Talk:Columbia River
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[edit] Yukon versus Columbia
The Yukon is almost twice the length of the Columbia (2000 mi vs. 1250 mi), but is not nearly as developed and harnessed. While it is larger in area drained, the Columbia has a larger total volume. See http://www.gi.alaska.edu/ScienceForum/ASF9/929.html -- BryceHarrington User:Conversion script 15:51, 25 February 2002 (UTC)
- Only hydro projects in the U.S. are listed. I'm pretty sure there are Canadian ones. -- Dmbaguley 11:56, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)
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- Found 3 canadian dams, added them -- Dmbaguley 07:18, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)
[edit] Tributaries
The tributaries are listed going upstream, the cities alphabetically, and the dams going downstream. Should they all three be upstream, downstream, or something? Dmbaguley 13:24, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)
- Hmm. I hadn't noticed. When I added several tributaries to the Columbia (as many as I could find from my atlases), they were already in order going upstream, so I left it in that order.
- Giving this a moment's thought, I'm tempted to arrange all of these lists in the order of going upstream. IIRC, one talks about the left & right hand sides of a river as if one is standing at the mouth of the river & looking upstream. (And the longest list -- that of tributaries -- is already in that order.) However, if this causes too much confusion, I vote we standardize on alphabetical.
- How are the other river articles organized? -- llywrch 22:30, 31 Oct 2003 (UTC)
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- The Mississippi River article lists the states and cities going downstream, which seems like the most natural choice to my taste. It is the way the river flows, after all. And one generally (and in this article) starts describing a river by saying where the headwaters are. Dmbaguley 00:09, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)
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- I've done some trib lists, but have consistently waffled :-) - sometimes alphabetical, sometimes in upstream order. Alpha would be better if there were so many tributaries that readers are likely to miss the one being looked for, 20 or more, and there are plenty of rivers with that many "top-level" tributaries, but upstream order is more esthetic, that's why I would do if I could only pick one. (Hmmm, back to hack on Ogooue then...) Although downstream order does match with narrative description, the lists are in a separate part of the article, and on the average both downstream towns and tributaries are more important; so upstream order has the nice property of tending to list the most important ones first. Time for a WikiProject! Stan 00:16, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)
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I've removed 2 entries from the tributaries list:
- Scappose Creek - There are actually 2 Scappose Creeks, neither of which are significant enough for inclusion. Let's focus on adding more important tributaries first.
- However, I left Multnomah Creek in, because Multnomah Falls is part of it.
- Salmon River - The only Salmon River in the Columbia drainage area I have been able to identify is a tributary of the Sandy River. Let's keep the list to streams & rivers that directly empty into the Columbia. -- llywrch 22:30, 1 Nov 2003 (UTC)
[edit] Pollution
Fact that Hanford has contaiminated the Columbia River, Epa Link title -- Woofles
[edit] Internal Links
The internal links list I found on the Columbia River is interminable. It was hard for me to see a connection between the Illinois River, in Soutern Oregon, and the Columbia. It obviously doesn't abut it. Finally I realized the category might be "Oregon Rivers" or maybe "NW Rivers." Other entries baffled me, as well. Being an Oregonian helped me to sort out some things. But few persons who wanted more info would bother to look up that whole list.
I certainly wish it could be sub-topiced: as, Tributaries of the Columbia; towns on or near the Columbia; other rivers. Or state the reasons why these links are given.
Marilee User:67.227.171.238 03:26, 30 September 2004 (UTC)
[edit] Situated
The article starts off with: "situated in British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest of the United States."... think it odd that British Columbia is mentioned first, given that the majority of its length, including the stretches best known, are in the PNW US". Probably just quibbling though. -- AAA User:151.132.206.146 15:46, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
- What's stopping you from improving it? Wahkeenah 23:41, 1 March 2006 (UTC)
Well, the river does START in BC does it not? How about "stretches from British Columbia into the Pacific Northwest of the United States"?
[edit] Cleanup tag
I have removed the cleanup tag-- there have been a lot of edits since it was put on, and it seemed to me that it no longer warrants the tag. If you disagree, and restore the tag, it should be dated May 2005. -- Mwanner 18:40, 15 September 2005 (UTC)
[edit] History - "Ouragan"
The article states: "Ouragan" is the original name for the Columbia River. Native American and First Nations stories hold the "Ouragan" as a very spiritual place.
