A Different Way of Seeing ~ The Tidewater Reach

Poem by Robert Michael Pyle • Photograph by Judy VanderMaten • Field Notes by Hal Calbom

‘But even now the Columbia remembers...’

The Book Boat

He bought a good old tub named Lorraine off an old salt gone to shore on Sauvie Island. Barely knew navigation, let alone diesel, so come spring and still afloat, he found a mate — a worse-off soak, never dried out, in a tavern off lower Burnside on Water Street — to caulk decks, pump bilge, romance the fickle engine into life.

When it began to look like Lorraine might not sink, he built shelves in the hold, and started buying books wherever he could: Goodwills and thrifts in The Dalles and St. Helens, library sales in Rainier and White Salmon, the remainder tables at Powell’s. Then, recalling bookmobiles from his boyhood on the plains, he hung his shingle on the bridge, and took The Book Boat on the road — on the river.

And so it went, up and down the tidal reach, Bonneville to Baker Bay and back again. Sometimes through the locks, all the way to Lewiston. Laying his wares before the boaters, the fishers, the workers, the loafers, all of them hungry for good books, though they might not know it. He sold them cheap, gave them away, or — his favorite — bartered, for fish, fruit, or laundry. Swapped a late Brian Doyle for a sturgeon, Middlemarch for Maryhill wine. Made enough for ground beef, beer, and diesel. Even the cat got fed and the mate paid enough for drunken leave ashore. Lorraine became a legend, up and down the river. Marinas vied for her, gave free moorage for a night or three. Until he started to wonder about the islands, the Inside Passage, and beyond. So he took Lorraine across the bar, and didn’t die. Put in at LaPush, where he sold all of his Pushkin to a Russian emigré, and a set of Twilight to a wannabe werewolf. Then east up the Straits: Neah Bay, Sekiu, P.A., P.T., and Points North. Last rumors came from Kodiak. But even now the Columbia remembers. And there’s always a slip open, just in case.

BOAT CRADLE

Located on the waterfront near the Astoria-Megler Bridge, this decaying boat cradle is among the last in the region. Designed to ramp a boat up and down into the river, it’s a variation on a device ubiquitous among mariners — usually employed to either lift, travel with, or store a boat. Just as it sounds, rather than en-folding the boat the cradle simply provides a form-fitting resting place, with or without lifts, wheels or locomotion.

Field Guide

to the Lower Columbia River in Poems and Pictures

RobeRt Michael Pyle Judy VandeRMaten

Robert Michael Pyle and Judy VanderMaten

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 The Tidewater Reach in 2020, presenting “a different way of seeing” our beloved Columbia River. For information on ordering specific editions, as well as our partner bookshops and galleries, see pages 2 and 35.