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The Daily Astorian
Friday, August 5, 2016
Weekend Edition
BEHIND THE MUSEUM
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Steve Morgan
Columbia River Maritime Museum’s exhibits
are just the tip of the collection’s iceberg
By ERICK BENGEL
The Daily Astorian
T
he Columbia River Maritime
Museum has never advertised the
hidden treasure, let alone put it
on display, but it is one of Deputy
Director Dave Pearson’s favorites from the
collection:
The broken hull plate from the infamous
Exxon Valdez oil tanker that, in March
1989, struck the Bligh Reef and spilled mil-
lions of barrels of crude oil in Alaska — the
worst oil spill in United States history until
2010.
The Salvage Chief, the marine salvage
vessel that pulled the tanker from where it
ran aground, brought the hunk of split steel
to the museum shortly after the accident.
Sitting next to it on the pallet shelf in the
collection storage facility is a bottle of the
original oil.
“That will make a great exhibit some-
day,” Pearson said.
As in most museums, the space in the
Maritime Museum is limited and the collec-
tion vast, so the materials that visitors see
represent a small fraction of what the insti-
tution actually possesses.
“By our very nature, we’re collecting
more than we could ever put on exhibit,” he
said.
The museum currently features the fl oat-
ing lightship Columbia, fl ags that Japanese
soldiers took with them into battle during
World War II, two cannons found in Arch
Cape that came from an 1846 shipwreck,
exhibits about the U.S. Coast Guard and
Columbia River Bar, a photo gallery by
local photographer Michael Mathers and
other draws.
But the off-site artifacts — which can
be loaned to other museums or viewed by
researchers — are often as compelling as
the ones presented to the public.
Erick Bengel/The Daily Astorian
Dave Pearson, deputy director of the Columbia River Maritime Museum, stands amid a group of boat engines in the muse-
um’s collections storehouse.
The fractured
piece of hull plat-
ing from the Exxon
Valdez — the part
of the tanker that
broke on the Bligh
Reef and spilled
millions of gallons
of oil in Alaskan
waters — resides
in the Columbia
River Maritime Mu-
seum’s collections
storage facility. On
the right is a bottle
of the oil.
What visitors don’t see
The museum storehouse holds tens
of thousands of miscellaneous maritime
objects from the Lower Columbia River and
the wider Pacifi c Northwest:
Harpoons, anchors, spent artillery shells,
fl at-bottom race boats, scraps of wood from
shipwrecks, hardware from World Wars
I and II destroyers, boat engines of many
makes and models .
Some items are so abundant — like
octants, sextants and compasses — that the
museum has stopped collecting them.
Erick Bengel
The Daily Astorian
See MUSEUM, Page 3C
Erick Bengel/The Daily Astorian
Erick Bengel/The Daily Astorian
Matthew Palmgren, the collections manager at the
Columbia River Maritime Museum, explains the use
of an engine order telegraph, a piece of maritime
equipment that allowed for communication between
the bridge and engine room of a ship.
U.S. Navy swords fashioned in the early 20th centu-
ry are the subject of research in the Columbia River
Maritime Museum’s collections room, located in the
main museum building. The swords have been on
display in the museum’s naval gallery.
Erick Bengel/The Daily Astorian
Dave Pearson, deputy director of the Columbia River
Maritime Museum, poses near a gillnet boat in the
museum’s off-site boat haul.
‘By our very nature, we’re collecting more than we could ever put on exhibit.’
Dave Pearson
deputy director of the Columbia River Maritime Museum