Historic Hood River
The Columbia Near Bonneville
1-19-2021
Notes
This Benjamin Gifford postcard shows river travel before 1911, when the card was posted. That sailboat sure doesn’t look fit for Columbia River wind and waves to me.
The History Museum of Hood River County
Bringing the Rich History of Hood River County to Life
L.E.
The sail looks like it has had some use. We even have a dog in this photo.
When you read old newspaper accounts of the Gorge area, you realize, the modern day windsurfers were not the first to discover the wind and its affects on sails.
Everyone was using them. When the Joslyns, 1853 homesteaders, made their trip from Portland to The Dalles,
“…With a stock of provisions and seed for their first year, they went by the little river steamer to the Lower Cascades, where everything had to be transferred to the “Upper Landing,” with much risk and hard labor. This accomplished, their provisions were loaded upon a flat-boat for The Dalles. Then came long' days of waiting for favorable winds. Their cook stove, set up on deck, under an awning, did double duty for them and another family less fortunate than themselves. Mrs. Joslyn tells of “sharing their potatoes which had cost them three cents a pound, with them”, and of “feeding one man who had narrowly escaped drowning in crossing 'Dog River'.”
Finally, after a long struggle with adverse winds they reached The Dalles,-three weeks from Portland….”