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A Different Way of Seeing ~ The Tidewater Reach
THE TIDEWATER REACH
Poem by Robert Michael Pyle • Photograph by Judy VanderMaten Field Note by Hal Calbom
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I Cross the Columbia
How many times have I crossed this river? Five hundred? A thousand? First time, 1964, with my mother, bringing me by rail from Colorado to see her beloved Northwest. It took. So there were many crossings to come on the Portland Rose, the City of Portland, and eventually Amtrak, or sometimes Greyhound, Seattle to Denver and back again. Later, in a dynasty of Volkswagens, it was I-5 and 205, the Bridge of the Gods, Hood River, The Dalles, Biggs, Umatilla, Vernita, and Vantage: for jobs, field trips, family, all the reasons one has for changing states of being. When I moved downstream to a lower trib, crossings shifted to the Lewis & Clark in Longview, the ferry at Westport, in Honda, Toyota, Subaru. Now I cross the river more than ever before — at Megler, the last bridge before the bar, And gladly so! For when I cross the Columbia now, I am crossing it to you.
RIVER BUOYS
River buoys aid ship navigation and are maintained by the United States Coast Guard. Solid green buoys are odd-numbered; solid red even-numbered. Buoys are moored to the river bottom and their numbers increase sequentially from the sea upriver. They denote key navigation features, not river miles.
On this page we excerpt poems, pictures and field notes from our own “Field Guide to the Lower Columbia River in Poems and Pictures,” The Tidewater Reach, by Gray’s River resident and renowned naturalist Robert Michael Pyle, and Cathlamet photographer Judy VanderMaten. The two dreamed for years of a collaborative project, finally realized when Columbia River Reader Press published color and black and white editions of The Tidewater Reach in 2020, and a third, hybrid edition in 2021, all presenting “a different way of seeing” our beloved Columbia River.
Field Guide
to the Lower Columbia River
in Poems and Pictures
RobeRt Michael Pyle Judy VandeRMaten
For information on ordering, as well as our partner bookshops and galleries, see pages 2 and 43.
