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Art Meets Cartography: The 15,000-Year History of a River in Oregon Rendered in Data

What would one see if they looked in the distant past of a river's history? It is known that the path and boundaries of any waterway will change over the span of thousands of years, but the reality may be more surprising than one can think. Aided by lidar, an aerial laser radar technology, cartographer Daniel Coe produced this ghostly blue map of data showing the historical paths of the Willamette River in Oregon, spanning 15,000 years. Seen over at This Is Colossal, the idea of rendering a river's historical path is nothing new. In the 1940s, Harold Fisk was commissioned by the Mississippi River Commission to map out the whole Lower Mississippi Valley, generating these breathtakingly meticulous and beautiful maps of slow, snaky riverine progressions through millennia. It was a "great leap forward in understanding the alluvial and sedimentological processes of the Mississippi Valley and the fundamental value of these insights to river engineering strategies and techniques."

When considering the historical path of a river, it’s easy to imagine a torrential flood that causes a stream to overflow its banks, or a drought that brings a body of water to a trickle. The reality of a river’s history is vastly more complex, as the artery of water gradually changes directions over thousands of years, shifting its boundaries imperceptibly inch by inch.

Geologists and cartographers have grappled with helpful ways to visually depict a river’s flow over time. In 1941, the Mississippi River Commission appointed Harold Fisk to undertake a groundbreaking effort to map the entire Lower Mississippi Valley. Three years later he produced a stunning series of 15 maps that combine over 20 different river paths obtained through historical charts and aerial photography.

The [[:|beautiful map seen here]] of the Willamette River Historical Stream Channels in Oregon by cartographer Dan Coe also shows the history of a river, however Coe relied on more recent aerial radar technology called lidar.

About Lidar Data technique on Willamette River:

With the modern version of the Willamette River by Coe, the idea is the same, but the latest technology is used. Lidar, which has been said to be either an acronym for "Light Detection And Ranging," or as a portmanteau of "light" and "radar," is a remote-sensing technology that relies on shooting millions of laser points to the ground, generating data that is collected by low-flying aircraft. Using this data, an accurate model of the ground can be produced. Lidar has been used to map global forests, orient self-driving cars, and can even warn cyclists of oncoming cars.

Lidar is a laser-mapping technology that uses light aircraft to make amazingly detailed and accurate maps of the earth. Similar technique was used by the department in the past to make maps of Mount Hood in 2011 and in 2012 the Three Sisters, both in the Oregon Cascades.

Lidar data is collected by low-, slow-flying aircraft with equipment that shoots millions of laser points to the ground. When the data is studied, an amazingly accurate model of the ground can be mapped.

It is possible to strip buildings and vegetation from the images, so that only the ground is shown. The twists and turns of the historical channels carved by the Willamette River on a relatively flat landscape show up suitable for framing in a poster released by the Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries.Primarily in shades of blue and white, the poster was created with lidar data. In the Willamette River poster, the shades of white and blue show elevations. The purest white color is the baseline, (the zero point, at the lowest point near Independence on the upper part of the image). The darkest blue is 50 feet (or higher) than the baseline.

The shades of white show changes in elevation, between 0 to 50 feet. This brings out the changes made by the river channel in the last 12,000 to 15,000 years, in the time since the landscape was basically swept clean by the Missoula floods.

The map is usually available as a print through the Nature of the Northwest Information Center.As said by Aleks Buczkowski "Every now and then you might come across something so beautiful that it takes your breath away. When you’re a GeoGeek it typically includes some sort of maps. It happened to me today when I accidentally saw this map. It’s amazing."

This lidar-derived digital elevation model of the Willamette River displays a 50-foot elevation range, from low elevations (displayed in white) fading to higher elevations (displayed in dark blue). This visually replaces the relatively flat landscape of the valley floor with vivid historical channels, showing the dynamic movements the river has made in recent millennia. The swirls outside today's relatively narrow channel show how the river flowed historically, carving different meanders over the eons. This imagery was featured in the North American Cartographic Information Society’s first Atlas of Design. The image was also highlighted in an American Scientist article that discussed the interplay of art and technology in map-making today. This segment of the Willamette River flows past Albany near the bottom of the image northward to the communities of Monmouth and Independence at the top. Near the center, the Luckiamute River flows into the Willamette from the left, and the Santiam River flows in from the right.

The Oregon Department of Geology and Mineral Industries (DOGAMI) has been collecting lidar data in Oregon since 2006. The goal is to cover the entire state as funding for data collection becomes available.

