Ob River

“ Emerging from the river plain we entered upon another mauvaise terre, with knobs and elevations of clay and green gault, striped and banded with lines of stone and pebbles: it was a barren, desolate spot, the divide between the Green River and its western influent, the shallow and somewhat sluggish Black's Fork. The name is derived from an old trader: it is called by the Snakes Ongo Ogwe Pa, or "Pine-tree Stream;" it rises in the Bear-River Mountains, drains the swamps and lakelets on the way, and bifurcates in its upper bed, forming two principal branches, Ham’s Fork and Muddy Fork. ”

“ Except at Obidos the Amazon is nowhere confined to a single channel, but it spreads over a vast flood-plain and flows with a sluggish current through thousands of side channels that anastomose with each other, so that one unfamiliar with the stream cannot distinguish the main channel. At several places the river is so wide that one looking across it sees a water horizon as if at sea. Much of the region is more like a great fresh-water sea filled with islands than an ordinary valley with a river running through it. ”

“ One of these deep ravines, running back at right angles to the river, is immediately above the bluff at the landing. About a mile back from the river, and about a mile above the landing, is a swell in the ground, not marked enough to be called a ridge. From this higher ground extend the head ravines of Oak Creek, [1] a rivulet or brook flowing to the west, passing within a few hundred yards of Shiloh Church, and then turning to the northwest and flowing into Owl Creek. In the reports of Sherman's division this rivulet is treated as the main branch of Owl Creek, and called by that name. ”

“ The river itself continues undiminished, and is a fine stream, with nothing to impede the navigation; its windings, however, are very considerable. The banks appear lower by nearly three feet than yesterday: there are still no marks of flood rising upon the land above a foot on either side: the depth of the stream is from twenty to twenty-four feet, breadth from sixty to one hundred and sixty, and its current is about a mile and a half per hour. The river has fallen yesterday and to-day nearly eighteen inches. ”

“ They increased in number as we descended the River, as is always the case wherever there has been an impediment thrown into the channel of a stream, so as to raise the water over its natural shores. Immediately above the Wascopin Mission, as we have before noticed, and at least as far up as Fort Walawala, the River is full of Falls and Rapids, and such also we believe to have been the original character of the River below, where we find, at the present time, these stumps and an entire lack of current ”

“ The ridge is clay covered to the flat summit, where knolls of gneiss project. Beyond the valley of the Odei, to the north, is a rolling forested country with hills clay-covered to the tops, rising by gradual slopes to about a hundred feet above the intervening valleys, that are themselves from twenty to fifty feet above the river level. For the next twenty-eight miles the river, flowing in a rock-bound basin, has the character of a long, narrow lake from half a mile to over a mile in width. ”

“ It is on the right bank, on the verge of the upland prairie, about forty feet above the river, of which the immediate valley is about six hundred yards wide. The stream is divided into various branches by small islands, among which it runs with a swift current. The bed of the river is sand and gravel, the water very clear, and here may be called a mountain-stream. This region appears to be entirely free from the limestones and marls which give to the Lower Platte its yellow and dirty color. The Black hills lie between the stream and the mountains, whose snowy peaks glitter a few miles beyond. ”

“ The Owyhee River basin contains a number of reservoir sites, probably the best one on the main river being at Duncan Ferry, near the mouth of Crooked Creek. This site can be developed to almost any capacity required. The water stored can be diverted near the mouth of the river onto a large area of land. There is a reservoir site on Jordan Creek in Idaho, in which it is proposed to store water for use in Oregon. There is not enough land susceptible of irrigation from the Owyhee to use all the average runoff, but probably somewhat more than that for a low year can be used, say 600,000 acre-feet. ”

“ Failure is 'I told you so' ; and success is, 'I knew it!'
"We continued on up the river, gathering driftwood for fuel, using lines to help us over Entiat, Chelan, Methow and other rapids, and ran six miles up the Okanogan river to Lumsden's ford and stuck on the bottom of the river. Then we unloaded freight and passengers and went back through Rock Island and the other rapids to Port Eaton at the mouth of Johnson's canyon, where the people of Ellensburgh had constructed a wagon road to the river in order to avoid the Wenatchee mountain. ”

“ Obidos is blessed with a church, a school, and a weekly newspaper, and is defended by thirty-two guns. This is the Thermopylæ of the Amazon, the great river contracting to a strait not a mile in width, through which it rushes with tremendous velocity. The depth is forty fathoms, and the current 2.4 feet per second. As Bates remarks, however, the river valley is not contracted to this breadth, the southern shore not being continental land, but a low alluvial tract subject to inundation. Back of Obidos is an eminence which has been named Mount Agassiz in honor of the Naturalist. ”

“ As far as the writer knows, the first mention of Burnt River is in the Peter Skene Ogden journals for Saturday, February 4, 1826, on page 352 of the Oregon Historical Society Quarterly, volume X. T. C . Elliott, the authority on Ogden, is of the opinion that the name came from the burned woods, because the fur-traders reached the upper parts of the stream first where the burned looking rocks are not so much in evidence. During the times in question the stream was frequently mentioned as the Rivier Brule, by the French Canadians. ”

“ In ascending the river fifteen miles from this place, the land on either side rises to some fifteen hundred feet above the level of the river which occupies the entire bottom from rocks to rocks on either side; when the land suddenly drops from this high plain which extends from the Blue Mountains on the east to the Cascade range on the west, forming, as it were, a great inland dam across the Columbia River, fifteen hundred feet high at the place where the river has broken through the dam. ”

