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About The daily Astorian. (Astoria, Or.) 1961-current | View Entire Issue (Sept. 21, 2016)
OPINION 6A THE DAILY ASTORIAN • WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 21, 2016 SOUTHERN EXPOSURE Founded in 1873 DAVID F. PERO, Publisher & Editor LAURA SELLERS, Managing Editor BETTY SMITH, Advertising Manager CARL EARL, Systems Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN, Production Manager DEBRA BLOOM, Business Manager HEATHER RAMSDELL, Circulation Manager Water under the bridge Compiled by Bob Duke From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers 10 years ago this week — 2006 R.J. Marx/The Daily Astorian “Being involved with Citizens Climate Lobby, we need policy, federal policy that puts a price on carbon,” Mindy Ahler said before she and Ryan Hall began their bike journey from Seaside to Washington, D.C. Why ly cross-country when you can pedal? OLOVANA PARK — If Forrest Gump crossed the country running today, he would have no lack of sponsors. On the irst day of summer, Bob Quick, from Roy, Utah, stood along the Paciic Ocean in Tolovana Park before mounting his bike for his second cross-country ride. Quick, the only known cross-country rider with 16 heart stents and a deibril- lator, hopes to raise awareness for health and itness. Quick irst made the cross-country trip in 2013 in 91 days, starting in San Diego. Last fall, Tom Baltes of Camas, Washington, started in Seaside and cycled an incredible 4,000 miles to Portland, Maine to ight rheumatoid arthritis and promotes physical itness. In Cannon Beach, employees of Bristol-Myers Squibb launched their Cycle Coast 2 Coast 4 Cancer earlier this month for can- cer research. They left from Tolovana State Park last week, aiming for Hood River the irst day. Eighty riders will pedal a combined total of 2,800 miles. Mindy Ahler and Ryan Hall of the Citizens Climate Lobby began their ride from Seaside at the end of August, destination Washington, D.C., to raise awareness of their organization’s carbon-fee strategy to reduce global warming. A rangy young woman from Edina, Minnesota, Ahler is a veteran of hundreds of long-distance bike rides. She sees climate change as a message worth taking to the road. “My goal on this bike ride is to spread hope and possibility in the face of this daunting problem,” Ahler said. “Oh, and I also have a passion for biking and have set a goal to cross the country before I’ve reached the age of 50. Since I’m 47 now, I igured I might as well give it a try.” T Book by Clatsop County Historical Society’s Liisa Penner. “Somehow we have from time to time received the accounts of the disasters to ishing boats in the dangerous region beyond the Desdemona Sands and the consequent loss of life during the season, with little emo- tion, seemingly accepting these untoward events as a matter of course.” — Astoria Daily Budget, Aug. 11, 1893 Death was a matter of course on the lower Columbia River in the late 19th century, when thousands took to the dangerous waters in pursuit of the prized salmon that put Astoria on the map. Those tragedies were chronicled in the city’s newspapers — The Daily Budget, The Daily Astorian and others — in accounts that ranged from gripping epics to one-sentence notices. Combing through three decades’ worth of the publications, Liisa Pen- ner, archivist for the Clatsop County Historical Society, has compiled many of those articles in “Salmon Fever: River’s End — Tragedies on the Lower Columbia river in the 1870s, 1880s and 1890s. Georgia-Paciic employees and local and state government oficials dug into decorated cakes with gardening spades on Friday in a symbolic groundbreaking for Wauna mill’s paper machine Number 7. A crowd of about 80 mill employees hollered and applauded as the plan to expand operations with a new $200 million through-air dried paper towel machine became oficial. The Astoria City Council took a irst look Monday night at a small pamphlet called a “User’s Guide to Transportation Improvements in Astoria.” The draft copy was presented by Theresa Carr, a program manager with CH2M Hill, an engineering irm with a regional ofice in Portland. “This guide boils down what’s in about a foot-high pile of documents into 16 pages,” Carr said. Conspicuously absent from the pamphlet is any emphasis on the Asto- ria Bypass, a concept that has been under discussion for decades. 50 years ago — 1966 Paint contractors on the Astoria bridge have moved out from shore to the tower on Pier 169 and are working there and to the northward, Oregon Highway department engineers said Monday. This is expected to end the rash of green spots on parked cars in Astoria that has caused much furor over the past sev- eral weeks. “It looks like a tremendous opening.” “Fishing was good along the entire river.” These statements were made by an Astoria packing company spokes- man concerning the irst deliveries of salmon to processing plants after Monday’s opening of the fall gillnet season on the Columbia River. Rep. Julia Butler Hansen, D-Wash., said today “There are strong indications that an oficial reply from Moscow on the problem of Soviet ishing vessels operating off the Paciic Coast might be forthcoming in a matter of days.” It appears there are more silver salmon in the Columbia River this fall than the hatcheries and commercial ishermen can handle, local packers said. “The silver run this year is about twice as big as last year,” an Asto- ria packing company spokesman said Friday morning at close of the irst week of the fall gillnet season on the Columbia River. 