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Troubles with History section

The history section seems to have somewhat of a pro-American slant, or at least to be written too much from an American (non-neutral) viewpoint. In particular, the assertions about the effect of Gray's entry of the Columbia River on American claims to the whole "Oregon Country" seem much over-stated. Gray himself does not seem to have made much of it, beyond that it afforded him some good trading, and American territorial claims on its basis were not mooted at the time -- at least not that I have read. The whole idea that this one bit of exploration by a private trader should have given the U.S. territorial claim to so vast an area, an area that was being much more extensively explored by other nations at the time, seems preposterous, and all the more so considering that the U.S. only extended east to the Missisippi at the time, the Louisiana Purchase being over a decade away, as yet. American territorial claims in the era a little afterward were not always conspicuous for their reasonableness, and a hagiographic, hindsight over-emphasis on the effect of Gray would not be out of character for them, but this needs to be presented for what it is. I've added some material on George Vancouver's explorations, which balances matters out somewhat.
A couple of other points seem doubtful to me; I've tagged them as needing citations.
-- Lonewolf BC 01:24, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Flows

I edited the volume. For this time of year mean flow is over 300,000 cfs. Total yearly mean flow is somewhat lower, but not less than 284,000 cfs, which makes the Columbia larger in Volume than the St. Lawrence and Mackenzie. Tides can affect the gaging, as when water is inflowing the discharge will read much lower. [1] - User:Peckvet55 05:10, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

The 284,000 cfs value is not supported by the reference link you provided . . . unless you're referring to the median value given in the link, which is only for May 1. The 265,000 cfs value is referenced, and it's consistent with the value obtained during the 1941-70 survey (262,000 cfs). Furthermore, the Mackenzie and St. Lawrence discharges are both well over 300,000 cfs at the mouth (see their wikipedia article links as well as [2]).

User:Myasuda 13:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

See also Largest Rivers in the United States, a USGS report -- much better than raw stream gage data. Pfly 15:18, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

NOTE: Everything above here is duplicated in /Archive 2, kept here only inasmuch as the discussions may (?) not be resolved yet. -Pete (talk) 21:31, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

I jumped right in today and made my first edit to this article by changing the claim that the Columbia was the fourth largest river by volume in North America to say that it was the fourth largest by volume in the U.S. (Mississippi, St. Lawrence, Ohio, Columbia, according to the USGS). I made this edit before realizing that the question had been debated here earlier. The MacKenzie is quite a bit bigger in discharge volume (10,300 m³/s as compared to 7,480 m³/s), as User:Myasuda has said. My source for the MacKenzie number is here in the subsection called "The 25 River Systems with Greatest Average Discharge Rates". Finetooth (talk) 02:52, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

More notes for future expansion

The Bureau of Reclamation apparently had a lot to do with the building of dams and the economic development of the region. Notably, the Bureau was working on a "secret plan" in 1965 to divert the Columbia to California, but was thwarted by Washington Sen. Scoop Jackson. Also, the collapse of the Teton Dam in 1976 prompted the Carter administration to put the brakes on dam development, and declare that the rivers of the West had been successfully "harnessed." The book Cadillac Desert, reviewed here in the Seattle Times, explores the history of the agency. Also, this Washington Post article discusses the new approach of Carter's Interior Department.

;Time magazine article about Woody Guthrie and the BPA, and the evloving politics of the region.: Morrow, Lance (July 82002). "This Land Is Whose Land? Times and priorities change. Woody Guthrie hailed Lewis and Clark for finding a place to build dams. Today his tune might be different". Time. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)

DONE (not a very good or comprehensive article, so I found a citation from the Oregonian too) -Pete 19:44, 16 October 2007 (UTC)

;Time magazine article on Kennewick Man: Lemonick, Michael D. (March 132006). "Who Were The First Americans?". Time. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)

;Fortune mag. article: cheap power makes river attractive for tech companies/server farms. -Pete 20:30, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Movies

I cut out the following section from the main page. I'd like to see about getting this article reviewed for "Good" status, and another editor (VanTucky) pointed out that anything resembling a "trivia" section might be an impediment. If there is value in this section, can it be extracted and combined into the prose of the article somewhere else? Surely not all these movies need to be listed. -Pete 15:36, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

I would suggest a general paragraph on the general use of the Columbia in movies and TV with mention of only one or to specific instances and move the remainder of the citations to the locality articles where they are more appropriate, for example- The Goonies to the Astoria article, Maverick to Hood River etc... --Kevmin 18:26, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
I'd prefer also creating Columbia River in popular media (or something like that). Finding the bits and pieces would be not straightforward to difficult. —EncMstr 20:40, 6 September 2007 (UTC)
An article such as the above would almost certainly be nominated for deletion, considering the recent trends in AFD. I would suggest relegating the content to the talk page until a good prose section can be reintegrated in to the article. Why create a popular culture holding space if it's just going to be deleted? VanTucky (talk) 20:24, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

In the movies

Culture

Below are the remnants of the "Culture" section, after I moved the history of indigenous peoples to what I think is a more appropriate part of the article. These bits need to remain in the article, I think, but I'm not sure exactly where or how. I think the Woody Guthrie quote, along with some explanatory text, belongs in the "Hydroelectric" section (see the Time Magazine article linked above for citation); not sure where the D.B. Cooper bit belongs. -Pete 07:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
You could just place it in the proper place in the "modern history" section, chronologically speaking. VanTucky Talk 22:30, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
Kitesurfing on the Columbia River

Roll on, Columbia, roll on, roll on, Columbia, roll on
Your power is turning our darkness to dawn
Roll on, Columbia, roll on.

On February 13 1980, $5,800 (in bundles of $20 bills) was found by a family on a picnic five miles northwest of Vancouver, Washington on the banks of the Columbia River. The money is believed by the FBI to be connected with the 1971 disappearance of hijacker D. B. Cooper.[1]

Images

You know, this article's subject has so many different landmarks and ecologies, that I think it really merits a gallery. We could even organize it go with the flow of the river (starting in Canada etc.). This would free up some the places that the amount of images disrupts the text, and still manage to keep what are all quite necessary images. Thoughts? VanTucky Talk 22:29, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

I'm not personally a huge fan of galleries, I prefer to see images spread throughout the article. If there is a gallery, I prefer it have four images, which is the most the template seems to support in a single row; it can make a fairly attractive row separating two sections, for instance. But I'd rather not see all (or most) of the images collected into a single gallery. Of course, that's all just my opinion, and not supported by any policy or guideline that I know of…so if you want to give it a shot, have at it! I won't revert. Definitely interested in perspectives from others, too.
By the way, I'm planning to nominate this for "Good Article" status, probably in the next week or so -- any reactions to that most welcome! I'll be re-incorporating the Guthrie and Cooper items above before doing so (unless somebody gets to that before me.) I like the suggestion you made up there, too. -Pete 05:29, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I should add -- if you're talking about adding MORE photos, then a single-row gallery would be a great idea. Not sure if that's what you had in mind. -Pete 19:31, 2 October 2007 (UTC)
I wasn't suggesting we move all the images wholesale into a gallery. But right now, they really do cramp some of the text. Like the part where it shifts one of the section headers over. That's not a failing criteria for GA at all, but it's annoying bc I'm visually anal retentive. Anyway, what I was thinking of is leaving a few key images for each section, depending on how much a section can reasonably support. Then placing the rest in a gallery. I could always just try it out, and if you absolutely hate it, it's not a big deal if you want to revert to the original. Either way the article is without a doubt GA status. But if we tried for FA, that kind of cramping would definitely have to be dealt with, and I'd hate to see unique and valuable images removed entirely on space grounds. VanTucky Talk 01:33, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
For what it's worth -- galleries seem to almost always trample text for me. The one on this page has photos running over and obscuring some of the text. I see this a lot with wikipedia galleries, and I'm not running anything unusual -- just regular old Firefox 2 on Mac OS 10.3.9 with no odd wikipedia skins or anything unusual. Just a datapoint.. Pfly 03:01, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Oops, just noticed the page's problem for me is the "ImageStackRight" not a gallery. I'm not up on the technicalities of the difference. Maybe galleries do work for me and ImageStackRight's, whatever they are, don't. Pfly 03:04, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
WP:PIC will give you a good idea of the difference between stackups and galleries. VanTucky Talk 22:21, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Thank you both for weighing in here! I am a bit confused by Pfly's comment, because I also use Firefox 2 on a recent Mac (it's 10.4, should be about the same) and I don't think it has the same issue. If you can figure out a way to get a screen shot to me (Apple-Shift-3 puts a picture of your screen on your desktop) I'd be happy to tinker a bit.

VanTucky, I think we just have a difference of opinion about what looks good. I rather like having images "interrupt" the text in a few places. Pushing the header over is actually something I did on purpose. All that said, none of it is anything I'm going to fight too hard on -- if you have a different vision of how it should look, I'm happy to take a peek.

Finally, I generally avoid the "imagestack" template, but in this case I used it because it solves a problem I couldn't figure out how to solve any other way: using the white space to the right of the map in the "Tributaries" section. Definitely open to suggestion on that! Of course, we can talk this over tonight at WikiWednesday. -Pete 22:27, 3 October 2007 (UTC)

Sure thing, I'm not hard and fast on a major change anyway. VanTucky Talk 22:30, 3 October 2007 (UTC)
Screenshot 1
Screenshot 2

Here's two screenshots of what I was talking about above (view larger to see more clearly). The first is with a wide window, showing how even then the text is obscured by images. The second is a narrower window, showing how the table gets obscured. There's no window width that doesn't obscure content. It could be that this is the result of some stupid mistake I made with some setting somewhere or other, but I can't recall making any unusual settings to anything. It's a fairly minor problem that happens only here and there on wikipedia, so I haven't mentioned it or tried to fix it yet. Pfly 03:06, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Well that's, like, totally unacceptable! Thanks for posting, and I'll see about some kind of immediate fix -- I had no idea it looked so horrible. Wonder what's different about our Firefoxen? -Pete 00:36, 5 October 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, that's how it comes out for me too. VanTucky Talk 01:45, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

where do you get to photos of river george?

where do you get photos of river george. my tearcher showed us photos in class , I dont know where she got them on this web site. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.108.137.150 (talk) 18:29, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Did you try Columbia River Gorge? -Pete 18:52, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Old course

I'm going to try to find some info on the old course of the river, where it followed through what is now the Wilson River valley when it flowed more straight into the Pacific (at least I remember hearing that before). Aboutmovies 00:45, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks AM, that would be a great addition! -Pete 03:11, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Drainage section

Myasuda just removed the "Drainage" section (pasted below.) This was discussed above, in the section #Removed some specifics. The section actually includes more detail than the intro, which had become bogged down, in my opinion (and according to a non-Wikipedian friend who read the article) with far too many statistics. Personally, I think there should be even fewer specific stats in the intro, to keep it interesting to the many readers who are not necessarily looking for a statistical rundown. But it's probably a good idea to include the details in the article; that's where the "Drainage" section came from to begin with.

Very interested in what other editors think of this. -Pete 03:11, 24 October 2007 (UTC)


The major problem I have is the redundancy of information: the second paragraph of this article has virtually the same information as the Discharge section. The only additional information deals with the maximum flow. Incidentally, if you look at other river articles, the amount of statistics in the lead is hardly unusual. Myasuda 03:20, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
The introduction is supposed to repeat information like that. It's an overview of the entire article that is there to clearly restate the general notable facts of the subject. What's more, it should never contain specific facts not present in the body of the article. VanTucky Talk 03:27, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
Upon review, I think I'd be happy following Pete's suggestion to move the statistics out of the lead. I suggest combining the Course and Drainage section into a single Drainage basin section as is done in Amazon River. I would leave the note about the Columbia being the largest river flowing into the Pacific from the Western Hemisphere (which I added a while back))in the lead since it distinguishes the subject. Myasuda 03:38, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I'm fine with trimming the lead if you like, just remember that the point is that it should be a concise overview of the entire article (of course, removing some too-detailed stats might be step in that direction). VanTucky Talk 03:42, 24 October 2007 (UTC)
I like how that works, combining with the "Course" section. This is looking good. I noticed another couple places where there's more detail (even trivia) in the intro than the article, I'll try to correct when I have a moment. -Pete 17:54, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Rivers that pass through the Cascades

The article makes the claim that the Columbia is the only river to pass through the Cascades, in the Gorge. Certainly, the Klamath River also cuts through the Cascades (though in less dramatic fashion); and arguments can be made for the Fraser River in BC and the Pit River in California (both of which pass the Cascades near the northern and southern ends of the range, respectively); articles for these rivers all claim to cut through the Cascade mountains.

Certainly, the article ought to be correct, and consistent with the other rivers in question. If there is controversy concerning which other rivers cut through the Cascades, that should be dealt with in some manner.

