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Menzies, Image Canoe, Hayden Island: An Early History
by PSU student Josh Thomas

From Belle Vue Point they proceeded in the above direction, passing a small wooded island, about three miles in extent, situated in the middle of a stream . . . This obtained the name of Menzies Island, near the east end of which is a small sandy, woody island that was covered with wild geese. Lieutenant William R. Broughton, 1792

  British explorer Lieutenant William Broughton made the first non-native trip in a longboat up the lower Columbia River, passing Hayden Island in 1792. Broughton named the island after Archibald Menzies, an amateur naturalist and physician who accompanied him. In 1804 Meriwether Lewis and William Clark traveled through the area, viewing two nearly connected islands. The explorers called the smaller land mass Tomahawk Island, and described the natives of the Skilloot Nation as they emerged from behind the island:

The larger of the canoes was ornamented with the figure of a bear in the bow, and a man in the stern, both nearly as large as life, both made of painted wood, and very neatly fixed to the boat. In the same canoe were two Indians finely dressed and with round hats.

   Thus, impressed by native craftsmanship, Lewis and Clark renamed Broughton's "Menzie's" as Image Canoe Island. The current name, Hayden, came from pioneer immigrant Gay Hayden who settled in Vancouver in the 1850s and farmed part of the island. Until the Interstate Bridge opened in 1917, the island remained farmland.

Excerpt of Lieutenant William Broughton, from the Journals of Captain George Vancouver, 1792

Lewis and Clark describe Image Canoe Island


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