.
And as for my apreciating the finer things in life — contemplative writing, flowers, and, yes, liberal application of only the highest-quality skin-care products — I’m secure enough in my masculinity that I see no need to deny it.
I, @10, was referring to Fnarf’s quip, not to 5280’s sadly accurate characterization of Elbert.
@8, I think Cape Disappointment was named after the feeling an English fur trapper had when he couldn’t find the mouth of the Columbia in 1788. But yeah, the sandbar is treacherous.
When you’ve got Mount Saint Helens Erupting underneath you, there’s no TIME for skin care products!
5280, I’ve seen the North Cascades. Don’t talk to be about rugged. Colorado is like a fart under my grandmother’s quilt compared to our jagged peaks.
Actually, it would be interesting to see what state in the lower 48 has the largest roadless areas (not counting the godforsaken plains around Jordan, MT or Loving, TX). I’ll bet the area between Stehekin, Glacier Peak, and Highway 20 comes pretty close, as does the area around Mt. Adams. I know WA has the most glaciers, and also the lowest glacier (Whitehorse Mt., near Darrington, or maybe nearby Three Fingers).
Crap. The Hermosa watershed in CO is 148,000 acres, or maybe 158,000, or maybe 117,000, but still larger than the Dark Divide between St. Helens and Adams in WA at 76,000 acres. Some folks in NE Idaho think they’ve got it too. But ours has the coolest name, you have to admit that.
And your state has a boring shape. Come on.
The Uncompahgre Wilderness Area in the San Juans here is 102,721 acres also.
“Boring shape?” Maybe. But where else can you be in four states at the same time?
Oregon has a Boring Lava Field!
@8,9,13: Last time Ebert spoke in Boulder, the critic looked not at all like large, lumpy, shapeless Elbert but instead like a jagged, glacial-carved west-coast peak. He (Ebert) has become a very thin, and not-at-all well, man.
As for the lowest glacier, it might be hard to figure out. Lists of glaciers go out-of-date fast. What was a glacier five years ago might now be only a mostly-year-round snow patch. One of my ambitions for the next year or two is to finally get the family up to Montana to see Glacier National Park before it gets renamed Park Disappointment.
@17, I doubt Glacier National Park is going anywhere soon, global warming or no. That Going-To-The-Sun Road is a heartstopper; they have rangers on staff to take over the wheel from motorists who freak out and can’t go any further. And then, coming down the other side, you come around a turn and what looks like the entire Great Plains is spread out below you, above Browning. Good lord. It’s the most startling sight in the world, I think.
Wikipedia says Carbon Glacier on Rainier is the lowest-lying, but I don’t believe them; Whitehorse is lower. Maybe they’re confused because the valley floor at Darrington is so low, practically sea level. Also not going anywhere anytime soon.
Fnarf, the mountains in Colorado do have glaciers. But they’re pretty small, for the most part, and easily mistaken for snow. Being 7 degrees closer to the tropics will do that…
Yeah, I’ve got boogers bigger than those glaciers. Pshaw!
Your ocean is pretty lame as well.
Ah, you’re just jealous because Washington has a bunch of foothills and four volcanoes. We’re the top of the world, baby!
I thought that was Wyoming.
Yep, you’ve got an ocean and we don’t. I hope you enjoy it with the knowledge that, when that fault line finally cuts loose, we’ll still be around to donate money to the Red Cross to help you out.
And our mountains are much larger than yours. Not taller — larger. They start from a lower base. Yours are perched on top of the ridge of the Rockies; ours all start from damn near sea level.
OK, the piéce de résistànce: We get 300 days of sunshine a year.
Your four mountains, Fnarf. And actually, Mount Massive and a few others are larger than all but Mount Rainier and maybe Mount Adams. That “starting from sea level” illusion just makes them look bigger.
What’s this about Wyoming? Colorado has the highest average elevation of any state; or did you mean their foothills and four volcanoes?
The ugly truth of Fnarf’s trash talk is that he really does have big boogers. They’re so big they look like quarters. I’ve seen the video here on Slog.