--EngineerScotty 05:16, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

I've looked into this before, and it seems that only three rivers pass completely through the Cascades: Columbia, Klamath, and Pit. The Cascades end before reaching the Fraser, as the BC people have adamantly pointed out on various pages. I thought I had made sure the river pages involved all had the same info, but perhaps I missed the Columbia.. or someone changed it. As far as I can tell there is little controversy about it, just some misinformation floating around. Pfly 06:52, 24 October 2007 (UTC)

Ecology and environment section

It occurs to me that this section is a bit lacking. It should start with an overview of the flora and fauna of the river, before getting into the things that threaten that. Also, it's my understanding that the timber industry, historically, has been detrimental to fish habitat etc., though I'd have to hunt for a source. -Pete 00:18, 25 October 2007 (UTC)

Good Article Review

I will be doing the Good Article review here - more soon, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 18:52, 29 October 2007 (UTC)

Good article nomination October / November 2007

More resources for future expansion

  • Jim McDermott introduced this bill (HR 1507) in March '07, which would have the GAO and other gov't agencies study the impact of the removal of four snake river dams. The findings in the text of the resolution may be useful as citations, esp. in the Ecology & Env. section.
  • Raymond, Camela (November 2007). "The Shape of Memory". Portland Monthly.
Article about Maya Lin's current project, the Confluence Project, enhancing state parks along the Columbia to explore its cultural history.
  • The October Portland Monthly had a relevant article, too.

-Pete 08:29, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Another suggestion I have is to look at everything you want to mention in the whole article, then make sure to describe it sequentially in the "Course" section. That way, when you mention Hanford or the Snake River, readers will have some idea or reference as to where these come along the course of the river. Of course my longest FA stream is only 22.9 miles! Hope this helps, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 00:47, 14 November 2007 (UTC)
A good suggestion. Working mostly on citations right now, I"ll come back to that if nobody else does. Another thought I had is to merge List of hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River into this article, which might accomplish much of what you suggest in the form of a chart. -Pete (talk) 10:04, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Citation for "three times size of Great Pyramid" and some other stuff here. -Pete (talk) 21:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

"vibrant" over-used

I made a couple o' minor edits tonight: "at numerous times" and changed one of the three uses of "vibrant" to "thriving" - actually stole this word from an article that Google led me to! But someone who knows more about the article (Pete(r)?) should have a look at the two remaining "vibrant"s - it's a good word but not when over-used! -- Martha (talk) 06:09, 18 November 2007 (UTC)

I removed another, thanks for the suggestion! -Pete (talk) 21:41, 11 December 2007 (UTC)

Aboriginal name(s)

In the opening sentence the claim is made:

known as Wimahl or Big River to the Chinook-speaking natives who live on its lowermost reaches

The cite is from Capt Gray.....who is anything but a valid source, I'd say; non-aboriginal nowledge comprehension of native langauges is not to be trusted, especially in the earliest years of contact (such misreadings are how Canada got its name, from the Algonquian word for "village"). A real source would be a Chinookan-language study, and from what i recall in Chinook Jargon studies/debates while there is a Chinookan name for the river, that's not it; I'll see if I can dig it up, I think it's mentioned in Shaw or Gibbs, who are the main Chinook Jargon source; the name they give for use in C J is that from the Chinookan language. In fairness though, there are a dozen or two languages along the river's route, and if Chinookan is to be here - it is a dead language - then the living (if endangered) languages farther upstream should also be here. I'll check on this Wimahl claim, it may resemble a Chinookan word, but I don't recognize it at all.Skookum1 (talk) 15:07, 9 March 2008 (UTC)

Actually, the article cited by this one cites the following sources:

William Denison Lyman, The Columbia River (Portland, OR: Binfords & Mort, 1963); 37, 43, 44-47, 50-51; Edmond S. Meany, History of the State of Washington (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1946), 15-16; Meany, Origin of Washington Geographic Names (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1923), 35, 52-53; Rick Minor, "Settlement and subsistence at the Mouth of the Columbia River" in Prehistoric Places on the Southern Northwest Coast ed. by Robert E. Greengo (Seattle: Burke Museum, 1983), 196-98; Murray Morgan, The Last Wilderness (New York: Viking Press, 1955), 8-9, 18; J. Richard Nokes, Columbia's River (Tacoma: Washington State Historical Society, 1991), 185, 189-91, 193-97; Robert Michael Pyle, Wintergreen (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996), 44-46; Rick Rubin, Naked Against the Rain (Portland, OR: Far Shore Press, 1999), 3-5, 8, 14-15, 37-49, 61-62, 93-97, 107-21.

So I don't think it's accurate to say that Robert Gray is the authority cited. Of course, more detailed research would be an improvement, and including additional names from further upstream would be great if they can be found. By the way, good luck with the househunt! -Pete (talk) 16:38, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Better Lead Image?

The Bonneville image at the top of the article seems a bit washed out. I propose a new image for the top of the article. Maybe the Revelstoke picture? Or this one of the Hanford Reach? Or maybe a flickr image tagged as creative commons, like this one [3]? Northwesterner1 (talk) 12:33, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Nice shot of the Revelstoke area, but the Hanford one's nice too; both represent different kinds of terrain in the basin. It'd be nice to have an aerial of the upper Columbia in the Golden-Columbia Lake area; Randall & Kat's Flying Photos are unfortunately not, as far as I know, public domain (although Kat doesn't place copyright tags on her pics; I've written her about it but gotten no response). A shot of the Castlegar-Trail stretch might be around somewhere, I'll see if I can find one.Skookum1 (talk) 15:40, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I actually put a fair amount of thought into the lead photo, and I think this is the best one available. I agree it's a little washed out, which is unfortunate. But here are the reasons:
  • It shows a dam; dams are a vital part of the history of the river, having fundamentally changed the character of every inch of the river save a few short free-running stretches. The trail of foam coming out of the dam hints at its significance.
  • It shows the gorge and the foothills of the Cascades; the fact that it cuts through the Cascades is an important aspect of the Columbia, reflecting the size and power of the river, and permitting the settlement of the Willamette Valley which would otherwise have been all but inaccessible, and later providing a transportation link via steamboat, rail, and highway. Boat traffic is suggested by the boat exiting the locks in the lower right. Roads and rails are visible as well.
  • It shows both Oregon and Washington, two of the three state/provinces the river occupies.
  • Of all the dams, I think that Bonneville is probably second only to the Grand Coulee in terms of how much it altered the shape of the river.
  • The results of the Bonneville Slide, a significant geological event, are visible: the outcropping on the left is the debris from Greenleaf Mountain from over 300 years ago. (This is not explained in the caption or text, but could be.)
  • Apart from the unfortunate color/washed out aspect, it is visually interesting; the shape of the river is unusual here, there are steep mountains on the right and more gradual slopes on the left.
  • The image is not seen all over the place (as would be the case for anything taken from Crown Point or the Women's Forum, which are on the front of every calendar in the region.

I would be open to alternate images, but I feel that anything we use must display multiple aspects of the river, and invite a number of different stories to be told, along these lines. I don't believe any other image currently in the article comes close. -Pete (talk) 18:00, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I made some slight adjustments to the color balance of the photo, see what you think. There's not a lot to work with there...wish I had access to the original!! -Pete (talk) 18:11, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
I agree with the points above, well-taken, and yeah the Revelstoke pc is nice but really sort of generic; not that illustrative of the upper basin, which is why I suggested a shot of the Columbia Valley; an aerial of that or some shot of Columbia Lake is a propos too maybe; granted, a shot of the smelter-town of Trail or the strip-mall nature of Castlegar ain't much; the valley n that area is quite beautiful, despite its cities though...I'll see what I can find; though not for a lead article; the Bonneville shot's nice and, yeah, illustrative of the river in a way a shot of other areas might not be.Skookum1 (talk) 18:32, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

is of Lake Windermere, not Columbia Lake, but is already on the Columbia Valley page.Skookum1 (talk) 18:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

I can see your point. The original is here [4]. It's an Army Corps of Engineers photo and is in the public domain for that reason. Northwesterner1 (talk) 20:56, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Great find!! I had looked for a higher-res version in the past, and came up short. I was able to make a somewhat more attractive version, I think; let me know what you think! -Pete (talk) 22:26, 14 March 2008 (UTC)
Looking better. Thanks! Northwesterner1 (talk) 22:34, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

that ACE site looks really interesting, probably full of all kinds of useful wikipix...I tried searching for "Whatcom" and "Okanogan" just to see what would come up. Nothing did, maybe I wasn't looking in the right place....where did you browse/find/search for the Bonneville Dam pic?Skookum1 (talk) 22:39, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

The portal for the images is here: https://eportal.usace.army.mil/sites/DVL/default.aspx. I think a lot of the wiki articles on dams are using their images already, but I'm sure there's much more to be harvested. Northwesterner1 (talk) 23:04, 14 March 2008 (UTC)

Hydropower capacity

I am confused about the meaning of this bit of text, which needs a source:

The Columbia's heavy flow and extreme elevation drop over a short distance give it tremendous capacity for hydroelectricity generation. It was estimated in the 1960s – ’70s that the Columbia represented a fifth of the total hydroelectric capacity on Earth (although these estimates may no longer be accurate.)

Sources seem to use the term "hydroelectric capacity" for existing dams. In this sense the claim here is about comparing the hydroelectric production of the Columbia River dams with the rest of the world's hydroelectric dams. But the mention of the river's flow and elevation drop imply that "capacity" means "potential", whether developed or not. It is hard to believe that the Columbia has a fifth of the world's potential hydroelectric power, but I can maybe believe it once had a fifth of the world's actual production, in the 60s perhaps. Pfly (talk) 20:13, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

I think it means it would be hydroelectrically practical to build dams along the Columbia and capture most of the potential energy. Note that even existing dams don't capture all the energy they could, so the Columbia is nowhere near "fully harnessed". Rivers like the Mississippi River have very little elevation drop over 2,300 miles from its source, with few natural drops of more than a few feet to make hydroelectric practical. The dams which do exist are to keep the navigational channel at least nine feet deep. (They get by with nine feet, and Columbia dredging is to 43!) For the largest flowing river, the Amazon, its raw stats are impressive, though building dams dozens to hundreds of miles wide to capture it is very impractical. Its headwaters are impressively high in the Andes, but relatively heavy flow begins mid-basin after many tributaries, say around Manaus. The Nile River has relatively little flow over a very long grade: I compared the others with Khartoum at the junction of the White and Blue Niles. Comparison of some hydroelectric flows divided by the length of the river:
River avg flow
(kcfs)		 hydro
length
(mi)		 elev drop
(ft)		 kcfs x elev
________
mi
Mississippi River 450 1485 800 at Minneapolis 242
Amazon River 7500 900 300 at Manaus 2500
Nile River 100 1500 1200 at Khartoum, Sudan 80
Columbia River 265 400 360 at Snake River 238
While several of those have greater potentials, imagine the relative trouble of building a hydro dam across them. The Amazon is said to be 300 miles wide during flood season near the mouth, with deep alluvial deposits which would not make a good foundation. The Nile has wide floodplains along its banks, so a modest rise makes it spread considerably. The Columbia barely gets wider with increased level along most of its course, and runs through firm rocky land. So $X spent to dam the Columbia gets a whole lot more electricity than anywhere else. —EncMstr 22:19, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Well, you've certainly missed remembering the Yukon, though admittedly its reservoir would be a giant icecube for a lot of the year, and might catalyze into an icesheet if it were ever allowed to and got large enough ;-) (one way to cool the planet down, huh? trigger an ice age). The Yukon's flow is huge, although its rate of descent isn't all that significant once it hits Alaska. But there's also the other coastal rivers to consider - some have huge volumes, like the Klinaklini and Homathko and sometimes even shorter ones are huge, and all dammable in some way; I used to have a BC Govt publication Water Powers which listed them all off; the two biggies in undeveloped power, were the Fraser River and the Chilko-Homathko-Southgate; the latter would involve three different rivers were it ever to be developed, and the Chilko diversion is now off hte books, though Homathko might still roll on unabated (privately developed, if BC govt policy continues); I'm not sure if the Southgate is all that relative if Chilko Lake's not in the system; I think the Bishop and Toba Rivers and certan others had quite large potentials; ditto the Lillooet, were it safe to dam it (it has an active volcano or two at its upper end). Anyway other than Homathko-Chilko-Southgate, the big-biggie would have been the Moran Dam on the Fraser, if it ever got built; the Fraser being the only river anywhere near the Columbia's size (south of the Yukon, and I haven't considered the Peace, or the potentials on the Liard..) and also with a much more rapid rate of descent than the Columbia; the Moran Dam would stretch from about 25 miles north of Lillooet almost to Soda Creek, where another dam would back up the Fraser to Prince George, and below Moran the Glen Fraser and Lillooet Canyon dams were all to be part of one grandiose project; and this not counting the notion of damming the Fraser farther south as well, or damming the Thompson; the Thompson's problematic because any useful dam would flood out Kamloops :-) but you get the idea; BC has tons of huge hydroelectric potential, the Fraser's potentials are comparable to the Columbia's (and would need fewer dams to do so), but I don't have stats handy on that. The full potential of the Columbia is no longer achievable because of the Two Rivers Policy; if not for that policy a high dam somewhere below Trail would have flooded out the whole of the Canadian basin of the Columbia, other than higher side valleys; the Kootenay/Kootenai and Columbia basins would have been one big lake, the Selkirks and Purcells a pair of big, mountainous islands in the middle of it. I believe there's been some consideration of damming the upper Pitt lately, both for a water supply for Vancouver but also as a source of hydro power; but it's also one of the world's prime steelhead grounds, and like the Fraser there are fisheries issues that likely will block it, as has been the case with High Moran. Somewhere there's a chart I've seen of length/volume/width of rivers, and the Pitt's right up there with "big short ones" elsewhere, including a few others upcoast.Skookum1 (talk) 23:46, 15 March 2008 (UTC)
Found this on the Fraser River article:
The river's volume at its mouth is 112 km³ (27 cu mi) each year (about 800,000 gal/s or 3550 cubic metres per second), and it dumps 20 million tons of sediment into the ocean
anyone care to convert the metric->imperial? I"ll see if there's similar for the Stikine, Homathko, Taku and see what's next ranked; useful info for the British Columbia Coastarticle, actually, should havee though to do it when I still ahd Water Powers around....(used it for other articles though).Skookum1 (talk) 23:51, 15 March 2008 (UTC)

