On August 3, 2015 I took a trip to visit Canemah Natural Park in the Canemah Historic Neighborhood. The area is part of Oregon City.
I was interested to see how the park was shaping up. Two years ago I was involved in helping design at least two of the interpretive signs with the team from METRO for this new park that overlooks Willamette Falls.
Canemah is now a neighborhood of Oregon City, but in the 1850s Canemah was a tribal village situated above the Willamette Falls on the eastern bank. The neighborhood today is steeped in history with a number of streets named for the native families who lived at the village, like ‘Apperson’. There native people would help portage canoes and supplies down the side of the falls to Oregon City. The location has an important shipbuilding history, of constructing sternwheelers, that by 1856 would ply the upper Willamette River as far as Eugene. Canemah may have been the furthest south for any … Continue reading People Above The Falls: Canemah Village