Highlights of Cultural Heritage- WASHINGTON

Ridgefield NWR

Wapato Portage Site

A Piece of History... After a wet winter at the Pacific Ocean, the members of the Corps of Discovery turned their boats back up the Columbia River toward home. On March 29, 1806, Clark wrote in his journal:

“At 5 oclock reembarked and proceeded up on the NE. of an Island to an inlet about 1 mile above the village and encamped on a butifull grassy place, where the nativs make a portage of their Canoes and Wappato roots to and from a large pond at a Short distance.”

The “butifull grassy place” to which Clark refers is a nationally significant archaeological site on the Ridgefield National Wildlife Refuge known today as Wapato Portage. After visiting and describing the large Chinookan village they called Cathlapotle (also on the Refuge), the expedition camped for the night at this riverbank site. In his journal, Clark went on to describe in detail the process of gathering wapato, one of the major dietary staples along the lower Columbia River:

“. . . in this pond the nativs inform us they Collect great quantities of p[w]appato, which the womin collect by getting into the water, Sometimes to their necks holding a Small canoe and with their feet loosen the wappato or bulb of the root from the bottom from the Fibers, and it imedeately rises to the top of the water, they Collect & throw them into the Canoe, those deep roots are the largest and best roots.”

The pond described by Clark is Carty Lake, which still provides food for the thousands of migratory waterfowl that frequent the Refuge. Canoes filled with the bulb would be dragged over the narrow strip of land that separates the lake from Lake River and transported back down to Cathlapotle.

The site has a history that dates back much earlier than 1806. In fact, radiocarbon dating has determined that the site is at least 2300 years old. Stratified cultural deposits above the oldest dates and the presence of nineteenth century trade goods tells us the Chinookans used this site for over two thousand years. Intact, stratified sites of this age are very rare in the active floodplain of the Columbia. Only the Merrybell site on Sauvie Island is as old, and more recent occupations there are not as well represented as at Wapato Portage. Preliminary studies suggest Wapato Portage may reveal much of the legacy of the Chinookans who lived there.

Archaeological excavations and historic research in the early 1980s revealed continuing activity at Wapato Portage during early Euro-American settlement. The site is located at a river crossing along the Fort Vancouver to Cowlitz Prairie Trail constructed by the Hudson’s Bay Company in the 1820s. It functioned as a landing for cargo being transported along the trail. This element in the site’s history was confirmed when test excavations recovered trade beads, bullets, bottle glass, ceramics, and numerous metal artifacts.

...Was Falling into the River. Wapato Portage is on the floodplain of the Columbia River, which is prone to annual floods that inundate the cutbank along the western edge of the site. During these periods of high water, the increased current frequently eroded annual vegetation from the bank, exposing the site’s sandy sediments. As the site is located near the Port of Ridgefield and a marina, boat traffic is heavy. Annual flood events and wakes from boats were eroding the bank and destroying valuable archaeological data.This site suffered significant impacts from floods in 1996 which exacerbated the continuing problem from boat wakes on Lake River. Large cottonwood trees which protected the site were ripped out of the bank, taking much of the site’s information with them. The steep cutbank along the site’s western edge continued to erode rapidly, displacing large numbers of artifacts and destroying both the cultural and scientific integrity of this important site.

Stemming the Destructive Tide. Ironically, the same 1996 floods that damaged the site also provided the opportunity to save it. In Summer of 2001, he Refuge was able to use flood restoration funds to recover the cultural and scientific values of Wapato Portage and stabilize the riverbank to prevent further degradation.