Photo Contest: "Overview"

Astoria, Oregon ~ July 14, 2005

Guest Photographer: Debbie Loyd

This gorgeous view from the bridge (you can see its shadow on the water) gives about as good an overview of the Astoria waterfront as you're going to get. For those who know the town, I don't need to point out the landmarks, but this blog has readers from around the world and across the country, so . . . here are just a few of them. (I've left the photo large, so when you click on the image and then click on it again in a new window, you'll be able to "walk through" the picture.)

At the top of the hill is the Astoria Column. The teeny little bit of red along the water at the far left is Pier 39, with Coffee Girl, kayak rentals, Rogue Ales Pub, and much more (it used to be the Bumblebee Cannery). Just to the right out of the picture is the Holiday Inn Express, where I took a number of pictures last June. The white buildings in front are warehouses, and The River Walk and Riverfront Trolley run right along the water. The cluster of buildings in the middle of the photo is downtown Astoria.

Thanks to Debbie Loyd for this grand submission. She can be found at the following links, where you can also learn about one of the businesses (or services) that helps make Astoria about its special people:

. Web site

. Blog

Thanks to Jan for the following comment:

FYI, Pier 39 used to be Bumble Bee Cold Storage. The Cannery was much farther west, across the street from the Pig ‘n Pancake. In the 1950s and 1960s, you used to see trucks driving from the cold storage plant through town to the canary with these huge “things” sticking straight up in the beds of the trucks. Those “things” were yellow fin tuna that had been kept frozen at the cold storage plant until the canary was ready for them. I was one of the first two guides hired by Bumble Bee to take visitors on tours of the canary, and I worked there the summers of 1960 and 1961. Tourists often asked me about the strange looking “trees” they saw on trucks around town.

Jan

This blog is sponsored by Tapir and Friends Animal Store.

Perspective

Here's one more aerial photo taken by Frank Wolfe and sent to us by Branden Wilson. It gives a remarkably clear view of the lay of the land and water on the east end of town, including a number of the landmarks I've already included in various Astoria, Oregon, Daily Photo pictures as well as many still to come.

As I said, we're looking eastward, upriver. The hills are all in Washington, while the foreground is in Oregon. The white roof at the bottom of the photo is the Maritime Museum. The lump of land sticking way out on the far peninsula is Tongue Point, visible in a number of photos, including this one taken at the Maritime Museum showing the lightship Columbia, which is half visible at the very bottom of the photo.

The first structure towards the viewer from Tongue Point is Pier 39, just at the top of the double basins made from jetties that create East Mooring Basin. Pier 39 appeared in a number of posts: Pier 39, the kayak place, and Bumblebee Seafoods. Showing East Mooring Basin itself are several other posts, including this pink sunset with fishing boats, my sea lion post, and this photo from last May.

Moving closer again to the viewer, the big red building sticks out into the water all on its own. Here's a photo of it from July. The River Walk runs the entire length of the river's shore here (and much further "down"). In fact, most of the downtown area is below the bottom of this picture. In the middle of the long stretch of River Walk, you see a round pool in the land area. This is called Mill Pond, and I don't have any photos yet. It connects to the Columbia River via a very short waterway, and in the past it was actually the pond for a large lumber mill. Now there are new houses surrounding the pond, and some are built on stilts over the pond's edge. The water birds enjoy the pond, and I'll try and take some interesting photos before long.

On a clear day you can see the mouth of the Columbia: A 19th-Century feat of engineering

This aerial photo was taken by Frank Wolfe and lent to me by Branden Wilson for use on the Astoria, Oregon, Daily Photo blog. It shows the south (Oregon) side of the Columbia River as it pours into the Pacific Ocean. The line you see going from Clatsop Spit into the ocean is a man-made jetty. The line crossing from the land to the left side of the photo (and disappearing behind the airplane in the lower left) is what's left of the train trestle used to carry rocks to the jetty project. When you see all the mud in the water, it's easy to understand how the sand bars are built and moved around.

I took yesterday's blog photo from near the point where the white ocean waves meet the line of the jetty. Now, if you look at the right-hand edge of the waves, where they encounter the mass of land at the end of Clatsop Spit, and take this as the starting point, estimate about 1 mile going left, and that is where the mouth of the river was at the time of the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1806. That mile of beach and land is new, having accumulated once the jetty changed the flow of the water. It's pretty amazing. It took several expeditions to this area before Europeans even realized this was the mouth of a river. Due to the sheer size of the river's mouth, it had not been obvious, especially in bad weather. It was not until 1792 that Captain Gray discovered the river. Even Captain Cook had missed it in 1778, and Captain Gray had missed it on his first trip, a few years before his 1792 discovery. Others had also come this way and not recognized what they were passing. Today it remains one of the most dangerous bars to cross in a ship. I believe it was one of the pilots who said, there is one more dangerous, but this bar takes more skill. Don't ask. That's all I remember. The mouth of the Columbia has been dubbed "The Graveyard of the Pacific." Wikipedia quotes Saddler Russel as saying, "More than 2000 vessels and 700 lives have been lost near the Columbia Bar alone." (This "Columbia Bar" link helps explain why the elements here cause conditions to be so treacherous.)

But the mouth of the Columbia is also a beautiful and stirring place. Wildlife abounds, along with majestically scenic views and a taste of the incomparably-moody ocean. More scenes from both sides of the river to come later on this blog.