I'd like to see a reference for this. I'm a local and have never heard this. As I recall, L. McArthur in "Oregon Geographic Names", does not ascribe the name "Oregon" to a native american name. That would seem the obvious choice if "Ouragan" was the original name for the Columbia. It would be exciting, if true. -Jill K
- In George R. Stewart's book "Names on the Land" there's a couple pages on this. There was a "great river of the west" on many old maps, named something like "Oregon", and located more or less where the Columbia River turned out to be. Stewart points out, "Over the source of this name [Oregon] more controversy has raged than over any other on the continent," and goes on to list some of the theories, but thinks the "most likely" source is the one he tells at some length: "Among the French explorers of the west was the Baron Lahontan. He was not a man of integrity, and told a tale of a certain Long River which did not exist. But he wrote charmingly and his book with illustrations and maps was published in French and English in several editions. Most of these contained a map on which appeared Wisconsin River, spelled in French fashion Ouisconsink. But for the French edition of 1715 this map was redrawn by a careless engraver who made many mistakes which names, such as Magara for Niagara. He wrote Ouisconsink as Ouariconsint, and he broke the word with a small hyphen because the map was crowded, and put "sint" beneath. So anyone looking at the map a little carelessly would think that there was a river Ouaricon, flowing toward the west." ...then, summarizing, in 1760 the British soldier Major Robert Rogers went west to receive the surrender of the French posts at Detroit and elsewhere, where he heard the old tale about a great river flowing to the Pacific Ocean through a break in the Rocky Mountains. Whether or not he believed the story (the French were fairly skeptical themselves), in 1765 Major Rogers petitioned the King of England for a commission and money for searching for the Northwest Passage by way of this river. At the time the (still wholly mythical) river was generally known as "the river of the west", but in Major Rogers' petition he added that the river of the west was called by the Indians Ouragon, Ourgan, and Ourigan (spelling back then was pretty loose), supposedly taking the river Ouaricon from the French map and mistaking it for the "river of the west", and spelling it in a slightly more English style, substituting the French c for an English g. Rogers was denied the commission and was instead posted to command Michilimackniac. From there, Rogers sent Jonathan Carver to explore west, and the word "Oregon" was firmly established by Carver's 1778 publication "Travels through the Interior Parts of North America", a work that has often been called a "work of fiction".
- A complicated story! Other theories are simplier, like, as Stewart puts it, "wild guesses" that "Oregon" comes from Spanish "oregano", or "origen" (origin); or from the old Spanish kingdom of Aragon; or from the French "ouragan" (storm); or the Shoshone "ogwa-peon" (river-west); or the Chippewa "owah-wakan" (river of slaves); and much else.
- Stewart's book is a classic on placenames, but getting a bit old now, so maybe there is new information about the origin of the name. But I suspect it is still a bit of a mystery. Whether or not Stewart's story is true, it is a good one -- that a misspelling of the French spelling of Wisconsin could be the origin of Oregon is pretty amazing. Unless there is a good source of the origin, references to it should probably say something about the controversy and uncertainty about it. Pfly 01:52, 21 August 2006 (UTC)
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- There's a fairly detailed discussion of the proposed sources for the name at Oregon.
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- As for what the natives called the river before the rest of us happened along, I don't think they called it "Oregon". According to Lewis McArthur's Oregon Geographic Names, the first person to call the river "Oregon" was the poet William Cullen Bryan in his long poem Thanatopsis, written 1817. As for a native American name of the river, all that McArthur supplies that some thought for a while (ca.) it was Tacootche-Tesse or Tacootche, but that it was later learned this name properly applied to the Fraser River. I find it odd that there isn't more information close at hand: one would think that with all of the settler's memoirs & detailed records on various aspects of Native American life like Chinook Jargon, that someone preserved at least a few of the native names for this river. -- llywrch 00:41, 25 August 2006 (UTC)
[edit] History - Captain Gray on the Columbia
Captain Gray was still on the Lady Washington on May 11: according to the John Kendrick article, he was given command of the Columbia Rediviva on June 24th. As I understand it, the Lady opened the Columbia a few days before Rediviva showed up.
- That would be important, and yes they didn't switch ships until June 24. Now had that been in 1792, then it would be worth mentioning. However, if you read the article you referenced it says the switch was in 1789.Aboutmovies 00:40, 13 December 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Columbia River Gorge photo
The photo of the gorge in this article is somewhat deceptive...it is a photograph of the extreme west end of the gorge and thus is not very representative of how the gorge looks. This should be fixed...
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