Pages

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Monday, September 7, 2009

Youngs Bay after the rain

Youngs Bay, Astoria, Oregon This is not the Columbia River. It's Youngs Bay. This bay and the rivers that feed it are the other half of what makes Astoria a peninsula, and they come together at the point of the peninsula. I took this photo from the Astoria side just before the bay joins the Columbia River. The new Youngs Bay Bridge crosses from Astoria at the confluence of the bay and the river, and is just to the right, out of sight in this photo. The old Youngs Bay Bridge is still used and connects the two sides of the bay further upriver to the left of this photo. The Lewis and Clark River and Youngs River both feed into the bay, which becomes wide here before it enters the mighty Colombia, although it's actually much smaller than the Columbia. Youngs Bay is filled with interesting sights and provides docking for many fishing boats, which fish the bay or pass under the bridges into the Columbia and the ocean.

Young's River was named in 1792 by Lieutenant William Broughton of the Captain George Vancouver expedition, after Sir George Young of the British Royal Navy. Over the years, the apostrophe seems to have been dropped, and also the bay took on the name of the river. When the Lewis and Clark Expedition arrived in 1805, they named this body of water Merriweather Bay after Merriweather Lewis, and they gave Youngs River a long native name. Both have been discarded, and now both the river and Bay retain the name of Young. The camp site of the Lewis and Clark Expedition during the winter of 1806 is not far away. By water, you would follow the Lewis and Clark River (which opens into the bay's far side) a short distance to the picturesque location.

4 comments:

Don and Krise said...

Very informative post. We here in the Pacific Northwest we're very familiar with the Lewis and Clark references aren't we?

Lowell said...

I loved teaching the Lewis & Clark story...and generally it kept the student's interests, too.

Your photo is quite dramatic...the water somehow appears threatening to me. I'm not sure I'd want to go out there in a boat. I think because the water is dark and it seems high, just about covering those old pilings.

Super post!

Lee Spangler said...

I can picture Lewis & Clark and their guys going across to Astoria in a canoe, sorta like Washington crossing the Deleware but of course in the rain.

VP said...

Dark water and cloudy sky, this image looks so dramatic...

You might also like

Related Posts with Thumbnails