With the boathouse down there, they could rent boats out or canoes and you could canoe up the river. . . Now, by the time that I was courting my wife, you could go right out the slough into the Columbia River. They cut a dike open and the Columbia River water came in, went down then into the main slough, then into the Willamette River. Jim Douglas

Above. The Columbia Slough Small Craft Regatta, begun through the action of neighborhood activists like Kenton's David Myers Eatwell in partnership with BES and the Columbia Slough Watershed Council, is an annual event to educate the community and demonstrate the slough's potential as a recreational oasis within the city. Photos courtesy of the Kenton Action Plan

We went ice skating down on the slough, the slough come before the Five Mile Lake did, and during high water the water would run over from the slough into the Five Mile Lake. But that wasn’t during swimming season, because during the hot weather the slough was lower, and the water was cleaner. I suppose it would be considered polluted, but we didn’t know that and it didn’t bother us. But we were ice-skating and he asked me to marry him. When we were ice-skating we had a big bonfire -- we weren’t the only ones there. There were other people there. Elsie Norris

We used to let the kids. . . swim in it. They used to say that they could walk in different places and they could tell where the springs were because the cold water would be coming, it would be real cold there. But one of the boys stepped on a broken bottle and got a cut, and he got a bad infection, so we told the kids they couldn’t go in there any more. . . I remember, I think it was a Model T Roadster was setting up there along the edge of the bank. And, obviously, people had used it to dump stuff. I don’t know how many years it took it to disappear – rust completely away. On occasion we’d take a rubber raft and, and go out there and just row around, and then of course you see things. I remember laying in the rubber raft kind of, and all of a sudden there’s a splash beside me and a big old carp is looking me right in the eye. Ronald Bunn, resident near Whitaker Ponds since 1951

The kids . . . come down with their teachers and they go out and they dip things out of the slough and watch the little, little, little buggy things (laughs), and take notes as part of their school projects. There will be maybe twenty, thirty kids walking down the street. And I’ll see them over there and they walk all through with note pads checking on the various types of plants and so on. I think metro’s got a really great idea with what they’re doing and what their plans are for the future for Whitaker Ponds. And, they’ve planted hundreds, probably thousands of trees and plants of various kinds, native to the area. As time goes by, it should be a really great place to come and observe and wildlife and trees and plants and so on. Ronald Bunn

   For years many people have struggled to re-create the Columbia Slough Watershed in a way conducive to both industry and community. The Columbia Slough Revitalization Plan, written by BES in 1997, includes watershed enhancement, sediment remediation, outreach and education, stormwater enhancement, and combined sewer overflow reduction. Recreation is slated to become the focus of the Columbia Slough's future, and says BES, "a yardstick for determining the appropriate degree of water quality." There are numerous attempts underway to integrate recreational plans with business, industry, and residential goals in the Columbia Corridor. The urban trail plan known as the 40-Mile Loop is one among many coordinated revitalization plans.