B1
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2021
THE ASTORIAN • TUESDAY, JUNE 22, 2021 • B1
WATER UNDER
THE BRIDGE
COMPILED BY BOB DUKE
From the pages of Astoria’s daily newspapers
10 years ago
this week — 2011
F
or some festivalgoers, it is a time to absorb the ethnic
passion of Scandinavian culture. For others, it is a way
of communing with ancestors by embracing one’s
Danish, Finnish, Swedish, Norwegian or Icelandic heritage.
And for many it is a once a year opportunity to dress
head-to-toe in traditional Scandinavian regalia, feast on
Scandinavian cuisine, buy and sell Scandinavian merchan-
dise, dance to high-tempo folk tunes and enjoy an event that
has evolved from a community aff air to an institution of the
Northwest.
The 44th annual Astoria Scandinavian Midsummer Fes-
tival turned the Clatsop County Fairgrounds into an oasis of
old-country culture and customs during the weekend.
The festival kicked off Friday evening with a fl ag-raising
ceremony, followed by the coronation of Senior Miss Den-
mark Cari Knapp as this year’s Miss Scandinavia.
WARRENTON — Back in April, Warrenton
High School fi sheries instructor Steve Porter and
his class realized they had an unusually pleasant
predicament.
It was time to start clipping the adipose fi ns of
the salmon smolts the students had been raising
from eggs. But this year, more fi sh had survived
the months in tanks at the school’s facility beside
the Skipanon River. So many more that Porter
wasn’t sure they’d have enough time to get clip-
ping and tagging done before the end of the school
year.
“We realized we had almost 21,000 out of
26,000 fi sh survive,” Porter said. “That’s a record
for us,” he said.
For years, disease from the murky brown river
water piped into the building had plagued the
hatchery. Thousands of the tiny fi ngerlings died,
and only some of the time the class and its teacher
could fi gure out why.
A new $63,000 fi ltration system was installed
last year, delivering clean, super-oxygenated water
to the facility and virtually eliminating disease.
The river was bypassed and double-fi ltered rain
and well water was used instead, making it the
fi rst fi sh hatchery in the state to use collected rain
as its primary source.
The Willapa Hills Band, a folk group from Wahkiakum County, entertains the audience with Scandinavian and regional
music at the 2011 Astoria Scandinavian Midsummer Festival.
Scandinavian dancers bearing torches escort Miss
Scandinavia Cari Knapp to the hex burning during the
Astoria Scandinavian Midsummer Festival in 2011.
Clatsop Care Center in Astoria is bringing the great out-
doors to its own backyard.
A $10,975 grant acquired in mid-May from the Better
Nursing Home Care Fund of the Oregon Community Foun-
dation will help the center create a healing garden for its res-
idents, their families, the center staff and volunteers.
The wet spring in Oregon made it to No. 2 in
the record books.
The Oregonian reports it was the second-wet-
test spring in 117 years of record keeping.
The National Climatic Data Center fi gures also
said it was the fi fth-coolest spring in Oregon.
50 years ago — 1971
Rain drove parade marchers under umbrellas and rain-
coats, and clusters of 25 to 30 youngsters, parents and
grandparents gathered under store awnings and overhangs.
The sun tried to say “hi” and “welcome” to Astorians and
visitors alike, but managing most of the day only to swarm
over the town in a gray glare, blocking the rain from becom-
ing a downpour and stopping it completely for the half-hour
of the parade so people could shed rain gear.
These were some of the sights at Saturday’s Astoria
Scandinavian Midsummer Festival. The fourth festival was
also the largest, with crowd estimated at 4,000. It was also
the fi rst one to be rained on. The celebration was a success
in the eyes of attendees and festival offi cials.
The Astoria school board voted to accept a pol-
icy revision regarding married students at a spe-
cial meeting Monday.
The alterations in the board’s married students
policy were prompted by a letter from the Astoria
High School student council’s grievance commit-
tee, charging that the then district policy was “dis-
criminatory and does not aff ord equal educational
opportunities, as married students cannot partici-
pate in all phases of the educational process.” The
grievance committee also cited court precedents,
including one U.S. Supreme Court ruling, intimat-
ing that some sections of the Astoria policy might
be illegal.
