Columbia River Maritime Museum visit

The Northwest corner of Oregon, Astoria this weekend, was very picturesque. A giant bridge silhouetted hills on the north side of the Columbia. Astoria is an old town, with period buildings and very old museum quality houses. The river, ever present flow grey-ily by, and fishing vessels sit out in the waters fishing for hours. Ocean fisherman leave at 10 to get out into the open Ocean to fish there, and by about 5 they are all returning, in an orderly fashion. The downtown, is full of former buildings excavated years earlier to make dangerous deep concrete parking areas. There has been renovation, of the theater and selected buildings around town. The waterfront has seen renovation too, to build up the character of the town. Traffic flow is constant through town both directions, and the weekend its impossible to find parking because of the large number of visitors. I wonder if the city is looking to creation a “Pier 39” like experience for tourism to grow here? If so they will need more parking. The one interesting part was the underground tours. we went down to the underground shops, not as exciting as the booklet, but the potential is there to create a “weird Astoria underground” attraction.

My visit to the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria was full of disappointments. The Museum hosts numerous displays and exhibits of fishermen and coast guard and merchant marine who brave the rough conditions of the Ocean and river outlet at the termination of the Columbia. This area is full of danger, it was considered one of the most dangerous river entrances in the world and ships had to regularly watch out for large sand bars when entering. The outlet also has one of the largest outflows of fresh water in the world and this caused rough seas and some unpredictability. Hundreds of vessels have wrecked in this area, from the earliest records of European exploration. This history is well documented in the museum.

This region is well steeped in indigenous history, unfortunately, there is no information about the original Native peoples of this area, the Clatsop Chinook, or Tillamook in this museum. There is not even a slight passing mention of Native peoples beyond one panel that noted Nehalem-Tillamook, but did not add the requisite “peoples” behind their name. It was incredible to see how well the mention of Native peoples was excised from the record of this place, as if they never had existed in the first place. It has to be intentional, because there are voluminous histories of indigenous peoples, from the very first interactions on the coast with explorers and fur traders and into the settlement area. This museum has been around since 1963, and was renovated in 2001. I cannot say they have never had exhibits about Native peoples, in the sixty some years of operation, but the present exhibits are void of such narratives.

I am of two minds about this issue. My academic mind, knows the history of how “pioneer white settlers” really do not care about the history of  native peoples and this shows up in the histories and poorly researched accounts of their colonization of this land. This is a common enough theme throughout the West, and still appears in new museum exhibits. I have seen the like in recent exhibits at the Oregon Historical society, at the Oregon State Archives, and many other locations. Sure things are improving but never fast enough. I really wonder what is the delay and whether they are pioneer groups that will not allow the history of native peoples to be told here. Part of the problem is many historians and curators are not used to including Native peoples in their knowledge of the history of Oregon. This is a constant problem, because native history is not taught in schools and settler society has done a great job replacing the history of native peoples with their own and then ignoring the fact that  anyone else ever lived here previously.  Because of these barriers in society, Native people’s history is not well known by many, and it would take time to research those histories, and this does not fit the time-frame of many exhibit planners. Unless curators reach out to specialists in native history and the tribes, they will not get relevant accurate histories.

People ask my why this is important? Well if institutions are to tell an accurate and complete history, why omit native peoples? These peoples today are just as much a part of society as anyone else and they have a much longer and deeper connection to  Oregon than any other people. In fact, Native people were the majority for much of the colonial era, and they contributed materially to the foundation of “Oregon” and the American colonization of this land. The last two hundred years has been rough for native peoples who have seen massive losses, mainly to settlers, as most of their lands and resources were taken away. Native people were sent to reservations and then dissociated from their former lands. Because of American assimilation pressures, boarding schools and missionaries, even the history and culture of the tribes was forgotten by many tribal people. It is a trend in many American histories to show pioneer legacies in a positive light, and the losses sustained by Native peoples does not fit that narrative. But again native people are now parts of the society, and their story deserves to be told as much as any other story. The story is known, many of us specialists have written significant sections of the story and so there really is no good reason to not include the history of native people in any museum exhibit.

This brings me to my other role here, a casual observer seeking to learn from this exhibit. Again I learned much about the exploits of white American culture. A bridge was built, many men died at sea from hundreds of shipwrecks. The jetties were built, the Coast Guard was there many times to save people. This first American city in the West, was established and is thriving. There is not much about upriver communities, besides a few maps, so the museum does not well represent the “Columbia River.”  There does not appear to be a past beyond the white settlement, with no mention of Native peoples. Even the marine archaeology exhibit is about exploring shipwrecks-  and marine archaeology normally has other sub-sections like underwater archaeology, which explore native cultural remains like weir stakes. But there is no mention of Native peoples in the archaeology area.  What this amounts to is disinformation. Visitors to the museum will come away thinking that there was not a significant presence of native people in this area at all, which is a gross untruth that needs to be addressed. In fact, the growth of settler society and its amazing industries was made possible by taking native land and exploiting their labor in some fashion.

Interesting enough the museum exhibits do not address one of the real importances of Astoria, as the first American town on the West Coast. Fort Astoria was established in 1811, predating most of the American towns by nearly 40 years. The exploits of the Pacific Fur Traders, and their encounters with Chinook, Tillamook and Kalapuyans are nowhere addressed in this museum. The founding of Astoria story is largely a maritime story, nearly all travel took place by boat of some sort, and all of the Chinooks used canoes, the main method of transportation of American fur traders to locations up the Columbia River or Willamette River.  All goods were transported by canoe, Native people worked for the company, Chief Kiesno and Chief Comcomly had significant events and adventures with the fur traders. These events laid the groundwork for the eventual settlement of Oregon by Americans, and the final claim to the area by the United States. The importance of this history is undeniable yet is nowhere preset in the museum.  There are significant stories that deserve to be told here that will resonate with the native peoples of the region as well as many non-natives, whose ancestors had interactions with the tribes.

The one bright spot is in the museum store. They have a great selection of history books including a very good selection of books about the Northwest Coastal native people. In addition, another store is open showcasing Native culture and books for sale. I have also since heard that there is a plan in the next year to have a native exhibit in the museum. There is no signage advertising the new exhibit.

Unless we document and comment on these things, these cognitive dissonances, nothing will change.

David G. Lewis in Clatsop territory, 8/11/2024