According to this website, the UN estimates the world's total "technically exploitable" potential for hydropower is 15 trillion kilowatt-hours." That's 15,000,000,000 MW if I'm not mistaken. The Columbia River dams currently produce 24,149 MW according to List of hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River. I'm sure more could be made, but a fifth of the world's potential would be 3,000,000,000 MW. That's an awful lot more than 24,149. Maybe my math is wrong somewhere. Pfly (talk) 01:09, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

OK, I replaced that unreferenced and confusing sentence with a referenced one about the Columbia having a third of the US's hydro potential. Not quite the same statement, but at least similar. The old claim is here on the talk page in case anyone gets around to figuring it out. Also made edit wrt the next section below. Pfly (talk) 21:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Problematic sentence about hydropower

Here's another sentence I have trouble with, from the Hydroelectricity subsection:

While hydroelectricity accounts for only 6.5% of energy in the United States, the Columbia and its tributaries provide approximately 60% of the hydroelectric power on the west coast.

First, the grammar and logic struck me as odd and somewhat confusing. Doesn't it seem odd? If nothing else I expected "Pacific Northwest" instead of "west coast". The Columbia and tributaries include some major hydroelectric sites in Idaho and Montana, but none in California.

Second, I looked at the source cited at the end of the sentence, this page, and could not find anything about "60% of the hydroelectric power on the west coast". I browsed the website's other pages for such info with no luck. Further, the page says that hydro accounts for 7.1% of the US energy production, not 6.5%.

So, I'll change the 6.5 to 7.1, move the footnote to just that claim, and add a fact tag to the second claim. I'll see if I can find more info, and think about better wording. Pfly (talk) 04:24, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

There is something else odd about the source footnote here. The ref tag says it is from the "Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Annual, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers". It is from the Energy Information Administration, but I see nothing about the Army Corps of Engineers there. Also, the footnote calls the link "Federal Columbia River Power System], brochure (2003), p. 1." But the actual link is called "Electric Power Annual", published in 2007 with data for 2006. It says nothing at all about the Columbia River. It isn't a brochure and does not have a page 1. In short, something is messed up here. Pfly (talk) 04:33, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Looks like you've uncovered something important. Thanks for the keen eye! I'll take a closer look tomorrow. -Pete (talk) 05:48, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
Okay, on the logic first: I'm pretty sure the reason is that it's talking about where the power is used, not where it's generated. Russell Sadler had a good article in 1997, How deregulation will send Oregon's water south -- by wire that talks about Columbia-generated power going to California markets. Now, I'm off to look into the ref weirdness... -Pete (talk) 07:20, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Interestingly enough, the anonymous edit that added this stuff made a total mess of the references. This might take a little closer investigation... -Pete (talk) 07:33, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I just removed the statement altogether, figuring the one I added about the river having a third of the US's hydro potential covers the basic idea (ie, the river can and does produce an awful lot of electricity). Again, the removed statement is here on the talk page in case anyone gets around to figuring it out. Pfly (talk) 21:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

Seems like a good solution. Good eye! -Pete (talk) 20:47, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Celilo Falls

A recent edit replaced the material below; might be worth making the point about the USACE's predictions and restoring the cited articles. Also, wondering if this section should mention Kettle Falls and Cascades Rapids, which though not as significant as Celilo, were also major fishing and trading sites. -Pete (talk) 21:11, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Celilo Falls was an important economic and cultural hub for as many as 10,000 years; traders convened from all over western North America to trade, drawn largely by the abundant salmon. The installation of The Dalles Dam in the mid-20th century displaced a thriving community of Native Americans; the Army Corps of Engineers' predictions of vibrant industry and plentiful work along the river did not come to pass.[2][3]
Definitely yes on including Kettle Falls and Cascades Rapids. I think the indigenous peoples section should be expanded considerably if we can find sources. The ACE stuff is related to a larger question about the organization of the article. Does this belong here or down below in the dams section? I ran into this a bit while trying to improve the navigation section, as some of the stuff about improving navigation on the river also seems to belong in the dams section. It's tricky... On the one hand, the article has a roughly chronological movement, the way it progresses from geology to indigenous peoples to "a wider world explores the river" to the Robert Gray bit that opens the navigation section and the steamboats. On the other hand, it's organized by subject area under the encyclopedic structure. This has led to a bunch of little quirks in the presentation of material. It seems odd, say, to separate the "navigation" function of the dams from the "irrigration" and "hydroelectricity" functions. Or to separate the dredging project from the environmental section. Why is Robert Gray in navigation and not exploration? Etc. We're moving toward a fully researched and referenced article, but it's lacking an elegant narrative. So if we could, I'd like to open up this particular point about Celilo into a discussion of the organization strategy of the article. Is there a better way to organize the material? Northwesterner1 (talk) 21:57, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
One proposal:
  1. Lead section.
  2. "Course" (as opposed to drainage basin, even though some drainage basin material may be included here).
  3. "Native history"
  4. "European and colonial exploration"
  5. "19th century history" or "Settlement history" (with info. on early dredging and steamboats)
  6. "20th century history"
    1. Hydroelectricity (introducing the dams)
    2. Navigation
    3. Irrigation
    4. Recreational Uses
  7. "Ecology and environment"
    1. Fish Migration (mostly focused on impact of dams)
    2. Pollution (Hanford, agricultural toxins, uranium mines).
I'm not sure if that's the best way to do things, just one idea... Northwesterner1 (talk) 21:57, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

And here's an alternate version of the above, influenced by what Pfly suggests below. I'm using "Modern History" instead of "River Modfications" because the dam content outweighs the current dredging project, so there's really only one BIG "modification," but there are many uses of that modification.

  1. Lead section.
  2. "Course" (as opposed to drainage basin, even though some drainage basin material may be included here)
  3. "Geology"
  4. "Early History"
    1. "Indigenous peoples"
    2. "European and colonial exploration" (Gray, Lewis & Clark, etc.)
    3. "Settlement" (fur trading, steamboat navigation, early river modifications, with a segue into later modifications...)
  5. "Modern History" (write an intro for this section based on Richard White's thesis of the modern Columbia as an "organic machine")
    1. "Hydroelectric Dams"
    2. "Irrigation"
    3. "Navigation" (including current dredging project)
    4. "Recreation"
  6. "Ecology and environment"
    1. "Fish Migration" (mostly focused on impact of dams)
    2. "Pollution" (Hanford, agricultural toxins, uranium mines)

Northwesterner1 (talk) 07:40, 17 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm glad you're bringing this up. To sum up the choices, which I think you presented well:

  • Chronological. Pro: it's an easy-to-grasp presentation. Con: some topics with extensive histories get broken up. Somewhat boring table of contents that doesn't express the river's character.
    • Comment on Northwesterner's proposal: I think the "Navigation" topic would be hard to deal with. I like how the current section (though not perfect) treats topics from initial dredging and canal-building through dam/lock construction and current dredging "together." Would be worth looking at Steamboats of the Columbia River if you haven't yet. I've thought for some time that a separate Transportation along the Columbia River article would be worth writing, which might help here.
  • By topic. Pro: Major topic areas need not be broken up. Con: Where topics overlap, lack of strict chronology can lead to confusing presentation.
  • Hybrid. What we have now. Maybe there are other hybrid options worth considering? (Note, we're considering this at History of Oregon recently, as well. Over there, I've suggested having a few sections strictly chronological, followed by a few sections that are strictly by topic. Maybe that would work here too?

The current sections are the result of some reorganizing I did, but needn't stay that way if they're not working. I'm interested to hear what others think. -Pete (talk) 23:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)

Just last night I was thinking about how this article has come a long way over the last year or so but still has a somewhat awkward large-scale structure -- and about how difficult it is to reorganize sections and chunks of content. I'm glad to see it being brought up. Perhaps a study of other river articles that have made featured status could help? I'll try to browse other articles for ideas. The chronological-topical hybrid makes sense to me. A section title I've used for some river articles is "River modifications" -- with can have subsections on dams, irrigation, navigation, and so on. Perhaps a History section could focus on the early stuff -- native history, exploration, early settlement, and early modification, segueing into a River modification section, since much of the more recent history is primarily about modifications, but probably better organized by topic instead of chronology. Anyway, just a first-thought reaction here. More later. Pfly (talk) 06:41, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Quick followup -- wow, the only big river that's made featured status is the Zambezi (and the article isn't that impressive). Looks like the few other featured river articles are mainly those that User:Ruhrfisch worked so hard on, like Larrys Creek -- excellent articles to be sure, but being rather small streams perhaps not the ideal model for a big river like the Columbia. "A class" river articles include River Severn and not much else. "B class" big rivers include the Columbia as is, and the Amazon River, Ganges, Hudson River, Indus River, Ohio River, Nile, Mississippi River, and some others. Most of these don't strike me as all that impressive -- though the Mississippi's table of contents alone is impressively long! I'll continue looking at organization ideas. It is interesting how few river articles have made featured or even A-class levels. I expected more. Pfly (talk) 07:00, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Good list. There are three GA-class river articles, as well: Miami River (Florida), River Torrens, and Trabancos River. -Pete (talk) 07:10, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
Also... the WP Rivers Project has a suggested structure for river articles at Wikipedia:WikiProject Rivers#Article Structure. It's a topical structure but wouldn't fit the current content of this article very well. Also worth noting: this article from the Center for Columbia River History. That's the closest thing I've seen to what this Wikipedia article might resemble in its ideal form, but you can see it looks like they had problems with the structure too. They give a "Description" first, which roughly corresponds to our "Drainage Basin" and "Geology" sections. Then they go to "Uses of the River," subdivided into sections on hydropower, fish, navigation, irrigation, and recreation. Then the "History" section follows, with its subsections on native peoples, colonial exploration, fur trading and settlement, salmon and trade, and engineering. Interesting approach but also awkward in its own way. Whatever we do, I think it will have to be a hybrid structure. I like pfly's idea of "River Modifications," but again that would involve collapsing or restructuring "Navigation" and "Dams." Northwesterner1 (talk) 07:25, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
The Snake River structure may also be a useful point of comparison re: navigation/dams. Northwesterner1 (talk) 10:36, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Conversion templates

I don't think I know enough yet to contribute much to the ongoing discussion of overall organization, but I see quite a few low-level, nit-picky things that I'd like to change. I want to ask first, though, and not just flail away. I'd like to add conversion templates for virtually all of the imperial-to-metric conversions in the article. The templates eliminate the possibility of simple math errors in the conversions; they solve the "no-wrap" problem for each set of quantities and units; they spell out the primary unit, as suggested by the Manual of Style, and they abbreviate the secondary unit; they will accept a parameter that auto-wikilinks either the primary or secondary unit or both, and this is handy for linking terms like "acre" and "ha" on first use. They don't handle the hyphenated phrases like "16-mile tributary" very well because of the hyphen, but those phrases can be done "by hand". I see minor inconsistencies in the conversions here and there throughout the article, and I believe the templates would fix them all. I'd volunteer to do them if you have no objections. While I'm at it, I would also add no-break codes between all digitized numbers and units (or nouns) not fixed by the conversion templates. These minor things might or might not survive GA but certainly not FA, and they should be fixed in any case. Finetooth (talk) 22:35, 18 March 2008 (UTC)

I'm a fan of the convert template.. I say go for it! Pfly (talk) 00:06, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Indeed! That has been brought up before, and I actually thought it had been taken care of. Sounds like some got missed. Your help on that would be enormously appreciated! Sounds like it might be worth making alternatives to some of the templates for "16-mile…" and the like. I've been fooling with templates a bit lately, maybe I can figure out how to do that. -Pete (talk) 00:12, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

