Guest Photographer 4

 Memaloose

Drive out I-84, east past Ainsworth State Park and the western end of The Old Highway (aka The Columbia River Highway) to the Mosier exit.  Here you will find an abandoned gas station and the east end of the Old Highway.  If you keep going east, you will come to, on the gorge cliffs above the river, the Memaloose overlook.

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Memaloose is Memaloose island.

This island is 2/3rds under water – when Bonneville Dam was built, the island was mostly submerged by the rising waters.

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Below me,on the river bank, is Memaloose rest area on the Interstate, just below the hand holding my camera.

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Lewis and Clarke passed Memaloose Island twice in their Voyage of Exploration.

They described Memaloose Island as an island of the dead.  The Indians who lived in this area did not bury their dead.  The deceased were taken to the islands in the river to lie in death and, presumably, to negotiate with the spirts to ensure another river bounty of salmon runs.  The first white man nominated as Indian Agent for the natives of this area (who were "removed" when the whites discovered the incredible salmon runs on the Columbia) is buried here, under the monument shown above on the left.  He so loved the people he was agent for that uponhis death, he requested to be buried here.  The other structure is a navigation marker for river traffic.

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cont’d