Smoke Signals July 1993 Page 9
Blue Lake: Unhappy Hunting Ground
Many Portlanders have gone picnicking
at Blue Lake, a summer resort located a few miles
east of the city on the Columbia River highway,
but few know that the area around the lake was
once a favorite camping ground of the Nechacokee
Indians. Little remains today of theonce powerful
and numerous tribe, only their stone implements
have withstood the deterioration of time.
Beautifully worked arrowheads, stoneaxes, bowls
and other stone tools are found in profuse number
at this site, as silent reminders of their once
extensive population. Contact with the white
man and the ensuing epidemics wiped them out,
along with thousands of other Columbia River
Indians until the tribe became extinct during the
first half of the 19th century.
Mention of the tribe can be found in the
journals of the Lewis and Clark expedition. At
the time of the expedition, the tribe was estimated
to be only about 100 strong. However, the
number of Indian artifacts found in and about the site indicates that at the time many people
inhabited this place.
It may have been the ravages of smallpox which decimated them. Captain Clark
estimated the disease to have prevailed in this region 30 years prior to their expedition.
Evidently, the pestilence was introduced about the same time of Captain Cook's visit at the
mouth of the Columbia in 1 788. Many European vessels were reported stopping there to trade
with the Indians. Some of these ships came by way of the Orient, which may account for
the virulence of the epidemic that spread its fury over all the tribes living in the Columbia
watershed.
Another great plague swept through the Indian encampments along the Columbia
in the year 1832, wiping out so many that an early missionary estimated that 90 percent of
the native population was swept away. So many died that the survivors were unable to bury
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Several of the farmers now
living at Blue Lake, remember the talcs
of their grandparents, who told them of
finding a great number of skeletons
when they were clearing the land.
Because of the lack of
appreciation by many people of the
historical value of relics, much of the
knowledge of this race remains sketchy.
What information we do have is based
on the journals of early explorers, and
from the tales of the first pioneers.
The great number offish net
sinkers and anchor stones for canoes
showus thetribe'sdependencyon fishing
as one of their main sources of diet. One
of the methods of preparing fish was to
split them open and expose them to the
sun on scaffolds. When they were
sufficiently dried, they were pulverized by pounding between two stones, and then placed in
baskets made of grasses or rushes and lined with the skin of dried salmon. The early
frontiersmen assure us that fish were kept well preserved for several years by using this
method.
Another common food described by early explorers was the bulb of the arrow-head
lily, which the Indians named wappatoo. Fish and wappatoos were not only their main
articles of food, but also the staple items used in trading by all tribes along the Columbia.
The Blue Lake area was well-supplied with these necessary substances. Salmon, smelt,
sturgeon, and other fish were plentiful in the Columbia, while wappatoos could be gathered
along its shores.
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We have the winners of Smoke SignalsSpirit Mountain Store name-the-ball-players contest. First Place: Bud Leno, Second Place: Orville Leno and Third
Place: Ivanetta Cook. We wish to thank Roy Langley for helping us correctly identify the players. The 1935 Polk County team from top left: Clayton Riggs,
Sylvester "Shaw" Simmons, Ray Conrad, Jack Dorn, Joe Issac, Red Dorn, Ed Larsen, Sr., Herman Hudson, and Emanual Hudson. Bottom, left: Elmer Tom,
Mark Simmons, Roy Langley, Andy Riggs, Adam McPherson, and Ervy Tom.