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Floating classroom

The Columbian
Published: August 12, 2010, 12:00am

WARRENTON, Ore. — Launching a modern canoe at Fort Clatsop brings a dramatic reminder of how much easier modern paddlers have it compared to Lewis and Clark’s men.

A 30-foot long wooden dugout canoe that weighs about one ton sits by the landing. It’s similar to what the Corps of Discovery expedition used, said Tom Wilson, who leads kayak/canoe trips for the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park.

Visitors in contemporary craft made of light-weight plastic can retrace the water approach to Fort Clatsop that Lewis and Clark’s explorers used during the winter of 1805-06.

“We get people from all over the country,” Wilson said. “Local people go, ‘Gosh, I’ve never seen it from the river.’ “

The National Park Service will offer the free, two-hour trips on the Lewis and Clark River through September.

Along with the scenery, participants get a history lesson from rangers such as Wilson, who’s a floating encyclopedia of Lewis and Clark lore.

Wilson, a retired Astoria elementary school teacher, is a seasonal ranger at Fort Clatsop. He paddled part of the explorers’ route on the Missouri River during the 2005-06 bicentennial and dresses in buckskins for reenactments at the fort on days when he’s not kayaking.

“I’m a Lewis and Clark guy,” he said with understatement.

Tours leave from Netul Landing, which is one mile south of the Fort Clatsop replica and visitor center, at different times each day, to coincide with high tide.

The tide was flooding at the start of a recent tour, so paddlers had to stroke with vigor to avoid being washed upstream. The Park Service started offering the kayak tours last year, and Wilson reassured that “no one has dunked so far.”

Wilson said the strong tidal influence makes the Lewis and Clark River (formerly called the Netul River) brackish. So the explorers needed a fresh water supply for their camp, which they situated a few paces from a spring.

After a few minutes of paddling downstream, Wilson led the corps of kayakers into a sheltered cove for some modern environmental history.

“Right here there was a tide gate,” he said. Such flood-control devices used to prevent fish from reaching natural spawning grounds though they’ve recently been replaced with fish-friendly designs.

Diking in the 1900s altered the river from Lewis and Clark’s days. Even more noticeable are the wood and steel pilings that jut out of the water.

They’re legacies from times when Netul Landing was used to transfer logs from the river to railroad cars, and later trucks.

“Tugs, sternwheelers and barges later would make these huge logs rafts,” Wilson said.

In later years, people disembarked from boats at Netul Landing and rode wagons on a trail to Seaside. Today, hikers can retrace the route on the Fort-to-Sea Trail.

The landing is now part of the Lewis and Clark National Historical Park’s 3,200-acre holdings.

The tour included a bit of botany, too. Wilson pointed out that two pretty flowers growing on the floating logs tied to pilings are both toxic: water hemlock and deadly nightshade.

Onward to the Fort Clatsop canoe landing, which was used by Lewis and Clark 205 years ago.

“Picture five canoes pulling in here,” Wilson said. During one hunting trip, members of the group killed 17 elk nearby. “Can you imagine putting 17 elk into canoes?” Wilson asked.

The landing is sheltered from the wind, though nearby downed trees attest to nature’s power during a 2007 storm.

“In 33 years of living here, I cannot think of a better place to build a camp,” Wilson said.

From the canoe landing, the top of 3,300-foot-tall Saddle Mountain is visible 15 miles in the distance. The group’s co-leader, Charlene Harber, who has Chinook Indian heritage, told the legend of how local Indian tribes originated at the mountain.

The tour headed downstream to Otter Point, where the dike will be breached, “creating a lot more habitat,” Wilson said.

The paddlers also paused in a side channel under a footbridge on the path between Netul Landing and the Fort Clatsop visitor center.

The kayak tour stays waterborne throughout the 2½-mile round trip. But afterwards, visitors can retrace the route on the 1½-mile trail from Netul Landing to the fort and visitor center or drive there in a few minutes.

Either way, it’s a lot easier than the transportation alternatives from the era of dugout canoes.

The Lewis and Clark National Historical Park is open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily through Labor Day.

There’s a $3 charge to enter the visitor center and replica of the fort where the expedition spent the winter of 1805-06.

For more information, call (503) 861-4425.

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