Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About The Sunday Oregonian. (Portland, Ore.) 1881-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 16, 1914)
2 THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAX, PORTLAND. AUGUST 16, 1914. HIGHWAYS TO OPEN COLUMBIA'S SCENIC TREASURE HOUSE Beauties of Hood River, Legends of Indians as to Mystic Origin of Snow-capped Peaks, and Extent of Mountain Pleasures Told. j . T..;.i., .u 'II m. .flJBW. "I ttiirig else, and he transformed he ij from an ugly old woman to a beautiful ' SBSkSsBB I BY JOE D. TOM1SON. HOOD RIVER, Or.. Aug. 15 (Spe cial. 1 One of the moat enjoyable short railway journeys of my life. I think. was that taken one early Xovember morning between Hood Ri ver, and Portland. The local train of the O.-W.-R. & N. Company was speed ing; along in a mist that the west wind had blown up the night before from the Pacific. The fog banks reached half way up the precipitous cliffs and turretted crags of the Columbia River gorge and were being dispersed by the Autumn sun. its rays shimmering like darts among the mist particles and lighting up the tops of the rugged, col ored canyon side. The early sunlight shone upon the varl-colored foliage of the thousands of shrubs that spring from every crev ice of the gorge side and magnified their brilliancy; every leaf asparkle u ith the mist made dew. Patches of sold gleamed on the slopes, where the frost had touched the vine maple, and gray , moss-covered formed the back ground for great Titan-like bouquets of purple Oregon grape, while here and there the flaming scarlet of dogwood berries and leaves added to the lustre of the beautiful garment that nature flings over the shoulders of old Mother Karth in the Mid-Columbia region, when Indian Summer has come. liven though I had been blind the gingery atmosphere of the November morning would have prevented my emotions from being laggard. And even though I had been alone I would have enjoyed the journey. As it was my traveling companion was K. L. -Smith, one of the erly pioneers of the North west, who for a number of years was Secretary and Acting Governor of Washington territory. No one knows better than he the logends of the Northwestern Indians, and during the two hours of our ride down to Portland I learned more of the history of the district than one would gather from reading many volumes of books. I heard as I sped by the cas cades of more than a score of beautiful T.aterfalls. the significance of their names in the myths of the redmen. When one has viewed the Columbia River gorge and has visited the regions that surround the snow peaks of the Mid-tolumbia district. Mount Adams in southern "Washington and Mount Hood in northern Oregon, it seems strange that so little of fictional ro mance has ever been written about them. The wonder is, as one looks at the gradeur that presents itself on every hand and wishes that he or she might be able to set forth In fitting expression the emotions that the awe inspiring spectacle arouse, that the Cascade region has never produced any great novelist or poet to hand down the legends of the aborigines and the sto ries of the pioneers. , But one real notable book of ro mance has ever been written about the Mid-Columbia district. F. H. Balch, a pioneer minister, has woven a beauti ful story around the legend of the Bridge of the Gods. Bridge Legend Told. This mythical structure was supposed to have spanned the Columbia where the Cascades of the great stream are today. The people of the Northwest today speak of the sheer cliffsides seen there as the abutments of the Bridge of the Gods.. m Accordingto the Indian legend, one handed down by the Klickitats. the great tribe of the eastern Washington plains. Tyhee Saghalie, the chief of the Gods, had two sons, Wiyeast and Klick itat. One day he traveled with the children down the Columbia as far as The Dalles. The beauty of the country appealed to the young men and they quarreled as to its possession. Then the father taking a bow shot two ar rows, one to the North and the other to the South. Wiyeast was bidden to follow the last arrow and Klickitat the first, and the father told them to settle in the lands where the missiles fell. Thus Klickitat became the founder of the tribe named for him and Wiyeast progeniter of the great tribe of Mult nomah. Saghalie reared the mountain range to keep peace between them, but ffeune food. Brothers Quarrel Over Woman. Straightway Wiyeast and Klickitat fell In love with hei. They quarreled and, to punish them, Saghalie put all three to death, but Loowit had been so beautiful in life that he was deter mined to make her beautiful in death, and she was transformed into Mount St. Helens, the great symmetrical snow peak of the Northwest. Wiyeast formed the rugged pinnacle of old Mount Hood. and Klickitat was changed into Mount Adams. The bridge was destroyed that the children of tnese men gods might be kept apart. The Mid-Columbia district is com paratively new, from the viewpoint of the whit man. The earlier settlers of the Oregon Northwest merely passed through it along the foot of the great gorge. Kven the little valleys nestling among the ranges and bordering the turbulent glacial streams that feed the Columbia were uninviting to the first homeseekers; for they were covered by the monsters of t lie forest, great Doug las firs and Yellow and Sugar Pines. The man who had crossed the prairies with his family, following the Old Ore gon Trail that leads down from the Blue Mountains at the eastern border of the present state, then traversing the awe some expanses of what has now become a part of the great Inland Kmpire. striking the narrow chasm, where the river seethed through The Dalles, had used up the last atom of patience and energy. He was in a hurry to reach the land of promise, and he only stopped long enough in the great gorge, at the mouth of Some trenm. to wonder and to rest and to gain the strength that would carry him to the Valley of the Willamette, where his tolls as a hnmclxiildcr on the western frontier would be more quickly re warded. Even up to the last quarter of a cen tury It was the bolder spirit that pene trated the valleys of the MId-Columhta. In the earlier part of the last century the French Voyageurs of the great British corporation, the Hudson Bay Company, plied their buleaux up and down the Columbia gathering in the pelts of the otter, beaver and wolverine that hud formerly lived In peace amid the mountain wilds. No Indian tribes over seemed to have inhabited the valleys of the Mid -Co lumbia district permanently They came and camped at the mouths of the turbulent rivers emptying Into the Co lumbia and the warriors hunted and fished In the woods und streams skirt ing the bases of the treat snow moun tains. The Columbia valleys of the Cascade range did not brain to grow, really, until it whs found that their soli ami the prevailing tilmattc condition. were peculiarly adapted to fruit prowlng. When persons desiring to retire from lives of professional work and btisi neHH In the cities and n lehliia to fettle in a community where they could fol low an alluring form of agriculture, learned of the opportunities offered til the mountainous districts, the territory developed rapidly. In no pall of MM (Concluded on I'sfe S.)