For streamflow discharge there is Template:CubicFeetPerSecAndMeters. I've used it a little (see Jur River for example), but decided I preferred doing cubic feet and cubic metres per second by hand. It appears that the template can't display results with commas (like 14,300 cu ft/s instead of 14300). Thought I'd mention it though -- perhaps useful. Pfly (talk) 04:30, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

I just discovered another parameter, adj = on, that I hadn't noticed before that (sound of trumpets) inserts a hyphen in the right place. Finetooth (talk) 02:05, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

<outdent>I'm finished with the conversions. The Convert template worked for stream flow OK with "per second" spelled out separately from the conversions. I decided not to use the template on the billion gallon conversions because they looked OK already and because I didn't want to change billion to 1,000,000,000 and get myself banished from the editing corps. If any of the article's numbers change in the future, it will be easy to plug the new numbers into the existing templates. I also inserted no-break codes everywhere I thought they were needed; 14 dams, for example. I may have missed a few but not many. Finetooth (talk) 03:54, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

thanks for all that work! Northwesterner1 (talk) 04:07, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

My 2 cents

I was requested to have a look at this article and make suggestions. I looked at a lot of other river articles, and without singling any one out, basically I didn't see one that was as good as this one. Don't know what the requirements are for Good Article, but this one seems to be at the front of the rivers at least. One teeeeeeny little quibble -- should the alternative names "Great River of the West" and "Oregon" also be listed as historic names of the river? Mtsmallwood (talk) 05:15, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, thanks for the kudos! The "Ouragan" name is mentioned, just not in the lead. Seems OK to me as is, but I don't feel strongly about it. Not sure how significant the "River of the West" name is...? -Pete (talk) 07:26, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Agreed, that it doesn't need to be in the lead. "River of the West" and "Great River of the West" show up on early speculative maps and are roughly on par with "Northwest Passage" (which should also be in the article, maybe?) I have a historical atlas of the PacNW. I'll try to track this down in a few days... Northwesterner1 (talk) 11:24, 19 March 2008 (UTC)
Finally got around to this. Northwesterner1 (talk) 12:18, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Source for expansion

I gotta stop finding these, the work never ends! But...this 4-part OPB series is awfully cool, and probably has lots of stuff that could be used for this article, and/or related ones... http://news.opb.org/series/2007/columbia/ -Pete (talk) 07:26, 19 March 2008 (UTC)

GA Passed, March 2008

Missing words

I see a sentence in the "Drainage basin" section that is missing a word or phrase. It says, "For its first 200 miles (320 km) the Columbia flows northwest, through Windermere Lake and the town of Invermere, then northwest around the to Golden and into Kinbasket Lake." Something should go between "the" and "to", but I'm not sure what was intended. Finetooth (talk) 19:41, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

The "Big Bend." Good catch -- not sure how that got lost! I'll re-add. -Pete (talk) 20:49, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Ah, now I see what the problem is. The "Big Bend" is mentioned twice. Looking at a road atlas, I see the big bend; it's quite striking. It does not occur between Invermere and Golden but northwest of Golden, about two-thirds of the way up Kinbasket Lake. The phrase, "around the 'Big Bend' ", should be deleted so that the sentence reads, "northwest to Golden and into Kinbasket Lake". I'll make that further correction. Finetooth (talk) 21:39, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Heads and subheads

The MOS advises generally against repeating in the section heads any words used in the article title. I changed the "Wider world explores the river" to "Explorations" with that in mind. This is just a suggestion. "Early explorations" or something else might be better. Finetooth (talk) 21:21, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

Well, I prefer it how it was, and don't think the MOS is intended for a case like this; I think that guideline would discourage using "Columbia" in a heading title, but I think the word "river" is up for grabs. Anyway, if people think the more generic titles are better, I'll bow to consensus, but personally I prefer "Wider world explores the river" and "Dams: harnessing the river" because they both give a sense of the context before reading into the guts of the section. I think that section titling should aim to serve the reader in getting an overall picture of the subject as they read, or decide whether to read, deeper. Just my opinion, not something rooted in policy. -Pete (talk) 22:08, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
I would agree that MOS should be flexible, but from my perspective I like the more succinct titles for other reasons. They seem to my ear more encyclopedic. There's a lot of mythology about the West bound up in PacNW history, and I thought the old titles indulged in mythology and metaphor a little too much. But I don't feel too strongly on this point, so I'm fine either way. Northwesterner1 (talk) 22:18, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
In general I share your concern about "mythology," but let me give my reasons a little more clearly -- I don't think these are based in mythology.
  • Exploration: It stands to reason that every ethnic group that lives/lived along the river, at one time explored it, or part of it. Just because we don't know anything about native explorers doesn't mean they're any less significant than the explorers of European ancestry. If the section is titled "Exploration," that would seem to imply that it is comprehensive on the topic of exploration, which it can never be (unless we can do some fundraising and get that coveted time machine!)
  • Dams: The dams were built as a deliberate project, coordinated at a federal level. Even those in Canada were in response, partially, to American needs. Almost the entire length of the river is now composed of end-to-end lakes (flying along it in Google Earth is a pretty vivid experience.) Throughout that planning process, the advocacy and the mission of the Bureau of Reclamation spoke of "harnessing" the rivers of the west, or "reclaiming" them for human use. In my studies, it took a very long time for this to sink in; my initial assumption was that dams were built fairly independently except maybe for the ones associated with the CBP, and that their lakes were just a few miles long. Even though I've been along the river a zillion times, it never occurred to me that nearly every single inch of what I've seen is man-made lake, as opposed to something closer to the river's natural character. To me, seeing the word "harnessing" repeated in various documents is one of the things that made the light bulb go on over my head. It allowed me to grasp the scale of the project envisioned back in the early 20th century. I suppose that may be kind like what you say with "mythology," but it seems to me very vital mythology -- the attitude toward the river, as a resource to be harnessed, has been definitive in terms of what has become of the river. In our exposition of the topic, I'd like to give readers coming from a perspective similar to mine a quicker route to "getting it." The headline was my attempt to do that, and I still think does a good job of it; if you guys don't think so, maybe we can accomplish that with better wording early in the section.
Sorry, that's more words than I meant to use, but I think that captures my approach pretty well. -Pete (talk) 23:16, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
Re: Exploration. You're absolutely right. Should have caught that earlier. I proposed "European and colonial exploration" above (perhaps a bit stiff but shows my reluctance toward metaphor... I have the same knee-jerk reaction against "western world" in the lead, but I've avoided touching it because the intro section is otherwise working so well). But yes, "wider world explores" is better than simply "exploration" on this point.
Re: Dams. Interesting points on harnessing, and I'm okay with it. If we're talking metaphors, I like Richard White's "Organic Machine" better myself -- same idea but updating the mythology for the late 20th/early 21st century. But that's the larger problem, isn't it? I'm sure native people would have different metaphors for the dam projects. If we're talking in metaphors, whose metaphors do we privilege? We have to be careful that "harnessing the river" (intended to describe and comment on a certain set of attitudes toward the river) doesn't become a celebration, valediction, or justification of those attitudes. Not saying that it is here, but I do think it can be read that way.
In the end, I'm pretty neutral on the title. I do think we can do more in the early wording of the dams section to drive home the points you want the reader to get. Northwesterner1 (talk) 23:45, 20 March 2008 (UTC)

<outdent> I boldly restored the originals. They can always be changed again if consensus is reached on what would be best. Finetooth (talk) 00:31, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Thanks Finetooth! Like I said, I'm open to other approaches, and don't want to get all ownerish, just want to make sure y'all understand my reasoning and make an effort to address those concerns in some way if a change is made. -Pete (talk) 01:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Also, I have to admit I don't really like the "wider world" thing a whole lot either, it's just the best I could come up with. "European and colonial" doesn't make sense to me, because I don't think the average reader would associate the U.S. with either. "Exploration by westerners"? or "The white man comes?" Ugh. I just don't like any of the options! -Pete (talk) 02:02, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
Seems you fellas have painted yourself into a corner. The first thing which came to my (strange) mind was Recorded exploration. If that's not the right effect, then how about Recorded history or Recorded historical exploration? —EncMstr 02:11, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
I like 'wider world' for now as the best of all these options. I really can't come up with any better. Mapmakers? Explorers and settlers? Men with guns? One way to approach it: Is there some information that we could add to this section that would make a new name possible? What if we gave this section a little "mini-thesis" and generated new content so that we could frame it as a story about "Westward Expansion" or the "Northwest Passage" of "The River of the West." Alternatively, we could have a section called "Early History" that combines the early native peoples' history with Gray and Lewis & Clark. The later native history could go with the dams & fish down below... But now I'm just causing a ruckus... It's really working quite well as is. I vote for status quo until the magical solution strikes us. Northwesterner1 (talk) 02:53, 21 March 2008 (UTC)
"Exploration" is a politically-charged word, at least on this side of the border; User:OldManRivers tweaked a few articles with a replacmeent word, can't remember just now (coffee, more coffee....); as much as I don't like p.c. language there is a truism about this area; at least it's better than "discovery", which is very politically loaded. BTW along with Gray and Lewis & Clark there's David Thompson, usually neglected in US-side history but who shouldn't be. I wish there was still online this article that a Chinook teenager had once posted, only to have to take it down as he'd posted tribal story-secrets without permission; had to do with a copper-armoured vessel that beached around the Columbia Bar somewhere...one of those "myths" that sounded an awful lot like pre-European contact (Koreans had copper-armoured vessels, for instance....).Skookum1 (talk) 16:53, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Fascinating story today

State (of Washington) cracking down on illegal frost-control dams -Pete (talk) 21:33, 21 March 2008 (UTC)

Canadian-side resources on the Columbia

turns out there's a Biodiversity Atlas underway funded by the BC Gov with the participation of Selkirk College. The main links off maps.gov.bc.ca didn't work but I found this which gives statistics on the Canadian length etc. and is a spinoff of the main project page. I don't have time to "mine" the article and add relevant contents here, but there was a need for Canadian-side citations/data so this should provide some of hte main stuff.Skookum1 (talk) 16:48, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Great find, thanks Skookum! I'll dig into it shortly (unless somebody gets there first.) -Pete (talk) 16:50, 28 March 2008 (UTC)

Human paleohistory

i.e. the indigenous peoples section but in ref to Kennewick Man and other early-digs/finds; I'm mostly thinking of only one addition, but I don't know where to find the citation; so many hundred years ago, IIRC about 1500BP, maybe 3000BP, there was a pottery-using culture (presumably also pottery-making but finds are marginal); buried in alluvial ash or whatever, evidently wiped out by natural disaster. Bona fide but I don't know more than that tidbit, remembered from the CHINOOK-L listserve's discussions of various things. Oh, another aboriginal name for th river was Sesotkwa or Tsesotkwa, but nobody knew which language it was from; similarly when Simon Fraser started down the Fraser it was in the hopes to prove it was the Tacoutche Tesse, the Columbia; although once again in whose language I don't know, as that's not a Carrier-looking name (ko=river) nor is it Salishan (meen/een=river). The Chinookan name that turns up is Wihml - Wimhl? - with only one vowel; whether etymologically it means "big"+"river" I don't know. Oh, there's another "ancient" dig in the upper Columbia somewhere; might be in that diversity atlas or resources connected to it...basic drift is maybe there should be an archaoelogical section; won't be large but worthwhile.

Horizontal scrollbar with Safari / Template:ImageStackRight

When I look at this article with Safari it has a scrollbar where about 5-10% isn't displayed in the main window no matter how large I size my browser window (up to 1650px wide). It does not behave this way with Firefox and this is the only page that I can recall seeing this. After going through the code I've determined that this is caused by a known problem with Template:ImageStackRight. Template:Imagestack seems to work better, but if I use it to replace the existing template then it causes more problems than it fixes. Maybe someone can come up with a way to avoid the ImageStackRight template and maintain the layout?

Another thing, I took a neat photo from a viewpoint today but in deference to all the hard work that has gone into this page I'll put it here and let others decide if and where it belongs.