75 years ago — 1941 Submarine mines were to be planted in the Columbia River southeast of Sand Island, to remain there marked by three cylindrical spherical buoys until September 23, it was conirmed today by headquarters for harbor defenses of the Columbia River. In the wake of the great fall salmon run it was learned today that Peter Heikkinen, Brownsmead gillnetter, Friday caught the biggest ish that got away during the 1941 Astoria Regatta derby. Heikkinen caught the ish in his net off Brownsmead Friday and deliv- ered the Chinook to Wallace station, operated by the Union Fishermen’s Cooperative Packing company. It was a 51-pounder, six pounds heavier than the big ish with which Oney Empo, former Brownsmead resident, won the $500 grand derby prize this year. In the mouth of Heikkinen’s 51-pounder was a spinner and a short whisker of line. The spinner is heart-shaped, known as a red lasher. It is very much like the one Empo fed to his $575 ish. Mapping the way The Adventure Cycling Association offers route maps for the long-distance cyclist, starting at a mere 250.5 miles from Santa Barbara to Imperial Beach, California, to the 4,228-mile TransAmerica Trail from Astoria to Yorktown, Virginia. Ahler and Hall mapped their coast-to-coast based on the associ- ation’s Lewis and Clark route. The road from Seaside retraces the expedition route and ends in Hartford, Illinois, and is described by Adventure Cycling as “made up of paved roads, bike paths and unpaved rail-trails, with occasional short sections of gravel roads. Conditions vary from rural to urban and include windy stretches lacking in shoulders.” The journey roughly follows the 1804-05 path of explorers Capt. Meriwether Lewis and Capt. William Clark along the Missouri and Columbia rivers and Clark’s 1806 eastbound return along the Yellowstone River in Montana. “Occasional rough roads, narrow to nonexistent shoulders, and sparse services make this one of our more challenging routes,” advises the association, a nonproit whose mission is to inspire bicycle travel. If a route has historical signif- Submitted Photo Bob Quick joined a 9/11 ceremony in Suttons Bay, Michigan, on his cycling trip across the country. He started in Cannon Beach. Submitted Photo Six teams are riding nearly 2,800 miles in 21 days from the Oregon Coast to the New Jersey Shore in support of Stand Up To Cancer, whose collaborative “dream teams” of scientific researchers are working together to accelerate cancer research and to provide inno- vative treatments to patients. ‘You are the driver of your own life. Don’t let anyone steal your seat.’ Bob Quick He started his cycling trip across the country in Cannon Beach icance, it is somewhat easier to plot, the association’s communica- tions director Lisa McKinney said in an email. “For example, on the Lewis and Clark Bicycle Trail, we already knew where the route would go,” McKinney said. “We just had to decide which side of the Missouri and Columbia rivers had better bicycling conditions. And we knew where to go once reaching the Rocky Mountains.” Adventure Cycling’s staff con- tacts local cyclists or cycling clubs to “road-truth” alternates. “The philosophy we use as a guide is our routes should be designed to follow ‘corridors of attraction,’ i.e., scenery, cultural/ historic points of interest, varieties of geography, terrain, and inhabi- tants,” McKinney said. Plan on around three months (give or take) for the crossing — more if you want to sightsee. On the road Cyclists Ahler and Hall cycled out of the Nez Perce Clearwater National Forest in Idaho; they were in Missoula on Sept. 12. They plan on celebrating their arrival in Washington, D.C., with a bottle of Oregon pinot noir. On Sept. 5, Bob Quick posted photographs of himself along Lake Michigan. He observed 9/11 with irst responders in Suttons Bay, Michigan. He still has a way to go before he gets to his inal destina- tion of New York’s Montauk Point Lighthouse. Tom Baltes, who rode 4,000 miles last year, is planning to do it again this fall. This time he’ll take the southern route. He is currently riding in the seven-day Annual Bike Classic Oregon a 363-mile, six-day bicycle tour from Astoria to Brookings. I can make it to Brookings in 7 hours, 22 minutes in my 2004 Audi, according to Google maps. But then, I might be missing something. “You are the driver of your own life,” Quick posted. “Don’t let anyone steal your seat.” R.J. Marx is The Daily Astori- an’s South County reporter and editor of the Seaside Signal and Cannon Beach Gazette.