History

First inhabitants

The Willamette River near the confluence with the Molalla River

For at least 10,000 years, a variety of indigenous peoples populated the Willamette Valley. These included the Kalapuya, the Chinook, and the Clackamas. The territory of the Clackamas encompassed the northeastern portion of the basin, including the Clackamas River (with which their name is shared). Although it is unclear exactly when, the territory of the Chinook once extended across the northern part of the watershed, through the Columbia River valley. Indigenous peoples of the Willamette Valley were further divided into groups including the Kalapuyan-speaking Yamhill and Atfalati (Tualatin) (both Northern Kalapuya), Central Kalapuya like the Santiam, Muddy Creek (Chemapho), Long Tom (Chelamela), Calapooia (Tsankupi), Marys River (Chepenafa) and Luckiamute, and the Yoncalla or Southern Kalapuya, as well other tribes such as the Chuchsney-Tufti, Siuslaw and Molala. The name Willamette is of indigenous origin, deriving from the French pronunciation of the name of a Clackamas Native American village. However, Native American languages in Oregon were very similar, so the name may also be derived from Kalapuya dialects.

Around the year 1850, the Kalapuya numbered between 2,000 and 3,000 and were distributed among several groups. These figures are only speculative; there may have been as few as eight subgroups or as many as 16. In that time period, the Clackamas' tribal population was roughly 1,800. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated that the Chinook population was nearly 5,000, though not all of the Chinook lived on the Willamette. The Chinook territory encompassed the lower Columbia River valley and significant stretches of the Pacific coast on both the north and the south side of the Columbia's mouth. At times, however, the Chinook territory extended even farther south in the Willamette Valley. The total native population was estimated at about 15,000.

The indigenous peoples of the Willamette River practiced a variety of life ways. Those on the lower river, slightly closer to the coast, often relied on fishing as their primary economic mainstay. Salmon was the most important fish to Willamette River tribes as well as to the Native Americans of the Columbia River, where white traders traded fish with the Native Americans. Upper-river tribes caught steelhead and salmon, often by building weirs across tributary streams. Tribes of the northern Willamette Valley practiced a generally settled lifestyle. The Chinooks lived in great wooden lodges, practiced slavery, and had a well-defined caste system. People of the south were more nomadic, traveling from place to place with the seasons. They were known for the controlled burning of woodlands to create meadows for hunting and plant gathering (especially camas).

Fur trade

See also: Maritime fur trade

The Willamette River first appears in the records of outsiders in 1792, when it was seen by British Lieutenant William Robert Broughton of the Vancouver Expedition, led by George Vancouver. From the 18th to the mid-19th century, much of the Pacific Northwest and most of its rivers were involved in the fur trade, in which fur trappers (mostly French-Canadians working for the Hudson's Bay Company and the North West Company, which later merged) hunted for beaver and sea otter on rivers, streams, and coastlines. The pelts of these animals commanded substantial prices in either the United States, Canada or eastern Asia, because of their "thick, luxurious and water-repellent" qualities. Fur traders heavily exploited the Willamette River and its tributaries. During this period, the Siskiyou Trail (or California-Oregon Trail) was created. This trading path, over 600 miles (970 km) long, stretched from the mouth of the Willamette River near present-day Portland south through the Willamette Valley, crossing the Cascades and the Siskiyou Mountains, and south through the Sacramento Valley to San Francisco.

A boulder at Alton Baker Park in Eugene engraved with the Kalapuyan "Whilamut" "Where the river ripples and runs fast"

19th-century development

In 1805, the Lewis and Clark Expedition traveled thousands of miles across central North America in an attempt to map and explore the Louisiana Territory of the United States and the Oregon Country, which were then occupied mainly by Native Americans and settlers from Great Britain. As the expedition traveled down and back up the Columbia River, it missed the mouth of the Willamette, one of the Columbia's largest tributaries. It was only after receiving directions from natives along the Sandy River that the explorers learned about their oversight. William Clark returned down the Columbia and entered the Willamette River in April 1806. The United States Exploring Expedition passed through the Willamette Valley in 1841 while traveling along the Siskiyou Trail. The expedition members noted extensive salmon fishing by natives at Willamette Falls, much like that at Celilo Falls on the Columbia River.

In the middle part of the 19th century, the Willamette Valley's fertile soils, pleasant climate, and abundant water attracted thousands of settlers from the eastern United States, mainly the Upland South borderlands of Missouri, Iowa, and the Ohio Valley. Many of these emigrants followed the Oregon Trail, a 2,170-mile (3,490 km) trail across western North America that began at Independence, Missouri, and ended at various locations near the mouth of the Willamette River. Although people had been traveling to Oregon since 1836, large-scale migration did not begin until 1843, when nearly 1,000 pioneers headed westward. Over the next 25 years, some 500,000 settlers traveled the Oregon Trail, braving the rapids of the Snake and Columbia Rivers to reach the Willamette Valley.

Oregon City circa 1867, with Willamette Falls in the background

Starting in the 1820s, Oregon City developed near Willamette Falls. It was incorporated in 1844, becoming the first city west of the Rocky Mountains to have that distinction. John McLoughlin, a Hudson's Bay Company (HBC) official, was one of the major contributors to the founding of the town in 1829. McLoughlin attempted to persuade the British government (which still held sway over the area) to allow American settlers to live on the land, and provided significant help to American colonization of the area, all against the HBC's orders. Oregon City prospered because of the paper mills that were run by the water power of Willamette Falls, but the falls formed an impassable barrier to river navigation. Linn City (originally Robins Nest) was established across the Willamette from Oregon City.