If you are driving by and aren't in a hurry, you should take the historic highway if only for this viewpoint

Cheers, Cacophony (talk) 06:38, 30 March 2008 (UTC)

Hmm, I don't get that error, even in Safari. But, considering that an expansion of the Tributaries section is one of the things called for by Ruhrfisch in his recommendations for FA, I suspect we'll be ditching the imagestack template for good pretty soon, once we can get a little text in there. So I think it's probably best to focus on expanding the section. If you want to take the images out of the template in the meantime, that's fine by me too. -Pete (talk) 21:01, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Footnote formatting

In his GA review, User:Ruhrfisch strongly recommended making the footnote formatting consistent. Specifically, "Internet refs should have title, publisher, author (if known), and date accessed." A glance at the footnotes shows me that he's right. I'm volunteering to fix these over the coming days unless anyone objects. Finetooth (talk) 04:45, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I have been through those citations so many times, I'd welcome the help enormously…I'll pitch in some, though! Thank you! -Pete (talk) 05:26, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Glad to help. I started this morning and fixed a few glitches with no trouble. However, I have a question about citation 1 to Google Earth. The citation has a link back into the Wikipedia Google Earth article but no link to an outside source. The USGS source used for the Columbia River mouth coordinates also gives source coordinates in decimals. Using a Federal Communications Commission converter tool here to convert the USGS data yields 51° 25' 0.0006" latitude and -118° 30' 0.9966" longitude. This doesn't match the cited Google data very well and raises the question of how the source was determined. If Google Earth is cited, we need to link to it rather than to Wikipedia and explain where the source coordinates came from. Does Canada perhaps have a system similar to the USGS that lists a generally accepted location for the source, I wonder. Finetooth (talk) 20:13, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Ah. Natural Resources Canada puts Columbia Lake exactly where we have it at 50° 13' 00" N - 115° 51' 00" W. We could cite Natural Resources Canada and link here rather than to the Wikipedia Google Earth page. Does that sound OK? Finetooth (talk) 22:53, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Sure does, thanks for tracking it down. I think I put the GE cite on there to begin with, intending it only as a placeholder till I could find a better source...and then forgot! -Pete (talk) 23:04, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

<outdent>OK, I'll make that change. Meanwhile, I've found a Canadian source for the lake elevation here, 820 meters, which is very close to what we've used. I'll use it instead of Google Earth for that particular bit of data. Finetooth (talk) 23:23, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

Just to note that latlong is dead-centre in Columbia Lake. That's fine, I'm just curious if that's a Wiki convention. In BC basemap and the BC LRDWC I think it's the same, although for creeks the latlong is aloways its mouth or confluence with a higher-tier stream. One system I've seen somewhere uses eitehr the foot or head of the lake...enjoy fooling with those maps, they're pretty neat...Skookum1 (talk) 06:04, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Dead centre seems good to me unless an opposing guideline can be found. I'm not aware of one. It could be an important distinction on a very large lake. Good question. Finetooth (talk) 17:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
I thought I should say that while some of the things I'm adding to the citations might seem pedantic and nit-picky, overdoing it seems better to me than underdoing it. I have never seen anyone suggest at FAC that an article's citations were too complete, but I have often seen the opposite. In case anyone is wondering, I do not change or add access dates for anything I have not actually accessed. Updating the access date is perfectly OK as long as it is a true statement. Finetooth (talk) 17:21, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Finetooth, I'd just like to say that I'm overflowing with admiration and gratitude for your patience with the details of citations. This will be an enormous help with our FA efforts. I know I haven't been doing much lately, I'm mostly trying to wrap my head around how to deal best with tributaries. -Pete (talk) 17:27, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

<outdent>Pete, you and the others have done a terrific job with all the rest, and that's what makes doing these citations worthwhile. I wouldn't spend this much time on an article that was otherwise in bad shape. I'm motivated partly by a desire to see this big river article reach FA. But you can help me perhaps with another nit. I have a question I can't easily resolve about the Ronda book citation, #27. I replaced a dead link with a working one to the on-line Google version of the book, but the citation should include a specific page number rather than the whole book. Do you happen to know what it is? Finetooth (talk) 17:50, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Unfortunately that one wasn't me...never seen the book :( -Pete (talk) 18:08, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Done (almost). I don't see much else to do to improve these except for #27 and #50, which would be more helpful to researchers if they included specific page numbers, and #55, which has the only dead link in the bunch. Maybe someone could find a source to replace #55. Finetooth (talk) 22:03, 4 April 2008 (UTC)
Well done!! That sucks about the Admin. History online book (ref 55) though, that was a great resource. Its front page (essentially a table of contents) was preserved by the Wayback Machine, so I've replaced it with that link…but unfortunately that's all it got. -Pete (talk) 22:31, 4 April 2008 (UTC)

New Map?

Ruhrfisch brought up the possibility of making a new map for the Columbia on my talk page. Would this be useful and if so what would you like on it? Note this would be an addition, not a replacement for the existing map. Kmusser (talk) 14:47, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

  • If there is consensus for a new map, I would like to see the tributaries shown more clearly. The dam map focuses on dams and does not label most of the tribs. Perhaps also identify the states and provinces in the watershed more clearly. An example of a map by Kmusser that labels tribs and impoundments nicely is Image:Merrimackrivermap.png. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 14:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Notes on BC tributaries: obviously not-cluttering such a map is a priority, but just to point up the major Canadian-side tributaries and express wariness about the smaller downstream ones, e.g. The Cowlitz; there's a dozen streams much larger in the Big Bend (the BC Big Bend) and a coupl of the upper tributaries, e.g. the Blaeberry and the Kicking Horse, are fairly large in their own right, as is/was the Canoe, though short like most other upper tributaries. The Kootenay/Kutenai and Slocan (a major trib of the lower Kootenay) are the most significant in terms of human geography, though, none of the others are); the Kettle's three-pronged basin might look like too much clutter if the West Kettle and Granby are included; but the Granby, really the "East Kettle" is almost as large. Not that this is helpful, just trying to raise the main points for CanCon. And once Karl's done with this one, think I can talk you into ones for the Fraser, Thompson, Nechako, Skeena, Peace, Liard, Stikine :-).??? Might as well as well as the Yukon and Mackenzie to that also....and the Saskatchewan River network...Skookum1 (talk) 17:59, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Most of those actually have a decent map - my vote for Canadian river most in need would be the poor Nelson which currently has nothing at all. :-) Kmusser (talk) 19:43, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Skookum, the tributary infobox has the Cowlitz listed as the fifth largest tributary. Is it incorrect? Do you have a source?Northwesterner1 (talk) 20:10, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I suppose I was dismissive of the Cowlitz simply because it's short; obviously has more volume than the Okanagan though (I wonder waht the Okanagan's discharge would be if not for irrigation in Canada....hmmmm). As for the rest, I'll have to see if I c an find a fisheries Canada or Environment Canada site on the Kicking Horse and the Blaeberry and other Rocky Mountain rivers; the Spillimacheen (soft 'ch') is quite large, I know that, and the Canoe's not a trickle. Gotta run out now, maybe I can dig up some discharge/volume rates; you'd think given Lake Kinbasket data would be out there somewhere on teh streams feeding it; there's also Gold River, or is it Goldstream Creek, which comes out of the heart of the northern Selkirks, opposite side from the Spillimacheen. Not sure about the discharge from the Whatshan, diverted or otherwise, but that data will be there somewhereSkookum1 (talk) 21:42, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
I can see googling's going to take a while, but I did find this which strikes me as a potentially-valuable citation for this or that, but I haven't had t ime to read it yet.Skookum1 (talk) 21:44, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

There's also the Bush River, the Sullivan, the Cummins, the Kinbasket, the Wood...all from the Rockies. it was the Goldstream River from the Selkirks I was thinking of, but there's also Bigmouth Creek and Downie Creek and others which are very large; "creek" in BC is often something larger than a "river".....I'll see what kind of hydrlogic data there is out there; I used to work for MoE HQ so maybe there's somebody whose back I can scratch there who can dig up inthe info (that was back in '95 or '93 though....)

Wish I still had that "Water Powers" book, or had it with me rather....it had all this data.Skookum1 (talk) 21:52, 1 April 2008 (UTC)
Look what I found! although they spell Spillimacheen wrong (that second 'i' they give 'a') it's a pretty amazing gallery of dams in the Columbia basin (the Kootenays being the Columbia basin....); got some details on various things I didn't know, like how the Whatshan Powerhouse / Whatshan had to be rebuilt after a landslide wiped out the first one two years after it was built, and again after the building of Hugh Keenleyside Dam...; guess this should also be posted as a resource on Talk:Dams on the Columbia River or whtaever that title is...Skookum1 (talk) 14:07, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Following links from there I found this GIS map tool of the BC Columbia Basin. From a quick look it appears one can download a wide variety of GIS datasets in various formats. Useful map-making stuff. Will look more closely later when I've more time. Pfly (talk) 16:08, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
I thought I'd already said this, but apparently not -- a map like that would be GREAT! Thanks for the interest, Kmusser. We should definitely have some agreement about what tributaries need to be on there, though, and I'm noticing that there isn't even a citation for the existing chart. I'll look at Pfly's link. Might look for that Water Powers book at the library too, Skookum, if you think it's likely to have that info? -Pete (talk) 16:53, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Might be hard to find, it was a 1950s/1960s government publication, can't remember which ministry/branch. My Dad was a hydro engineer, it as part of his materials, publ. maybe 1960; before Peace was built anyway, I don't think Bridge was quite finished (Bridge River, that is; "Bridge " for short among those who know the place). Lots pictures of obscure rivers/waterfalls and flow rates for most. For the Rocky Mountain Trench tributaries I suspect a background document on the Kinbasket Lake Reservoir from BC Hydro might have hydrologic data on those tributaries; I'm not sure but I think it was User:CindyBo I loaned/gave it to; she's on honeymoon I think but left a message for her, in case it was her. Could be, ultimately, I stored it, but I thought I gave it to someone who could put it to good use....anotehr Wikipedian I'm sure, just can't think who....btw see Talk:The Dalles about Dalles des Morts - see this and this. I hope to get at it later, i.e. the article...d'ya think it should have Category:Cannibalism, i.e like the Donner Party? Certainly, with the two evednts, one of the more horrific bits of Columbia River history; what a buffoon that Wallace was...a very dead buffoon...location was 51-31 N 118-30 W, almost, between Downie and Seymour Creeks; now beneath teh waters of Lake Revelstoke, along with a lot of other places; this was teh area of the Bitg Bend Gold Rush also.Skookum1 (talk) 21:45, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
This is Waters Powers, 1954 ed., Dept of Lands Water Rights Branch, 1954; there's also two copies of the 1924 ed., but the '54's the one I had; the earlier one's probably fairly accurate because of the intense interest in hydroelectric generation at the time, and also as thorough as you'd expect from a period culture dominated by miners and eingeers. The '54 edition will have details of things unknown of in '24, i.e. because of remoteness. Anyway looks like you can get it on interlibrary loan; UBC probably ahs copies also, who knows maybe U.W. does, you might try.....Skookum1 (talk) 22:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

As a precursor I made a small locator map at Image:ColumbiaRiverLocMap.png, though that's really intended for non-English wikis - a more detailed map is in the works for this one. Kmusser (talk) 17:40, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

There was a source, I think from Pete, about the history of the Columbia River, that listed the 10 largest tributaries and might be useful here. I am pretty sure I read it on this talk page, but can not quickly find it now. Maybe someone else know what I am talking about, Ruhrfisch ><>°° 21:05, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Here's a neat map that might bear some similarity to what we need. Also, that page has descriptions of many place names along the river, including The Dalles among many others. Doesn't much help on the native name of the Columbia, though it does mention an early name applied to the upper Columbia by A. MacKenzie. -Pete (talk) 22:24, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Here's another interesting map, that shows various sub-basins. Might be useful in determining what tributaries need to be discussed, as well. -Pete (talk) 23:11, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, except for that 49th Parallel thing and the lumping together of the American Kootenai with the Flathead/Clark Fork; for the south-of-49 basins I guess it's the equivalent of the BC/Columbia basin map linked just above. Ditto with the Okanagan and Kettle areas, of course; the absence of the same system of breakdowns north of the 49th is a shortcoming of the map, but similarly the BC map ends at the border, and in a true riparian study/coordination it shouldn't; this is one thing Wiki I think excels at, is bringing together stuff like this; not allowing political frontiers to affect geographic accounts except insofar as politics shaped or was shaped by the geography; the 49th Parallel happens to account for a lot, actually, in terms of patterns of settlement, transportation, development, culture etc. But a river's a river, and should be studied/accounted for intact, not divided by national frontiers the way these maps are; Wiki is trans-national as well as trans-linguistic. OK, sorry for the geographic philosophy, just musing....Skookum1 (talk) 04:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

