500....

...years ago the Native American people who lived in this region were the Chinook tribe and they lived in houses like this. The lived a fairly peaceful life in an area of abundance. The had salmon, sturgeon, game, roots, berries and plants such as Wapato. The women would go out into canoes and with their toes they would harvest this tuber which was an important food and valuable trade item. Wapato still grows in many ponds and wetlands.

In November 1805, William Clark and Meriwether Lewis explored the Columbia River and came upon the village of Quath-lah-poh-tle (Cathlapolte) which consisted of 14 cedar plank houses and about 900 people. The people were friendly and traded with Lewis and Clark.

This is a replica of one of their plank houses and on the weekends it is open to the public. The small round door would have been the main entrance, but there is a regular door installed for those of us who don't wish to bend in half to enter the house. Inside you would see that many people would live in this house and there would be a central cooking fire and along the side walls were areas for families to live and sleep. It is also decorated on the inside with beautiful images on the large wall in the back of the house and the front of the house (If I remember correctly).

The Chinook Indian Nation consists of the Cathlamet, Clatsop, Lower Chinook, Wahkiakum and Willapa tribes. They once lived in villages on the embankments of the Columbia River, from British Columbia, Canada to Eastern Washington State, all the way to the Pacific Ocean. Today, the last descendants of Chinook origin live* on reservations in Washington and Oregon. There are currently over two thousand registered members of the Chinook Nation and hundreds more applying for membership. Their legacy is that of a placid, thriving society; never to fully reveal its complex culture and mythology, save for a few scattered texts, artifacts and images. www.chinookindian.com

*They don't "have" to live there if they don't want to. My edit on this.

I would like to thank the Academy... oh wait, that's my life in another Universe.. sorry.

Thank you so much to Blip Central, and to my faithful band of followers whose encouragement and kind words are a daily blessing, to Lorenzo for telling me about this site and to all the people who take the most amazing images for me to lust after. This has been fun and it has encouraged me to try new techniques and to see things in a new and different way. I didn't have anything special planned for my 500th, but I did go to a different part of Ridgefield Wildlife Refuge to get this image of this plank house...just for YOU!!