Paddlec1 wrote:

I'm writing a short story for a class...it takes place in the Pacific
Northwest and I would really appreciate help with an answer to this
question:

Is it possible and likely for a small boat to paddle or row a great
distance up the Columbia River?
snip

Entirely possible from my perspective. The Columbia River flows west in
that area, through what is known as the Columbia Gorge. The Gorge, is a
close to sea level brake in the towering Cascade Mountain Range. Due to a
number of things, one of them being the proximity of the Pacific Ocean
with it's prevailing winds, and another being the geography (gorge), there
are regular high winds blowing upriver. I've been there many times, and
don't know if I've ever seen a day when the wind did not blow upriver (it
is a windsurfing mecca). A couple hundred years ago, before the era of the
dams it would have been a much different river than it is today. In the
low water season it might have been reletively easy traveling going
upriver.

I'm trying to decide how a small group or early 19th-century
travellers might make it upriver from Vancouver, Washington to a
location near present-day Walla Walla, Washington...but I don't know
anything about paddling or rowing upriver on the Columbia. Would they
row? Could they?

Thanks in advance!

They'd probalby have had to do a combination of things, guiding their
boats around rock bars with polls or ropes, as well as paddling. Lewis and
Clark did it, 198 1/2 years ago.

Steam ships plied the waters past the confluence with the Methow river in
the late 1800's I think it was. (been awhile since I read the historical
marker). There are still mechanical fasteners (eyebolts) in the rocks near
Pateros that were used to help move the large boats up the rapids in that
area. This is well past Walla Walla.

You might do a google on "Hanford Reach", it's not far from Walla Walla and
is "the only free flowing, non-tidal stretch of the Columbia River in the
U.S"

HTH