By the way I test-sent myself something from that Columbia River Project map you found off maps.gov.bc.ca - there's no copyright mark on it, implying that it, like other types of generated maps, is public domain. That would be a good one for showing basins, I guess; it's the same data as in Basemap and the LRDWC but to me isn't as "clean" looking; but those generated maps with copyright markings on them. There's yet another really neat system which I've been hunting for to find again; it can do layers and all kinds of stuff, all public domain. You might google {Columbia River" and "ArcView" and see what comes up.....that's not the system I'm thinking of but there might be some Arcview Applications around re the region, if not hydrologic then geologic or ?? Looking for that other map system for some aboriginal-related map-making projects, but useful across the board....if I can find it again....Skookum1 (talk) 22:30, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Note that stuff off of Canadian government websites is not public domain, by default it is copyrighted even if it doesn't have an explicit copyright statement. You don't know how much I wish I could use the stuff put out by Natural Resources Canada. Kmusser (talk) 22:51, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
Not so sure about that, I know with ArView it's a dataset that's open-source and their pages you'll find googled are projects by corps, bands, ministries, agencies, consultants etc using it, and their results are copyright. I know with ArcView I consulted them and they said "we just want to know what people do with it; we just put it out there to see what people woudl come eup with" - I can find that email if you like....I also consulted the maps branch about basemap a while back while working with bivouac.com but the generated maps are copyright; the source data inherently isn't - it's TRIM/STRIM; all Basemap and its cousins, including the Columbia Basin/Project map above, which is the same interface/data with a different shell/market - do is render the STRIM into contours, streams etc etc. The data itself is on a federal site somewhere, and other mapping systems draw on it. Quite frankly I don't know why they went to the bother of making it if they want to be user-pays about it (user-pays is a stock BC political-bureaucratic ethic meant to keep public access to information/resources at bay, if not ever profitable...); I haven't seen its output used in reports and research precisely because it's copyright. The other system I'm thinking of is free/open source, and designed to be used by everybody from mining and engineering firms to first nations to archaeologists to botanists; it's a cross-layer of geographically-tagged data from across all government databases; its got floating layers, neat graphic potentials etc. it's used on the one of the Kwakwaka'wakw band govt website linked off Tlowitsis or the related band government page; if it's not Tlowitsis I'll be back and change that. Hmmm. I'm gonna go hunt through BC First Nations webspace and look for this map, I think it wsas Nlaka'pamux or Nicola-produced...it says right on the origin-page (which the Tlowitsis page/map gives no credit/link for...,but which I've seen) that the resource is tehre for use, material is public domain so that people will 'use it. Why this one's not copyhrigt and the other one is remains a mystery; they're both branches of the same government, if not the same ministry maybe, or maybe not the same branch..Skookum1 (talk) 04:12, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
It wasn't Tlowitsis, it was the Tsawataineuk I was thinking of, or rather the tribal council page Musgamagw Tsawataineuk Tribal Council; Map of Member Nations territories of the Musgamagw Tsawataineuk is the kind of map technology I'm talking about, though this one's simple. Their website doesn't say anything about which govt agency technology it is, but I've seen a language map of the southern Interior that does; pretty sure it was the Nicola, thought it was the Okanagan but it wasn't. Back after hunting.....Skookum1 (talk) 04:18, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
The Columbia Basin Trust GIS website I linked to above does seem to be under copyright. At least the site says, buried somewhere down, "Text, photos and other materials found on this web site are property of the Columbia Basin Trust. ... Text, photo and other materials cannot be reproduced without prior written consistent from the CBT." Also, I could be wrong, but my understanding is that GIS data created by the Canadian federal government (as well as the British) is under government copyright by default. But in any case, I thought the website, and its GIS data, might be useful as a reference source, not necessarily as a source for public domain map data. Pfly (talk) 05:32, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, the other site I'm looking for was meant as an open source, of sorts anyway; I remember their mandate from reading it, maybe I misunderstood. As for downloadable TRIM data, I have the link to that somewhere; it too is public/open, says so right there. I also wasn't meaning to use this stuff for wikimap generation, other than the one system I'm talking about which is meant to be customzable. There are other specialty pay-for copyrighted services on maps.gov.bc.ca and elsewhere; Forestry MapView is the precursor to basemap/LDRWC and the CBT map. But if you saw that statemennt, then the copyright doesn't have to appear on the map. I'll get back looking for the other one; it had been on Okanagan Nation Alliance or rather on Westbank First Nation but the link was dead; it was a demo map from a joint program between them and the prov, using the latterr's technology to showcase it; maps are always political and these are delicate times re territory...., I'm gonna have to write them as I don't think it's on their new site anywhere, though still poking around....Skookum1 (talk) 05:45, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
BTW since there's NW'erners here a quick question, partly involving this basin...the Nlaka'pamux traditional territories extend into Washington, the Pasayten, Stehekin too I think; don't know if ay lived there in Oregon Country/Territory times; should they be listed/entered in Category:Native American tribes in Washington. They're extinct in Washington, but so are other tribes listed/articled; but to the Nlaka'pamux they've also never ceded that territory (or any territory....not sure which bunch of Nlaka'pmux, Colddwater-Merritt-Nicola I'd think...allies of the Similkameen, whose territories they overlap with...(Similkameens are Okanagans, as also one branch/community of the Nicola Nlaka'pamux and stateside Okanagan turf/community is now the core group, I think, in the Colville Agency; not sure what the Similkameen have to say about their one-time crossborder lands.... Have puzzled over the categorization problem, though easy enough to put something in the article about the territory. As for all of what I just added, you can gather why the map had to have differnt layeres, and how political it must have gotten ;-)Skookum1 (talk) 05:45, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

[undent] as far as the native-name goes I think David Thompson's stuff is online, maybe JSTOR or some other pay-for, maybe canadiana.org; not sure about Fraser's journal but I know, or I think I know, that he uses Tacoutche Tesse, but there he's using MacKenzie'snames/notes...one comment about natives names for "river", one thing you learn from books like the Sto:lo Historical Atlas that natives named geography on diffeerent paradigms; different parts of a body of water or of a mouhntain could have names, not just the thing as one object or just the peak....different names up and down the Columbia would yes havebeen all those different languages....but also perhaps local "spots" on the river; like the confusion over the name Canada, if you knoew the story. Sto:lo/staulo just means "river", that one river = wherever you happen to be; I think in Secwepemc it may mean the Thomspon, although in the modern paradigm it's from Halqemeylem and refers to the Fraser); I don't know the St'at'imcets and Nlaka'pamux names; there's maps showing hundreds ofnamed locations, but I don't recall one for the river as a river.....one thing to suggest is writing the Colville Tribes and Grande Ronde Community and asking their resident linguists....Skookum1 (talk) 05:56, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

This page seems to be pretty clear about TRIM and other BC GIS data being under copyright. "All Base Mapping and Geomatic Services information products are protected by Province of British Columbia Crown Copyright. Any and all use of Branch information products, whether in whole or in part, requires approval from the Intellectual Property Program." It goes on to specifically mention TRIM. Pfly (talk) 06:00, 3 April 2008 (UTC)
Well, then it's STRIM or something else then that's on the federal site I mentioned; I'll have to dig it up; it was matrices of numbers only packed in zip files. The other BC mapping program I'm talking about I'm gonna have to find the source for before before I state again what I thnk it said; maybe I'm wrong but I don't think so; BC govtg claims to copyright have been an issue in wiki before, concerning photographs in the archives; the archives owns the negative, but not the use of the image, as it was finally determined; they can convince someone to pay for a print from the negative that they have, but t he actual image, even digitally saved and re-titled, is itself public domain by laws. No matter waht the BC govt says; it's a federal law. A latlong associated with an elevation cannot be copyrighted, nor can a few thousands of them; waht can be copyrighted is the rendering, the packaging. but I know from photographic copyright - I was a photographer - that a modified image is "new creation", no more than a word in the language can be copyrighted (trademark's a different matter and even that's dicey). Same idea with loops useed in techno and hip-hop; whole artistic careers in photography have been built on montaging other people's works; it's an issue of how much manipulation that's determined ownership in the raer cases that have gone to court. Copyright is a bluff, especially when it's claimed on stuff t hat's actually public domain, like those archival photographs. 'Nuff said, I'll find that federal source-site, and remain skeptical about the BC government's intentions to soak money for things they don't actually have a right to assert ownership of...I'll also dig out that letter/email from ArcView.....Skookum1 (talk) 19:33, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Map added

New map added, comments are welcome. I think all major tributaries are on there, but I only labeled the very largest of them as I ran out of room. I included cities over 50,000 in the basin and then additional cities that are on the river itself. Too much? Not enough? Kmusser (talk) 17:53, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

IMO Castlegar and Trail should be in teh same font-face as Spokane and Portland, Kelowna etc; I know they're not as big, but they're the primo regional centres as far as the Canadian portion of the Columbia goes; Nelson should be on there, also, even though it's not on the river per se (neither is Spokane, right?). I'd say Nakusp and Invermere or whatever the largest Columbia Valley town is (other than Golden) should also be on there...is there a "town" for the Colville Indian Reservation worth putting on it? Is Kettle Falls important enough, also?Skookum1 (talk) 17:59, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
If Missoula's on there, so should Cranbrook be, as the largest of the regional centres in the Columbia basin (I think it's larger than any of the West Kootenay tri-cities); more important than Invermere or Windermere, that's for sure.Skookum1 (talk) 18:14, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
PS been distracted by other articles these last few days, I'll try and do that data-digging I went into above later tonight/tomorrow. Pls remind me if I forget....Skookum1 (talk) 18:15, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
What a great looking map! This is really exciting. A few thoughts:
  • Grand Coulee (or Banks Lake) should be labeled.
  • On Skookum's point, I think it's pretty standard in mapmaking for the dot size and text size to reflect population. I think we should stick to what people expect. No problem with adding more BC cities, though.
  • I'd like to see names for a few more tributaries, but I see your space concern.
  • Should this simply replace the map that's currently immediately above it? I think that would probably be best.
-Pete (talk) 18:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Responses to both Skookum and Pete.
There are about 60 cities the size of Nelson/Cranbrook or above not on there and that's not even counting suburbs - I'd find it hard to justify adding some and not others and there's not room for all of them. That's why I went with a population cutoff, otherwise you get into a subjective arguing of which cities are more important (I did make exceptions for those with a special connection to the river - I think Invermere would qualify and will add it). I looked and there's no towns of any size in that stretch from Wenatchee to Trail.
On text sizing there isn't room to make all the labels the size of Portland's, and making labels proportional to the size or importance of the feature is a fairly standard mapping technique, and really I think implying that Trail is in the same league as Kelowna would be misleading.
Well, that's true; but the tri-cities combined are in the same league (or think they are). Nakusp I mentioned because it's one of the only towns of any size above Castlegar, the others being Revelstoke (admittedly larger) and Golden (better-known), which is about the same size, I think, as Nakusp. I guess Cranbrook could wait for a Kootenai/y River map....it's just a "regional capital" for the East Kootenay in the way the WestKoot tricities are for hte West Kootenay. Seems as big as Missoula when you're actually there but I guess in pop. figures it's not.....Skookum1 (talk) 19:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I can look again at some of those upper Columbia tributaries, but I don't think they're really going to be visible on a basin wide map.
I'll try and squeeze in a few more labels, I should be able to get a Banks Lake one in there.
You could either replace the satellite map or use both (some might like the getting the clearer view of the terrain that comes with the other image). Do definitely keep the map with the dams though, I purposely didn't try to add dams to this one since you have the other one. Kmusser (talk) 18:55, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I didn't mention Columbia Lake because you didn't have FDR or the others; but perhaps it's the most important one, i.e. as source and also as an actual original, natural lake?Skookum1 (talk) 19:07, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
I like the new basin map very much. I'm wondering if it should be down in the Tributaries section? (The new tributaries/dams map is much better than the old but still lacks some tributaries, unfortunately.) We should still keep the tributaries/dams map, of course. Maybe there's room for a smaller version of it in the dams section? Maybe get rid of the quote box? -Northwesterner1
I think this map should be the lead map (replacing the one currently in the infobox.) I don't have a strong opinion on whether the older/darker one should stay in the article -- but if it does, I think it should be a regular small thumbnail, allowing the reader to click in it if they really want to see it, rather than being larger than other images as it is now. I'm pretty fond of the Egan quote, I hope it can stay (though I do see the appeal of putting a map in the Dams section.) I guess three maps that are all roughly similar seems kind of excessive to me; maybe we need Maps of the Columbia River ;) Or maybe we should disperse them among sub-articles like List of hydroelectric dams on the Columbia River and Tributaries of the Columbia River? -Pete (talk) 21:22, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
The new map looks great, thanks Kurt. I would be in favor of keeping all three maps if possible, as each adds something unique to the article. I also see no reason not to add the appropriate maps to sub-articles. Ruhrfisch ><>°° 21:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
You're gonna hate me for asking, although maybe it's only a matter of cropping from the larger basemap....see this map request I just plopped on the Cascades Rapids talkpage. Hate to be such a doorknob, but being from this side of the line and all the various lower-Columbia references get tricky to sort out; a close-up map for the lower reaches, esp Steamboats of the Lower Columbia as well as location-maps for the various rapids and falls....similarly a Kettle Falls-Kootenai-Big Bend upper basin map would probably be useful, and not just for Steamboats on the Arrow Lakes and other upper-river articles...I improvised with the JPL image used on Monashee Mountains and others but I'm not a mapmaker "like our Karl". Anyway, just think it would be useful to break up the larger-scale map from basin-wide to "stretches"/"reaches" for general illustrative handiness.Skookum1 (talk) 22:21, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) This is an idea I've toyed around with myself -- a map showing the rapids and falls of the lower Columbia before the dams -- because.. well, you are not the only one who can't always keep track of which one was where! I sketched out a rough map or two some time ago but never finished anything. I got stuck on some of the lesser known rapids. I'll move it from the back to the front burner, so to speak. I have a few books with (modern) maps of the Gorge, pre-dams. There is a very lovely set of Lewis and Clark atlases that also have a wealth of info on the Gorge rapids (something like $50 each though, too much more me, but nice to browse in the bookstore). Pfly (talk) 23:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh and I meant to say, nice map Karl! Your relief always looks great, and excellent color sense. Pfly (talk) 23:27, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I have an idea how to do this -- more of a diagram, rather than a map. Since we have several maps, maybe a different format would be good. I'm thinking a straight line that identifies lakes, dams, former and current rapids/falls, state/province borders, and tributaries. This would have the added benefit of illustrating how much of the river has been converted to lake. I'll give it a shot in the next day or two. Hope I can find the right lengths for all the landmarks without too much trouble! -Pete (talk) 00:32, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I was thinking this could really use a diagram showing the drops in elevation at each rapids/dam but don't have the data to make it - you could potentially do both in one diagram. Kmusser (talk) 00:37, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Actually now that I look at this stuff again I remember my old map idea was only of the rapids below Celilo Falls, ie The Dalles. If I ever figure it out and make a map it would be for that page really, not this one so much. Pfly (talk) 01:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Good idea, Kmusser. If I can find all that data, I'll include it; if not, I'll try to design it so there's room for a future addition. -Pete (talk) 01:48, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Started looking for those data sets; think they're in one of the GeoSciences Canada links I've been browsing just now, but found this, GeoGratis free images; haven't scanned the page enough to see usage/copyright conditions but to me it looks like this is public-domain data; pretty specialized datasets but still capable of buildling topographic and river-route displays, if you know your mapping softwares; anyway looks like some useful image/map-building materials and mayube some useful images; I'll see what the feds have on the Columbia River per se later; I've got to go see about getting one of my amps either fixed or replaced (I'm a guitar player/performer...and have to play tonight...) oh this is the entry page for GeoGratis and this is the GeoSciences Data Repository page I found it through, from Natural Resources Canada.Skookum1 (talk) 17:00, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Aha - here is the topographic data set; I knew it was PD; unless you can find the fine print saying it's not...they give this away, want people/companies to use it sans frais ("without charge"). Maybe there's copyright/publication restrictiosn but I don't see any; this was a search for "Columbia"+"river" but the 58 returns might well jut involve "British Columbia" + "river" but worth hunting through maybe....might find some hydrology, for one thing.....Skookum1 (talk) 17:05, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Restrictions are listed under the "Important Notices" link at the bottom of the page - Wikipedia is a commercial use. Kmusser (talk) 18:02, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
It's really shocking to me that someone can copyright a landscape, especially when the data involved is publicly-paid for (survey write-offs/expenses) and also to be used for legal reasons; and again, what I know about copyright is that when enough alteration/emendation has been done it's "original work", i.e. if you've plotted out something, like pfly's gulch-hollow and bayou/coulee maps (see our discussion at Talk:The Dalles, Oregon, towards the bottom); the basemap and the data may be copyright, the combination of the two isn't. Selecting a bunch of points from the fed database, rendering/designing them into something new - and it's not theirs anymore. Or else we wouldnt' be able to have latlong and elevation entries on any page, since those are copyrighted data, apparently, and I wouldn't be able to play a song that went I-IV-V-IV-I or I'd have the copyright owners of Louie, Louie, La Bamba and Twist and Shout wanting royalties).....once you've created something "new", the source copyright need not apply. Maybe a moot point for Wiki rules but I don't think so; although the point when something is "new work" is maybe debatable...Skookum1 (talk) 17:48, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
that's not why I dropped by though; just wanted to bring your guys' attention to a Kootenay subregions map made by someone for the Kootenays article; I don't particularly like the A-B-C labelling and the explanation/breakdown, but the map is on teh right track fro subbasins, although too heavy on the new lines, not enough of the underlying terrain/towns visible to make it worth the bother, I guess; wondering what a whole subbasin map fro this region plus Pend Oreille, Clark Fork, US-side Kootenai would look like........Skookum1 (talk) 17:48, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
Skookum, I agree entirely on your side-point. Take a look at this proposal; it's currently specific to Oregon, but as an attorney pointed out, all US and Canada law has foundations in British common law, so I think there's lots of opportunity for cross-pollination of ideas. Let me know what you think. (I'm going to blog about this soon at my new blog, The New Mind -- I'll let you know when I put that up.) -Pete (talk) 18:31, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm no expert on database copyright issues and I don't know exactly what the deal is in Canada, but in Britain the databases made by the Ordnance Survey are definitely under copyright (see especially Ordnance Survey#Access to data and criticisms). As I understand it this kind of thing is the reason for projects like OpenStreetMap. I'm not making a case for one side or the other, just pointing to some more info on it. Pfly (talk) 19:36, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

