Formed by volcanoes and dynamic floods, the Columbia River is rich in the history of many eras. Its width is as great as eight miles. More than 30 miles from the ocean, tides make it flow backwards twice a day.

Waterfront towns were settled and worked during the fishing & logging booms, then abandoned. Pilings, sprouting mini forests, are monuments to those lives and to nature’s patient reclaiming

	In the winters before dredges, dams, and jetties, the Columbia River was so wild that Lewis and Clark mistakenly declared, 'Great joy in camp! Ocian in view!'

Stretches of the tidal lower river appear much as they did 200 years ago. Some places never changed, like the Nature Conservancy’s Blind Slough preserve, the largest example of sitka spruce swamp remaining on the river.

Today the river remains central to many of our Northwest lives...

and politics run hot over issues like channel deepening, dam removal, fishing and habitat restoration.

Recreational use continues to increase, and a broad-based, bi-state coalition of volunteers is creating the Lower Columbia River Water Trail for non-motorized watercraft, from Bonneville Dam to the mouth. www.columbiawatertrail.org