Radio Series on Columbia River Issues

Oregon Public Broadcasting has just concluded a four-part series on the Columbia River and some of its present day issues and concerns. Follow this link to the OPB page with links to all four episodes. You can read them or listen to them or both.

I was especially interested in the last installment about the mouth of the river, often dubbed the "graveyard of the Pacific," how dangerous it is to cross over the bar, and the fact that in addition to shifting sediments, gale winds, and heaving waves, the area is littered with the debris of "thousands" of shipwrecks. There are a couple of dramatic photographs showing a huge container ship plowing through the waves.

In an earlier post, I had mentioned the bar pilots who go out to the big ships on either side of the river's mouth and guide them through. This series talks quite a bit about the bar pilots, whose elite number does include one woman (which I had wondered about before).

Enjoy this new series on the Columbia.