Crossing the bridge...crossing the bar...and into Astoria, Oregon

I know I've said it before, but this trip has been a long series of delightful accidents. Not the vehicular kind. The seeing-what's-to-be-seen kind.

As I drove onto the Megler-Astoria bridge to cross from Washington into Oregon, I could see the not-too-distant shores of Oregon. I didn't know what to expect. As I drove on, the Megler-Astoria bridge (completed in 1966, for those of you who adore such factoids) became  higher and higher. Toward the middle, the elevation was considerable. Given my newly-discovered acrophobia, I resisted the temptation to glance to my right to see where the Columbia River surged into the Pacific. In fact, I waited until I was safely across on the Astoria side of the bridge to stop and take the picture you see here. I don't know the exact distance, but I'd guess the bridge was at least a mile across, and, as you can see, high enough to discourage fishing off it.

So here was Oregon. And the welcoming town of Astoria.

Highway 101 continued off to the right at the base of the bridge, but I was Portland bound and took the indicated left turn into Astoria. That was the surprise. Not only was Astoria the winter home of Lewis & Clark in 1805-06, but it is named after John Jacob Astor. Why? Well, in 1810, hard on the heels of the Lewis & Clark expedition, Astor's Pacific Fur Company was established at Ft. Astoria as the primary fur trading post in the Northwest, making Astoria the first permanent U. S. settlement on the Pacific Coast. When I asked a man I met a few minutes later (at Pete's Coffee shop) where the old Pacific Fur Company had stood, he told me he hadn't any idea, and suggested I find the Tourist Center. "I don't know if there is one, but I kind of think there is. Don't know where it is, though."

When I found the small Chamber of Commerce office, I found a folder which said the Pacific Fur Company had folded a few years after it was created, and the fort and company was sold to the British in 1813. I also learned the location was restored to the U. S. in 1818, but that the fur trade remained a British-controlled enterprise "...until American pioneers following the Oregon Trial began filtering into the port town in the mid-1840's."

I also learned that the first U. S. Post Office west of the Rockies was set up in Astoria in 1847. And that Astoria attracted immigrants from all over Europe and the Far East, drawn to available work in the fast-growing fishing and canning enterprises in Astoria.

A testament to the Scandinavian immigrant population was one of the first buildings I encountered when I exited the Megler-Astoria bridge. It was a Finnish-American club, and it boasted a Finnish sauna and massage. "Just what I needed," I thought to myself, and went in. But I was rebuffed.

A pleasant woman asked if I belonged to the club.

"No," I said. "I'm a visitor."

"Are you Finnish?"

"No."

"Well, then, you can't come in."

Nonetheless, driving down the somewhat narrow, shop-strewn street bordering the Columbia River was pleasant and pretty, although jammed with midday traffic. There were any number of seafood restaurants and snack shops, flower shops and souvenir stores. I saw a sign indicating that there was a Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria, and I thought that would be well worth a visit. But the people I encountered in Astoria were not so helpful nor forthcoming as had been the people in Washington. No one seemed to know just where the museum was, although one woman said, "I think it's up ahead, if you just go down the street and turn left."

"Where should I turn left?"

"I'm not sure. But you'll find it."

I did, after driving way up to the top of a very high bluff that overlooked the town, and then descending to the waterfront again. I'd spotted the museum, a winged modern-looking structure, from my aerial view. I was going the wrong way on a one-way street, trying to find a way down. (Astoria was the most one-way-street burdened town I'd encountered in my travels thus far, a fact of not much significance, but something that made navigating in a strange place all the more nettlesome.)

But the navigational difficulty was worth it. The Columbia River Maritime Museum is just short of spectacular. Life-size boats were set up everywhere, with human-looking dummies as the crews. I easily got a sense of how small these boats were, considering that they were setting out into some of the most dangerous waters to be found in that part of the Northwest. (One of the exhibits in the Museum shows the numbers and locations of many shipwrecks at or near the mouth of the Columbia River, and carefully describes how the bar (the sandbar stretching across the mouth of the river) is constantly shifting in size and location.

Comments

[Kay Dennison]

As always, your photos are awesome.