After Portland was incorporated in 1851, quickly growing into Oregon's largest city, Oregon City gradually lost its importance as the economic and political center of the Willamette Valley. Beginning in the 1850s, steamboats began to ply the Willamette, despite the fact that they could not pass Willamette Falls. As a result, navigation on the Willamette River was divided into two stretches: the 27-mile (43 km) lower stretch from Portland to Oregon City—which allowed connection with the rest of the Columbia River system—and the upper reach, which encompassed most of the Willamette's length. Any boats whose owners found it absolutely necessary to get past the falls had to be portaged. This led to competition for business among steam portage companies. In 1873, the construction of the Willamette Falls Locks bypassed the falls and allowed easy navigation between the upper and lower river. Each lock chamber measured 210 feet (64 m) long and 40 feet (12 m) wide, and the canal was originally operated manually before it switched to electrical power. Today, the lock system is little used.

As commerce and industry flourished on the lower river, most of the original settlers acquired farms in the upper Willamette Valley. By the late 1850s, farmers had begun to grow crops on most of the available fertile land. The settlers increasingly encroached on Native American lands. Skirmishes between natives and settlers in the Umpqua and Rogue valleys to the southwest of the Willamette River led the Oregon state government to remove the natives by military force. They were first led off their traditional lands to the Willamette Valley, but soon were marched to the Coast Indian Reservation. In 1855, Joel Palmer, an Oregon legislator, negotiated a treaty with the Willamette Valley tribes, who, although unhappy with the treaty, ceded their lands to non-natives. The natives were then relocated by the government to a part of the Coast Reservation that later became the Grande Ronde Reservation.

Between 1879 and 1885, the Willamette River was charted by Cleveland S. Rockwell, a topographical engineer and cartographer for the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. Rockwell surveyed the lower Willamette from the foot of Ross Island through Portland to the Columbia River and then downstream on the Columbia to Bachelor Island. Rockwell's survey was extremely detailed, including 17,782 hydrographic soundings. His work helped open the port of Portland to commerce.

In the second half of the 19th century, the USACE dredged channels and built locks and levees in the Willamette's watershed. Although products such as lumber were often transported on an existing network of railroads in Oregon, these advances in navigation helped businesses deliver more goods to Portland, feeding the city's growing economy. Trade goods from the Columbia basin north of Portland could also be transported southward on the Willamette due to the deeper channels made at the Willamette's mouth.

20th and 21st centuries

Conveyor belt loading debris onto a barge as part of the Big Pipe Project

By the early 20th century, major river-control projects had begun to take place. Levees were constructed along the river in most urban areas, and Portland built concrete walls to protect its downtown sector. In the following decades, many large dams were built on Cascade Range tributaries of the Willamette. The Army Corps of Engineers operates 13 such dams, which affect flows from about 40 percent of the basin. Most of them do not have fish ladders.

With development in and near the river came increased pollution. By the late 1930s, efforts to stem the pollution led to formation of a state sanitary board to oversee modest cleanup efforts. In the 1960s, Oregon Governor Tom McCall led a push for stronger pollution controls on the Willamette. In this, he was encouraged by Robert (Bob) Straub—the state treasurer and future Oregon governor (1975)—who first proposed a Willamette Greenway program during his 1966 gubernatorial campaign against McCall. The Oregon State Legislature established the program in 1967. Through it, state and local governments cooperated in creating or improving a system of parks, trails, and wildlife refuges along the river. In 1998, the Willamette became one of 14 rivers designated an American Heritage River by former U.S. President Bill Clinton. By 2007 the Greenway had grown to include more than 170 separate land parcels, including 10 state parks. Public uses of the river and land along its shores include camping, swimming, fishing, boating, hiking, bicycling, and wildlife viewing.

In 2008, government agencies and the non-profit Willamette Riverkeeper organization designated the full length of the river as the Willamette River Water Trail. Four years later, the National Park Service added the Willamette water trail—expanded to 217 miles (349 km) to include some of the major tributaries—to its list of national water trails. The water-trail system is meant to protect and restore waterways in the United States and to enhance recreation on and near them.

A 1991 agreement between the City of Portland and the State of Oregon to dramatically reduce combined sewer overflows (CSOs) led to Portland's Big Pipe Project. The project, part of a related series of Portland CSO projects completed in late 2011 at a cost of $1.44 billion, separates the city's sanitary sewer lines from storm-water inputs that sometimes overwhelmed the combined system during heavy rains. When that occurred, some of the raw sewage in the system flowed into the river instead of into the city's wastewater treatment plant. The Big Pipe project and related work reduces CSO volume on the lower river by about 94 percent.

In June 2014, Dean Hall became the first person to swim the entire length of the Willamette River. He swam 184 miles (296 km) from Eugene to the river mouth in 25 days.