October 1, 1997

Easy Pig Trip -- October 1997

The weatherman said the wind and rain would blow itself out on Friday, and progress to sun on Sunday. So we four Astorians embarked on a two-day sea kayak trip on the Lower Columbia River. First-timers Link and Mary assembled the Folbot while Becky and I packed up the singles on the grass in Clatskanie, OR, after which we drifted and paddled 2 miles down the Clatskanie River (a slough, really) to the main stem of the Columbia. Along the way we hand-picked apples from our cockpits at the site of the old railroad bridgemaster's quarters (burned down last year) and wig-wagged at pickups bustling along the dike overhead. Lots of new rock on the dikes -- only two years after the big floods of the winter of 95-96.

Gill-netters in net sheds at the end of the Clatskanie River were loading web onto their boats, chattering about mesh and sturgeon drifts. It's kinda sad to see these seldom-used once-upon-a-time salmon boats from Quincy and Mayger and Pillar Rock and Clifton and Bradwood, themselves once-upon-a-time ports of call on the River. Then out into the side-channel of the main stem River, slow current a reminder of summer past, upriver dams barely leaking leftovers from spring snowmelt of a hundred days ago. Onward, lazily paddling in the sprinkles -- what? -- Becky said it would NOT rain. Oh, she says this isn't rain, just a healthy mist.

There are new signs on Wallace Island -- once the site of a feral pig colony engineered to be the central material for luaus by a long-gone entrepreneur -- *Day Use Only* *National Wildlife Refuge.* Guess pigs aren't endangered, though those pigs have all died. Past Wallace, the downriver breeze ruffles the Folbot-ers, dodging their own paddle drips and muttering about the wind and the "mist," as they huff and glide over the shallows to North Dead Wild Pig Island (NDWPI), a mile-long dredge-spoil creation forming the southern side of the narrow shipping channel. (No, that's not its real name. We call it "North Dead Wild Pig" in honor of Wallace -- the true "Dead Wild Pig Island.")

Sturgeon and steelhead fishers love NDWPI's northern shore, laying lures into the current behind the pile dikes. NDWPI has "migrated" downstream recently, owing to extreme floods two years running (El Nino?). The upper end has lost at least 80 lateral feet of bank (was 5 - 7 feet above nominal river level), which has reappeared as shallows "filling in" the covelets and hollows along the N shore, and as a fattening of the downstream "flats" ahead of the downriver pile dike. Nature at work!

We like the downstream end, flatter and sheltered by cottonwoods, with the occasional madrone (arbutus), a struggling spruce or two, and openings of coarse sand "moss meadows," delicately anointed with nuggets of goose poop.

Sunset magazine just ran a piece on this area of the Lower Columbia River, and they called these forced marriages of mud, rushes, scotch broom, cottonwoods, and dredge spoils, "wild islands." I don't think the editors of Sunset know about the pigs. Probably they were politically incorrect pork, anyway!

As the rain-producing atmospheric trough moves inland, we arrive at NDWPI. The wind switches to the west, ruffling the surface of a tarp quickly erected over a substantial two-table, four-bench, campers layout. We used to crouch in the sand on logs and stir our fry in the dirt here, but powerboaters have made a luxurious (and clean!) camp. It almost seems as if they planned to "live" here. Our best approach is to ignore their summertime residue and frolic in the fall and winter on their location. (In the spring, nesting geese put the Island off limits.)

Soon, the late-launchers (Gary and Roberta) arrive, having made better use of the ebb out the Clatskanie channel, and full-time lying, drinking, and bragging begins. Roberta, especially, is enchanted with the river shipping traffic, deserting the cooking area to watch freighters, tugs, and barges wash on by. A couple hours later, chips, dip, and wine have disappeared down hungry gullets,and it's time to stir up our OWN dead pig -- fried in the wok with greens, red vegies and jalapenos, and laid onto some really tasty instant seasoned mashed potatoes. This is too spicy for the Native American in our midst, who prefers well-cooked beef, carrots, and some really delicious boiled potatoes. Some of us steal bites of his spuds!

Mary wins the food crown with fresh-made crepes filled with huckleberry compote and cream cheese topping. All of our stomachs groan. We suspect overeating is responsible for vivid dreams of gnomes chucking rocks into the swash, counterparts to the regular freighter traffic.

Morning arrives calmly, bringing a leetle strip of brief sun as it pops up under the stratus. More food is cooked and eaten, all on the cholesterol list -- we're all too old to eat this way!

Time to pack up and hurry, hurry, up the Clatskanie channel to catch the flood, sweeping us past the apples again, to the float and ramp. Soon the Folbot is duffled away and other yaks are stacked on top of the pickup. Lunch in Westport at the Berry Place: buffalo burgers and freshly baked huckleberry pie. Some of us were purists and did NOT have ice cream.

Is this paddling just an excuse to eat? Gotta find a pig ...
---
Dave Kruger
Astoria, OR

Copyright 1997 by Dave Kruger.
May not be reproduced or redistributed without author's permission.
Originally posted on Wavelength list server, October 1997.
Republished here with permission.