Lake Bonneville

I'm not very good with the niceties of disambiguation. I never know whether to propose a page move or just to create a disambig link at the top of the page. In any case, something should probably be done about Lake Bonneville.Northwesterner1 (talk) 21:20, 1 April 2008 (UTC)

I added "see also" links to the top of each article...phrasing might need tweaking. Good idea. -Pete (talk) 23:13, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
Later on in Bonneville Dam, the article also refers to Bonneville Reservoir as "Lake Bonneville." Anyone have a cite for this? I've always heard it called Bonneville Reservoir, but if it is in fact also called Lake Bonneville, then we might need a more explicit disambig link.Northwesterner1 (talk) 23:33, 7 April 2008 (UTC)
USGS GNIS gives Lake Bonneville as the name, with variant names including Bonneville Pool, Bonneville Reservoir, and Bonneville Dam Reservoir. I think this template links there: U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Lake Bonneville. Pfly (talk) 01:54, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Thanks. I'll tweak the disambig links accordingly.Northwesterner1 (talk) 02:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
We got similar issues up here with Lake Revelstoke and Kinbasket Lake; the Rev'l article is Revelstoke Lake...but in that formation it's properly Revelstoke Lake Reservoir....but it's gazetted, I think, with "Lake" first...don't think Kinbasket is. Lake Williston is another similar case, Ootsa Lake Reservoir is different, actually, from Ootsa Lake (the latter is part of the former, which is usually known as the Nechako Reservoir). Anyway not sure what procedure is; I guess with Revelstoke I'll check BCGNIS and the CanGeoNames database but I'm pretty sure it shoudl be the other way around; the +reservoir form is common in BC; Seton Lake is actually (now) Seton Lake Reservoir, Carpenter Lake is formally Carpenter Lake Reservoir; don't know why that was seen-fit to be done; it's Hydro's terminology, anyway; don't think it's in Basemap that way, I'll check all mentioned. Lake Pend Oreille or Lake Pend'Oreille? Well, the dam's in Canada, most of hte lake is in teh US.....Skookum1 (talk) 03:49, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
I'm thinking the Waneta Dam re Pend Oreille; if that's wrong sorry for the mistake, don't know what's on the other side of the line in those parts; always looking at maps that end on the border, whichever side you're looking at it from....Skookum1 (talk) 03:50, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
Probably good to at least have some redirects in the mix while hashing that out-- I made a couple, hope I got it right! -Pete (talk) 05:37, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

A lot of dams in the Columbia Basin are run-of-the-river without sizable reservoirs. Waneta Dam is one of these I think. It doesn't really have a reservoir, just a "forebay", ie, "Waneta Dam Forebay" (er, I think, suddenly I don't quite trust my grasp of hydropower terminology). Pfly (talk) 05:47, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

I just looked at Basemap, which is the provincial gazette, or contains it in its index anyway; the "reservoir" marking is clearly there although a lake-name isn't given, just along the side Pend'Oreille River; the reservoir designation ends about halfway between the Waneta and Seven Mile Dams, and there are rapids just below the Seven Mile; so there's no formal "lake" name there, not that I can see; the reservoir designation ends 3.9 km above the Waneta Dam - I guess 'cause it's so narrow and not lake-like they didn't say "Waneta Lake" or whatever..; I've never seen it so I'm not sure it's like Bonnington Falls, which is definitely run-of-the-river (I drove by it every time I went into Nelson and back from Winlaw last August); found a great site somewhere on historic hydro projects in the Kootenays, don't think it was on Trails in Time; maybe I posted it above somewhere already.....Skookum1 (talk) 15:56, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Big Bend of the Columbia (BC) and (WA)

Just wanted to drop by about this, which I've raised before; solution to the title problem presented itself tonight while I was tidying Boat Encampment - the old region name in the BC Big Bend is "Big Bend Country" which I'll use for that title; it's a subarea of Columbia Country like Columbia Valley and the Arrow Lakes; it used to be a relatively settled area, with lots of wayside towns like the Fraser Canyon used to have, too; that was when the Columbia was the route of the TransCanada, as only the CPR used Rogers Pass; so Big Bend of the Columbia River, if it's ever needed/written, can/should have a dab line "for the one in...etc.".Skookum1 (talk) 06:23, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

I've noticed that before -- there are two Big Bends of the Columbia. At least it would be sensible to differntiate between them when mentioned. Pfly (talk) 07:32, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
It's acknowledged in one place, but maybe needs to be made more clear. Another geographic confusion: this source says the basin extends a little into California, but none of our maps of the basin reflect this. Kmusser, can you shed any light on this? -Pete (talk) 15:34, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
That link is mistaken. California is cut off from the Columbia River basin by the Rogue River drainage system, the Klamath River drainage system, and the Goose Lake drainage basin. — Myasuda (talk) 03:09, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
I can't see how the Columbia Basin could extend into California. Maybe long ago in geologic time, perhaps, but not today. Pfly (talk) 05:26, 11 April 2008 (UTC)
OK- I've corrected it at the Columbia Basin article. That's what I thought, but glad to have you'se guy's confirmation. -Pete (talk) 06:52, 11 April 2008 (UTC)

found a resource

I was looking for other stuff about elsewhere in BC and came across a Columbia Basin page on "Living Landscapes", a Royal BC Museum webproject; the Human history page looks like it has some interesting stuff but the natural history page looks like it has some material useful for this page, and for Columbia Basin. Also found this but you probably already know about it (?)Skookum1 (talk) 15:36, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Columbia Icefield

Although Columbia Lake is nominally considered the headwater of the Columbia, ultimately the source is the Columbia Icefield, hence the name (as also of Mount Columbia. Which little upper tributaries exactly come from the icefiled I'll have to look at later; I had a vicious stomach flu yesterday and have to mobilate myself for errands and some fresh air right now; though this was worth mentioning, maybe someone can stitch a mention into the article on it? Also found this which if you zoom in on BC is interesting, more for the way the Fraser basin was dealt with; but useful anyway perhaps. The diverted areas shown are, from N to S, the Nechako, Bridge and Cheakamus Rivers; only Nechako changes actual basins, though, so I don't see the point, i.e. there's other basin-to-same basin diversions...I'll have to read up the backinfo on this page to se what's up with that. Not that the Whatshan is a big deal, nor Alouette Lake nor Jones Lake; usually these national-level things are complied with only a loose understanding of BC geography/history, though.....(my stock complaint, no?)_ Skookum1 (talk) 18:04, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

I found the free map data

This is for Karl re heh free - "unrestricted use license" is who they put it - map data from the Canadian government. It's here in various forms; I know I tried to learn map-building software with it but I'm not up on how to use it at all; I haven't read the license but what they're sending up basically is raw data, in zip files of point-sets as i recall but I haven't gone through the links on this page yet; I just happened to find it while researching something else; have a look, Karl, might be useful; and there might be other resources related to the Columbia region just like there was on the CRD plan or whstever it's called, the one with the interactive map. And this still ssn't the BC-generated maps I mentioned....they have to do with minerals and such so mayb e they're pay-for now, but the claims records and government assays are public property etc.....are the vectors that make the maps themselves tnangibly copyrightable. Can a curve, an corner, a jagged age - a natural form - can they be copyrighted? Amazing....Anyway these data sets are apparently the cat's meow; check out what there is; maybe it's useless for what you need. Maybe not.

