Noted architect helps commemorate Lewis and Clark on Columbia

ILWACO, Pacific County — Renowned architect Maya Lin dedicated a 12-ton segment of polished black columnar basalt, fitted out as a fish-cleaning station, on Friday as the centerpiece of the first of seven Confluence Projects planned for some 450 miles of the Columbia River.

The dedication was 200 years to the day from when the Lewis and Clark expedition sighted the Pacific Ocean from about the same spot.

Lin said some of the seven phases of the project, which will reach to Clarkston, Idaho, on the river, will be Lewis and Clark-oriented as this one largely is, some less so.

"Conceptually I have chosen to pull history out, their journals, Lewis and Clark's journals, into the real space" of the natural landscape, she said.

"In Lewis and Clark's time, they sighted over 100 species here at this place, more than any other sightings throughout their entire journey," she said.

Some of the seven projects will involve removing invasive plant varieties and replacing them with vegetation the explorers are known to have encountered on their 1804-1806 journey into the unexplored West.

She said the estuary still supports a massive variety of plants and animals.

A walkway is planned through the area, which will include an overlook and a small amphitheater next to a totem "forest" of seven natural driftwood trunks she selected from a nearby beach.

She said the interpretive walkway "will explore how sensitive, how fragile the estuary is and how important it is and what that transition is from the mixing of fresh water to the Pacific Ocean."

Lin, best known for designing the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., has made several trips to the Pacific Northwest since she took on the project and plans a trip down the Columbia for further familiarization.

She said even this facet of the overall project is a work in progress and subject to change.

On Friday she asked tribal members among the 300 or so present for permission to include an Indian prayer they read as a part of it.

The fish-cleaning station is engraved with a Chinook legend about the creation of the tribal people. It will be moved to a jetty to be built in the estuary.

The Cape Disappointment project is to be finished in April. Ground was broken Thursday for a land bridge from Fort Vancouver in Vancouver, Wash., to the river.

The actual arch-shaped bridge over State Route 14 was designed by Seattle architect Johnpaul Jones.

The seven phases of the project are expected to be finished in 2007, nearly 10 years from when the idea was hatched.

Most of the $22.8 million for the project has been raised from state and federal government and private donations. The total includes a $2 million endowment for maintenance.