Pillar Rock

This entry by Clark in his journal, at the end of a day’s travel paddling down the Columbia River, proved to be near the location of Pillar Rock, a 70-foot high basaltic column sitting in water approximately 50 feet deep near the northern shore of the Columbia River just south of the campsite some 1 mile out. The party was still actually 20 miles from the Pacific Coast, between Brookfield and Dahlia, west of Jim Crow Point in Wahkiakum County.

Two persistent legends surround Pillar Rock. The first concerns a young warrior on the Washington side of the Columbia who is entranced by the nightly singing of girls whose tribe had gathered on the Oregon side to gather wappato roots. The ‘wapato’ sold to Clark by local natives was the same root and is actually a potato with the Latin name ‘Sagitaria sagittifolia.’ The young man was intent on crossing the River in order to marry one of the maidens with the fine singing voices. The God Fox told him not to cross the River; but, on the next evening, the warrior set out anyway. When Fox discovered that he was being disobeyed, he changed the young man into Pillar Rock.

An even more romantic legend - again based on a love affair between warrior and maiden on the two different sides of the River - reverses the geographic location of the warrior and maiden. In it, the young warrior is on the south (Oregon) side of the River and the maiden – promised to another man by her father – is on the north (Washington) side. Having won the young woman’s heart, her suitor paddled across the River to claim her as his bride. But her watchful father refused him and sent him away. Later, under cover of darkness, the enterprising young man stole back into his sweetheart’s camp and left, carrying her on his back.

When the father awoke and realized that his daughter was gone, he cried out to the Great Spirit for help. To this day, many people can make out the shape of the young warrior – his bride on his back – in Pillar Rock.

The elation of the members of the Corps of Discovery is understandable, however. For the first time in over 4000 miles, the Corps could look west and not see a plain or a mountain. The campsite at which Clark wrote those famous words is actually some 12 miles east of the town of Naselle, Washington, in Pacific County. While not marked, the location of the campsite is at the end of the road leading off SR403 from US 101.