Thanks! That's good stuff and opens up all sorts of Canadian map opportunities.Kmusser (talk) 12:59, 21 April 2008 (UTC)

Asian Exploreres

There is a HUGE difference between 1800s (big deal, we knew that) and 219 B.C. Is there not some carbon dating or some such? ~ WikiDon (talk) 21:29, 31 May 2008 (UTC)

When ONE author says: ""It is a near certainty..." that is POV. WikiDon (talk)

Hayes Atlas is a valid source at least for the comment "historians believe....". As to the near-certainty one about 219BC, that's bogus but has become doctrine/nostrum. There's also serious doubts that Hoei-shin, the Buddhist monk in question, was even Chinese - he was from what is now Kabul, although his mission to Fusang was mandated by the Chinese Emperor; this is enough for sino-infatuated historians to say "a Chinese explorer". But even "explorer" isn't right in either mention; Hayes is talking about fishboats and other stray vessels, not expeditions or explorers in the sense that it's usually meant. If that quote "near certainty" is in the soucre, it should be quoted as such, not presented as if it were actual fact.Skookum1 (talk) 21:43, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Maybe the article should say: "Author Derek Hayes believes..."
I personally believe that Asians island hopped from Vietnam to the Philippines-New Guinea-Solomons-Fiji-Tahiti, to Easter Island, to Peru, to Baja Mexico. Albeit "accidentally". But, it doesn't belong in an encyclopedia. ~ WikiDon (talk) 21:55, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Pfly's change to "some historians" works well, I think. The "near certainty" claimed by the source does not apply to the 219 B.C. account -- that's the "possibly" in the sentence. I'm not an expert here, just reporting the information from the source I have (and it seems to be a well-researched book, with an extensive bibliography, not just a case of "author Derek Hayes believes"). I removed the information about the 1800s shipwrecks, which obviously does not substantiate a claim that Asians were the first visitors. Here's the full passage from Hayes:
It is a near certainty that Japanese or Chinese people arrived on the northwest coast long before any European. Some may have come by accident rather than by choice, however. Chinese tradition tells of a junk that set out from China in 219 B.C. for the "Isle of the Blest," probably Japan, but the junk was driven eastwards for months by gales to a mysterious foreign land called Fu-sang or Fousang, possibly the northwest coast of America. "Fousang" shows up as late as the mid eighteenth century on a number of maps of the northwest coast where the geography was filled in by imagination (for example Map 43, page 30, or Map 56, page 35).
It is interesting to consider that if this tradition has any basis in fact, presumably some of the people in the junk must have returned to China to relate the tale.
There are several documented wrecks of oriental ships on the northwest coast, such as one at Clatsop Beach, just south of the mouth of the Columbia River, in 1820, and another near Cape Flattery in 1833....
If other historians dispute the "near certainty" claim, that should be added to the article text. However, there is a difference between skepticism about the 219 B.C. junk and skepticism about the larger claim that Asians were the first visitors. Northwesterner1 (talk) 22:02, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
The Chinook Indians: Traders of the Lower Columbia River, by Robert H. Ruby, John A. Brown, appears to have a chapter on "Those Who Drift Ashore," establishing evidence for early Chinese/Japanese contact with Native Americans based on trade artifacts. The book has favorable reviews from the Oregon Historical Quarterly. I wasn't able to read it fully, just poked inside with Google's Booksearch. I have not seen other historians disputing this fact, just generally ignoring it in favor of "The first European..." style introductions to Columbia River history. Again, if there is a dispute, by all means, let's add it to the article. Northwesterner1 (talk) 22:20, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
That would be second visitors after the natives. Second, just because there were wrecks in 1820 does translate into ships being there hundreds of years earlier. I'm sure there are wrecks of Spanish ships on the coast of say Virginia from the 1600s, but that doesn't mean they were there in 1250 AD. Just like a possible wayward fishing vessel may have made it from Japan/China well before documented explorations, the same is possible with fishing vessels from Britain, Ireland, Spain, France, Portugal, or maybe even Africa making it to the Americas before Columbus or the Vikings. Third, why is this on the Columbia River article? The source doesn't seem to indicate a location on the NW coast, so why not added it to History of the west coast of North America? Aboutmovies (talk) 22:28, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Of course, but for the natives, it was "home" (at least since 10,000 BC); the others were "visitors". No need to have any further discussion about the shipwrecks -- they are gone from the article and have been since before this discussion section began. Nobody disagrees on this. I mentioned it in the edit summary not to defend the fact but to note that I was removing it. With regard to your last point, this information seems to belong in the Columbia River article in a section about "discovery," as the evidence from the two sources here point to the fact that Chinese and Japanese traders were the first non-native peoples to see the Columbia River. The book The Chinook Indians: Traders of the Lower Columbia River is about the Columbia River in particular not about the West Coast generally (although this info probably belongs there too).Northwesterner1 (talk) 22:43, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
"Traders" is a nice try, but much teh same problem; the word implies that trade was estabsliehd, or it's known that they were traders and not, say, stray fishboats or even stray military vessels (there's a Chinook legend about a copper-armoured boat that always brings to mind the Korean armed vessels....). Taht there was contact is a near-certainty; that they were "traders" is only speculative.Skookum1 (talk) 22:32, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Well, they were definitely traders. They set out from China and Japan to "trade" -- they just ended up in the wrong place. So as descriptive noun of who these people were it seems accurate to me. However, if you want to change it to "peoples" or something else, I won't object. Northwesterner1 (talk) 22:45, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
I was talking about the source you quoted with the wrecks, as that seems to be part of their evidence of early contact (you said this was the full quote). I was just pointing this out since you said it seemed to be well researched, but maybe not well thought out by that author. Also, as you said it was the full quote on the topic, again, nothing about the Columbia River specifically. Aboutmovies (talk) 23:47, 31 May 2008 (UTC)
Makes sense, thanks for the clarification. The passage reads more like an encyclopedia or history textbook entry, under the header "Early Approaches to the Northwest Coast." As such, it is compressed, and the information about the shipwrecks is not used as evidence for the "near certainty"; it's just another sentence about "Early Approaches" that happens to appear in close proximity. This material is not footnoted, so I don't know what the author's particular evidence is for this point. There is an extensive bibliography at the end of the book but few inline citations. He only footnotes particular sources when he quotes them, and usually he doesn't footnote secondary sources, only primary-source maps and journals. It appears to be a well-researched historical atlas by a map historian with expertise in the Pacific Northwest. When he says "near certainty," I don't read it as an argument that he is defending based on primary research in historical texts; I read it as a statement that there is general consensus among historians on this point. I have no idea whether that's true or not, but he seems like he's in a better position to judge that than I am. The book on the whole seems to be well thought out, and I trust this particular information. I would agree with you about the "Columbia River" part except for the other source that Google Books turned up, which is making an argument specifically about the area around the Columbia. Northwesterner1 (talk) 00:04, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

(outdent) The Hayes book is pretty good -- I have it too -- but I'm not so sure about this bit. I have another book that makes some effort to debunk the notion of Chinese/Japanese ships to America way back when, if I remember correctly. I'll check it again and see what it says exactly. The notion that Polynesians reached America is much more plausible, I think -- but not the Columbia River area. Anyway... checking.... Pfly (talk) 01:19, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

Non-European Contact with the PacNW/Cali is a can of worms and has always attracted wild theories; one involves the Kwakwaka'wakw supposedly being Polynesian and while long debunked still gets talked about as if yet to be proven. Asian is a given; Polyensian far more remote, when you look over the currents and winds. Teh Japan Current is a cross-Pacific expressway, the "Black River" (Kuroshio), and it hits dead-on in the area of the Columbia before splitting north and south...it's drift voyages that are likely to have wound up as the wrecks at Clatsop and the anchors and such found in Cailfornia, same as the Japanese glassw floats that used to be so common in BC and elsewhere they were collected and sold in large numbers as tourist artifacts, even being commonplace in older tourism literature about the coast (e.g. Beautiful British Columbia Magagzine it was a staple shot). Because of the Clatsxop wrecks, and the Chinook legend - and another Chinook legend I know of but sad to say the websxite is long-gone (tribal secrets taken off line, apparently - not so much secrets as "owned stories" which someone had no right to tell to outsiders....shades of what OMR has issues with getting Skwxwu7mesh oral history into citable form; tribal lore gets recorded, but not published and in many cses they don't want it to be public...), there's reason to mention that there was some kind of Asian contact; but I'd hesitate to imply "trade" in the case of thse specific vessels; where those traders you're talking about landed is unknown. Oh, during fur era times some Japanes sailors were captured by the nahwitti or Quatsino/Gwad'zenux peoples and ransomed back by Gov Douglas and sent back to Japan; before there were relations with Japan, and Nuu-chah-nulth wags will alwasy say stuff about former contact with Chinese or whomever, but never give specifics; and other than being an oral tradition will never be exact anyway, i.e. who and on which ship from where. Point aboug the ransomed Japanese crewmen is that cross-Pacific maroonings seem more than likely to have gone on for a long while....oen story I heard long ago btw was about a cross-Pacific attack on hawaii by an alliance of Haida and Nuu-chah-nulth; I've never seen that in print ,but their attack, or intended attack, was said by the tale-teller in question to have been one of the outside threats that enebled Kamehameha to unite the Hawaiian Islands. Anyway this sort of issue is indded more relevant ot the west coast history aticle; except for the particualrs of the Clatsop find and any others like it in the area, plus any citable legends available.Skookum1 (talk) 01:41, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Oop, I didn't remember it quite right. The book ("Pathfinders" by Felipe Fernandez-Armesto) has a bit about the possibility of Ming era Chinese vessels crossing the Pacific -- they were certainly capable of doing so. But it would have been "folly to pursue such voyages or attempt systematic contact across the ocean", as he puts it, and, again in his words, "the evidence that Chinese vessels ever crossed the Pacific is, at best, equivocal." He goes on to examine the idea in detail, but more speculatively. Anyway, not quite the debunking I remembered, though "equivocal" is a far cry from "near certainty". Pfly (talk) 20:02, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Thanks for the follow-up. Everybody okay with the current "some historians" wording? Should we remove the "near certainty" quote (which now exists only in a footnote with the ref)? Should we delete this section entirely and start with "The first documented European..."? Are we jolted back to action? Shall we once again take up the just cause of marching this boldly forward toward FA? Northwesterner1 (talk) 20:08, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
Very good work, I like what you've done with this! The L&C map is a good addition, but I wonder whether a detail from David Thompson's map might be more historically significant. Thompson's map was based on much more thorough exploration, and is obviously much more accurate. The reproduction is unfortunately not nearly as good as the L&C map, but I think historical significance might override that concern.
As for getting back to the FA drive, I'm all for it. To my mind, the one thing standing between me and a bold FA nomination is a long afternoon at the library, researching the specifics of the Columbia's major tributaries. There are numerous other potential improvements, but Ruhrfisch's review (and my own opinion) say that the minimal coverage of the major tributaries is a significant absence.
Any other thoughts on major tasks needed before FA nomination? -Pete (talk) 22:46, 1 June 2008 (UTC)
More work in the Environment section, especially with regard to anadromous fish systems on the Snake and lower Columbia? Northwesterner1 (talk) 23:01, 1 June 2008 (UTC)

[undent]Two immediate suggestions come to mind: the indigenous people's section needs more work (and I grant it's complciatedd stuff, esp. to get it right while remaining NPOV and also culturally sebnsitivei....). The other spins off your point about D. Thompson, who pls remember was unlike L&C not on a mission of national expansion/exploration, but was primarily a fur trader and only incidentally assignged to the job of finding out which of the rivers wewt of hte mountains was the Columbia; this is why he buggered around up by Kootenae House and didn't head for hte Pacific straight out like A. Mackenzie had done; he already knew it was there and company profitability had to do with maintaining existing trade, not imperial expansion and glory; and he also apparently liked hunting and hanging out in the hills. "Starggazer" wasn't just because he was a navigator (fun typo; I'd hit that up first as nabigavor....ah, what the mountain stars of the Kootenays must have looked like back then.... So I was going to suggest a section on "the search for hte Columbia", as the looking-for-it overland is just as involved and mult-personalitied as the coastal story; Simon Fraser's story is also involved of course, and certain others. I'll try and do what I can on the indigenous section, though it would help to ahve a WA/OR indigenous person or two to contribute as we have in BC with User:OldManRivers on Skwxwu7mesh and KWakwaka'wakw stuff. I think a map showing hte Great Rivere of the West (La grande fleuve de'l'Ouest and that mysetrious Grand mer d'louest, as a giant bay - either the Georgia-Puget area was meant, or a flooded San Jouquin-Sacrmaneto? About the "first contact thing, ambye the wording "first confirmed visit to teh area by a non-indigenous person was....". "European" opens too many cans of worms, and I dn't like it for period Brits and Americans; it's anti-chrnoistic, a modern term with differnt meanings in those times; and using it cuts out any need to parallel mention that there were not confirmed contacts from ASia or Polyneisa, though these ahve been theorized (and the Polynesian largely dismissed). OK, off to play some music. BTW Pfly had a kid, don't know if it's boy or girl yet....02:43, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Oh, heh, yes -- a boy, like the first one. Just less than 24 hours ago as I type this. About to go to bed and sleeeeep... Pfly (talk) 06:59, 2 June 2008 (UTC)
Wow- congrats Pfly! I'm guessing that'll be a couple of smart kids =) -Pete (talk)

passing through the Cascades

Along with the Klamath River in southern Oregon and the Pit River in northern California, the Columbia is one of only three rivers to pass through the Cascades.

that line has always bothered me, although the exception to it I'm thinking of doesn't pass through the Cascades from one side to the other; it loops through it - the Skagit River; I guess it never crosses the divide of the Cascades, though....but is such a concept of a "divide" on a range pierced by, or spanning, the Columbia, even relevant?Skookum1 (talk) 03:59, 16 June 2008 (UTC)

  1. ^ "D.B. Cooper". The Columbian. 1989. Retrieved 2007-06-13.
  2. ^ Mortenson, Eric (March 42007). "Still waters, stolen lives". The Oregonian. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
  3. ^ Frazier, Joseph B. (March 42007). "Half a Century Later, Dam's Closing Is a Painful Memory". Associated Press. The Washington Post. {{cite news}}: Check date values in: |date= (help)
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