“ A large stony holm about mid-stream is called Eduásim, meaning 'thief in river.' I need not repeat from my map the names of the unimportant settlements. At the mouth of the Abonsá the bed widens to nearly double, and the north-easterly direction shifts to due north. This great drain, falling into the left bank, lies between five and six miles above the Fura Creek. I shall have more to say about it when describing my descent. Two miles further north brought us to the beginning of the rapids, which apparently end the boat-navigation. The only canoes are used for ferrying ”

“ From this point we traveled up Marie's River, which flows from North East to the South West through a sandy plain almost entirely destitute of vegetation. This plain is about twenty miles wide and is bordered on each side by high, rugged, and perfectly barren mountains. On the lower part of the River we could find but little grass for our animals, and we had traveled two hundred miles up it before we found water coming in on either side. Unlike any other stream, perhaps, it is larger in the middle than anywhere else ”

“ For several years federal authorities called the stream East Fork, but it was locally known as Little River. In 1926, at the suggestion of the writer, the USBGN officially named the stream Little Deschutes River, and this name has come into general use. ”

“ The country north-east of us, along the dry edge of which we were obliged to keep, is as bad as possible, being in wet seasons full of water-holes, and consequently impassable. The river still continues undiminished, as we find that the branches and small streams that frequently run from it join it again at short distances, and that they owe their existence at this time to the full state of the river, which is certainly some feet above its usual level. ”

“ That section embraces the receivership area.
Of course, the conditions along that part of the river greatly affect the part in the eastern half of the state. But the latter receives additional waters from the Washita and other tributaries and has a practically continuous flow of varying volume, the extreme variation between high and low water being about 30 feet. When the water rises it does so very rapidly, and it falls in the same way. ”

“ August 14.—This morning, three miles over a very rough, hilly road, brought us to Snake river, where we see it the last time on our route. Here we left it again and traveled five miles over a ridge and down a ravine to Burnt river. This is a small stream, being about one rod wide and about three inches deep. The water is good and cool, the banks are lined with low brush; here the mountains are very high. This evening we traveled up this stream, which is in a deep gorge, through which the stream runs with rapid fall. ”

“ Nearly all the tributaries of the two big rivers flow from the snow banks and the canons of the Blue Mountains. Though conveying in the aggregate during the flood season an immense volume, the tributaries are too swift for navigation. They supply abundant water for irrigation where needed, and each is a superb trout stream. The largest, the Grande Ronde, is in truth an Oregon river, for its main supplies come from the Grande Ronde and Wallowa valleys, but it crosses the corner of Asotin County and enters Snake River within that scenic country. ”

“ We reached the foot of the rapids, three miles below the Cascades, before sundown on the third day. We found that the Indians could propel their canoes with paddles much faster than we could our boat with oars. We ascended the river to a distance of about one mile above the foot of the rapids; and just before dark we encamped upon a sand-beach, the only spot where we could do so without ascending higher up the rapids. ”

“ The valley of this stream is high rolling prairies, and is very fertile. Its bottoms are wide, and there are numerous branches coming in from both sides, on all of which there is timber of most varieties found West of the Mississippi, some of which is good.
Ninety miles above our crossing we came to and crossed Big Blue River, one of its main branches. Here the Emigrants came up with us, and it was late in the night before their last wagons got over. ”

“ We stop to land a passenger at the mouth of the Von River, which comes tearing down through the gorges, bringing with it tons upon tons of gravel and shingle, which in its shifting course, terraces the plain, and carries ruin and desolation in its path. During the last few years the stream has shifted its bed fully a mile, and in its migration it has cut away one of the finest orchards that was in all the lake district. ”

“ The damming of the lake, and the accumulation, by this means, of a vast reservoir of water, by rendering more certain and expeditious the navigation of the river, was an exceedingly happy thought And when at length orders were received for his embarkation on the 9th of August, his flotilla was not only borne triumphantly along upon the pile of the impatient waters accumulated for the occasion, but the swelling of the torrent beyond its banks caused wide and unexpected destruction to the growing crops of the Indians on their plantations at Oghkwaga and its vicinity. ”

“ From Ogden to Brigham City, about half way to Bear River, the country continued much the same, except that the mountains trended away more to the east, and the plateau thence to the Lake consequently became broader. Settlements continued most of the way, but the farms grew more scattered, and ran more to grazing. Wherever a stream issued from the cañons, it had been caught up and carried far up and down the plateau, to irrigate a wide breadth of land, and its application appeared always to have met with a generous return. ”

“ A little higher up we again began to pass native shelters, and some small canoes. In the bends of the river there were many large logs of drift timber stranded; also many large snags stationary in the middle of the channel, now easily kept clear of as they were in sight. But they would have proved very dangerous if the river had been a few feet higher. Still higher up, the banks began to rise a little, and the trees and vegetation changed. The river is constantly changing its channel; one side continually being washed away, while a bank is forming on the other ”

“ This stream is certainly in the summer season, or in the long absence of rain, nothing more than a mere chain of ponds, serving as a channel to convey the waters from the eastward over this low tract. It is certain that no waters join this river from its source to this point; and passing, as it does, for the most part, through a line of country so low as to be frequently overflowed, and to an extent north and south perfectly unknown. but certainly at this place exceeding forty miles, it must cause the country to remain for ever uninhabitable, and useless for all the purposes of civilized man. ”