The revised policy, accepted Monday, allows
married students to participate in all school activ-
ities and replaces the mandatory reporting of stu-
dent marriages. The new policy states, “Students
who are married are requested to inform the Dean
of Boys or the Dean of Girls of their married sta-
tus.” Under the policy change, students may no
longer be expelled if they do not inform school
authorities of their married status.
Married students will now be able to partici-
pate in extracurricular activities related to course-
work, such as school band performances, and will
be able to hold school leadership positions, such as
Senior Miss Denmark Cari Knapp is crowned Miss
Scandinavia 2011 by Helen Johnson, Miss Scandinavia 2010.
A bonfi re is held celebrating the queen’s coronation during
the Astoria Scandinavian Midsummer Festival in 1971.
lar position. Cracked plaster in a number of residences was
reported today along with some minor damage to the inte-
rior walls of offi ces in the Young B uilding at the corner of
14th and Commercial streets.
Downtown hotels were the scene of the most excitement
in Astoria, where guests still in their rooms and jittery from
recent major hotel disasters around the country swamped
telephone switchboard operators with their requests for
information about what was going on.
Replacing the murky brown Skipanon River water at the
Warrenton High School fi sheries building with double-
fi ltered rain and well water boosted the survival rate of
hatchery fi sh to more than 70% in 2011.
editor of the school newspaper, and receive awards
like other students.
75 years ago — 1946
Astorians, along with thousands of other in the Pacifi c
Northwest, felt a bit of shaking Sunday morning at 9:13 a.m.
in a distinctly noticeable Earth sway. The earthquake con-
tinued for about 30 seconds with three quakes following
each other in close succession, rattling dishes on cupboard
shelves and causing hanging household fi xtures to swing
back and forth in a highly disconcerting way.
On the waterfront the trembler was particularly notice-
able with offi ce buildings, erected on pilings like the ferry
headquarters , swaying as much as 3 inches from their regu-
Workmen for Coast Marine Construction Inc. removed the John Jacob Astor Hotel sign from its precarious position atop
the building in 1971. The sign had been twisted in a storm and was hanging partially over the side of the building.
A terrifi c explosion startled residents of the
Venice Park area in Seaside at about 2:15 a.m., but
the cause of the violent blast, which aroused every-
one in the district, has not been ascertained.
Military authorities at Fort Stevens considered
it likely that it had been caused by a Japanese mine.
It was explained that American mines were not of
the fl oating type and would not come drifting in.
Since the blast was of great force, the mine went
off on the surface and was not set off by a fi shing
vessel or other craft, military authorities said .
The sunken minesweeper AM 360 has been partially
raised and moved in closer to the shore in shallow water by
the Marine Contractors fi rm, which is salvaging the vessel.
Beginning to draw up on the cables and straps laid under
the hull of the 180-foot craft, the derrick barge Cairo picked
up the minesweeper suffi ciently to permit moving of the hull
about 100 yards towards the beach on Saturday. Cables were
slackened and the minesweeper rested on the bottom until
the raising was resumed today. The deck was reported above
water this morning.
An offi cial announcement by the U.S. Navy is
expected soon to confi rm unoffi cial reports that a
revocable permit has been issued for joint use with
the Navy of the Astoria naval airport by commer-
cial and private aircraft.
Such a permit would allow joint use by civil-
ian aircraft of the airport during the reconversion
period, subject to revocation at any time when
naval needs require.
There are two phases of the tourist promotion business
— “Bring ‘em here and keep ‘em here,” Manley Robinson,
director of the travel information bureau of the state high-
way department, told 60 Astorians who turned out for the
fi rst session of a six-session tourist host school at the Clatsop
County Circuit Court rooms on Wednesday night.
The highway department will attempt to fulfi ll the task
of bringing tourists to Astoria by its expanding nationwide
publicity program, but it is up to the people of the commu-
nities which entertain the tourists to keep them here, Rob-
inson said.