Dave Knows Portland

April 11, 1806: Meriwether Lewis’ Dog is Stolen

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Meriwether Lewis wrote of the theft of his dog, Seaman, on April 11, 1806:

Three of tribe the Wah-clel-lars, stole my dog this evening, and took him towards their village, I was shortly afterwards informed of this transaction by an indian who spoke the Clatsop language, sent three men in pursuit of the theives.

And he meant business:

with orders if they made the least resistence or difficulty in surrendering the dog to fire on them; they overtook these fellows or reather came within sight of them at the distance of about 2 miles; the indians discovering the party in pursuit of them left the dog and fled.

I guess stealing a dog is more serious than stealing a canoe.

March 23, 1806: Lewis and Clark Leave Fort Clatsop

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Heather at Fort Clatsop

Almost two years after their adventure began, Lewis and Clark and their crew packed their stolen canoe and began the journey home on March 23, 1806.

At 1 P.M. left Fort Clatsop on our homeward bound journey At this place we had wintered and remained from the 7th of Decr. 1805 to this day and have lived as well as we had any right to expect, and we can say that we were never one day without 3 meals of some kind a day either ore Elk meat or roots, notwithstanding the repeated fall of rain which has fallen almost constantly since we passed the narrows… we had not proceeded more than a mile before we met Delashelwilt and a party of 20 Chinnooks men and women. This Chief leaning that we were in want of a canoe some days past, had brought us one for sale, but being already supplyed we did not purchase it.

March 18, 1836: The Steamship Beaver Arrives Off The Oregon Coast

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Steamship BeaverThe Beaver was an England built 100 foot paddlewheel steamer; the first steamship to operate in the Pacific Northwest.

She left England on August 29, 1835, sailed (her engine and paddles hadn’t yet been installed) around Cape Horn, made calls at Juan Ferndandez and Honolulu, and arrived off the Columbia River on March 18, 1836. Finally, on April 10 she made it to Fort Vancouver, where her paddles and engine were hooked up.

The Beaver began her career as a Hudson’s Bay Company floating trading post. She was replaced by the more powerful Otter steamship after 17 years. The Royal Navy later chartered her to map the British Columbia coast, and then she spent her twilight years as a tow boat. That is, until her final trip on July 25, 1888 when she ran aground at Prospect Point in Vancouver B.C.’s Stanley Park.

March 2, 1853: Northern Oregon Becomes Washington

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Washington and Oregon TerritoriesOn March 2, 1853, President Millard Fillmore signed the act declaring the portion of the Oregon Territory north of the Columbia River the Washington Territory.

When the bill was first introduced, the name was going to be the Columbia Territory, but Kentucky Representative Richard H. Stanton thought it would be nice to honor the first president with a state named after him, besides we already had a District of Columbia.

Olympia was then, and is now, the designated capital.

Map credit: Map by Matthew Trump, used under Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 license.

The Columbia River System Subway Map Style

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Columbia River System in the style of a Transit MapCartographer Daniel Huffman maintains a blog called somethingaboutmaps where he expounds on the cartographic craft and highlights interesting map work of his own and others.

Recently he created a series of maps of river systems in the style of Harry Beck‘s famous London Underground maps. One of the river systems he mapped is the Columbia River System, which is friggin cool! (see small version to the right).

Featuring the following rivers, creeks, forks, (etc.): Columbia, Cowlitz, Willamette, Deschutes, John Day, Yakima, Snake, Crab, Okanogan (I used the American spelling for this one), Kettle, Spokane & St. Joe, Pend Oreille / Clark / Silver Bow, Kootenay (Canadian spelling, this time), Crooked, Palouse, Clearwater & Selway, Grande Ronde, Salmon, Payette, Malheur, Boise, Owyhee, Bruneu, Big Wood, Similkameen, Duncan, Elk, Flathead, Blackfoot, Bitterroot

Read about Huffman’s methodology and considerations in his post On River Maps. You can buy prints of his maps too, and he will donate 10% of the profits to organizations that protect and restore some of the watersheds depicted on each map. The Columbia River System map is available on Zazzle in two sizes: 18″ x 24″ | 30″ x 40″ (make sure to read the re-sizing warnings here!).

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