forward

 
Recreation Opportunities
by Summer 2000 PSU Capstones Class

The Columbia Slough Regatta, now an annual event, renews interest in recreation on the Columbia Slough. Courtesy of the Kenton Neighborhood Association		    Historically, a wide range of recreational activities took place on the Columbia Slough. Recreation on the slough in the 1940s included swimming and boating in the summer, ice-skating and hockey in the winter, and fishing, hunting, and camping year round.

One guy that I ran around with in those years, he built a kayak. It had ribs like a model airplane, then you’d cover it with canvas and paint it…his was a 2-man, mine was a 1-man, and we would carry that thing down to the slough, he lived over here on Hunt St. We would carry that thing over to the slough, We would paddle up and down the slough and fish from it. George Mitchoff, long-term resident of the Kenton neighborhood

   Some people fished the slough almost daily, and people continue to fish on the slough for both recreation and subsistence. However, over the years the slough has become toxic, and eating the fish is not recommended

. …fish for the most part are scavengers so where are they going to be? Where the trash gets dumped, in fishing terms that’s called chumming so when I saw that then I became concerned about the people who were fishing there. Not the concern about health but did you know? People in conversation would mention, oh yeah I go fishing down by the big tubes and then I was able to say well do you know what comes out of those tubes? Usually they don’t so I get to tell them (about the raw sewage) and hopefully they choose not to fish there anymore but again its one of those things. Richard Brown, Social and environmental activist

   The slough can be a wonderland of science and nature and a great getaway for kids.


Children fishing on the Columbia Slough, August, 2000. Courtesy of
George W. Weatheroy, Columbia Slough Oral History Capstone student

My first experience of the Columbia Slough was growing up in Vanport. The slough was somewhere that we played, we would fetch bicycles out of it, we would catch tadpoles and frogs in the slough. Then going down to the slough and catching cattails, and trying to fish in the slough with not very good fishing poles, just a safety pin, a string and a stick. The slough was just a place where kids played. Ed Washington, Vanport City resident (1944-48) and Metro City Councilman (1992-2000)

   In the wintertime prior to the damming of the Columbia River, many activities took place on the slough.

We were ice-skating on the slough when my husband asked me to marry him. We had a big bonfire and there were other people there. Elsie Norris, longterm St. Johns resident   

   During the summer the Columbia Slough was a place for swimming and picnicking. In the early 20th century many neighborhood, church and family gatherings occurred at Arrowhead Bend, a favorite picnic area. While the Columbia Slough was usually a calm body of water, it was at times very dangerous.

. . . well it had undercurrent, undertow to it. In fact, we was down there one time on our church picnic,(Arrowhead Bend) I was about twelve years old, or thirteen then and there was a thermos bottle floating down on the other side. One of the girls says, "oh look at there. I’d like to have that thermos bottle." This young man was in a swimming suit anyway and he just dove in and swam over there, and as he reached over and grabbed the thermos bottle he went under. And I seen him come up twice, and he hit an undertow, and it took him down. And they got a man called Harry Hertzog, he was working up therein the dairy, and he come down. And it was forty feet deep there. And he tried to locate him. And didn’t do it. Bill Miller longtime resident of St. Johns, Oregon

   In the past, recreation and the slough went hand in hand. Although many places like Arrowhead Bend have been replaced by industry, the Columbia Slough is an urban waterway with continued recreation potential. Since 1993, community members with the City of Portland, have been promoting recreation on the Slough. The annual Columbia Slough Regatta takes place in the summer, and brings people together for kayaking, picnicking and education.

People like to be on the water, you know, boating. They don’t want to swim in the place or maybe even fish…those people that come in that Regatta every year, they’re canoeists, kayakers. They like to go different places. So if they had better access to it (the Columbia Slough) that would be the most dramatic impact you could have, initially. George Mitchoff, Kenton resident


Kayaking at the Annual Columbia Slough Regatta.
Courtesy of the Kenton Neighborhood Association


forward