In the Heart of the Gorge

I never knew how interesting it would be to look at my city from a tourist perspective. The other day my boss, my co-worker and I took the day off and went on a "company-wide outing." I had found some discount tickets for the Heart of the Gorge tour through the Portland Spirit and convinced Rachel that we should use them for some bonding time, to which she agreed. For some reason I had assumed that we would be on the actual Portland Spirit, a nice little cruise ship that goes up and down the Willamette, but when we got there we realized that we would instead be on a jet boat called The Explorer, with speeds up to 45 mph. Our little group and another couple were the only people from Oregon on the boat; Everyone else was from other cities, like Austin, Texas, or even other countries; there were three girls traveling together who were from France, Switzerland and Thailand. I then realized that this was a very tourist-y activity for us to do; I don't know how I didn't realize that before, but we decided to just roll with it.

In true Portland fashion, just as we were beginning the boat trip we had to stop and wait for a moment while the captain called the police; someone was hanging off of the wrong side of the waterfront railing over the Willamette River. He may have taken the "Keep Portland Weird" motto a little too seriously, but I've seen weirder. One time during a single lunch hour I saw a midget in a suit, a man carrying two parrots, and a guy holding a fishing pole with a plastic cup hooked to the end, holding a sign that said "Fishing for a buzz" while wearing a toadstool hat. Also, one time an old dude asked me out to lunch because I said "Hi" to him on the MAX (I politely declined). ALSO, someone once begged me to marry him while I was walking by to catch my bus. "Will you marry me? PLEASE??" I said, "No, sorry." Hopefully he wasn't too put out. One time a woman walked by my house yelling, "He'll be sorry he cheated on me! I poured bleach on all his clothes, that'll teach him!" as she dropped the ruined clothes all over the neighborhood. The guy came by later with another girl (the mistress?) to pick up his "wannabe gangster clothes" (his words, not mine), cussing and shaking his head the whole time. This city baffles me less and less the more time I spend here. Does that mean that I'm getting weird too? I DID spend last Sunday sitting on a blanket on my lawn drinking mimosas with Claire. But that's not weird, that's just awesome.

The St. Johns Bridge.. the prettiest bridge in Portland!

Anyways, as we floated up the Willamette River through downtown, our tour guide talked all about each different bridge and some of the city's history: the three towns that eventually banned together to make the Portland we have today; the brothel owner who had her business on a boat because that was technically not within city limits, where prostitution was prohibited; the incident where two streetcars didn't realize the bridge was up and crashed into the river below. However, what I found most interesting was the story about crimping, or shanghaiing.

There was a point in the river where a large tube was sticking out into it. "That there is one of the only remaining entrances into the underground tunnel system that Portland used to use. The tunnels came straight from the docks and went to the basements of many of the businesses and shops in downtown; it was much easier to bring merchandise to the shops this way, rather than trying to bring them up and navigate them through all the streetcars on the roads above." The tour guide explained.

However, it was quickly discovered that not only could these tunnels move products, but people as well. At this time in history there was a huge shortage of able-bodied men because of the war as well as the gold rush, so to bring sailors aboard, the captains resorted to "crimping," or kidnapping men and forcing them onto ships using the underground tunnels. Most of the men were taken from bars in the middle of the night. And, the most incredible part was that this was LEGAL! No one criminalized it because the ships needed sailors THAT BAD. And once the men were on the ship, it was illegal to leave it during a voyage; if they did, they could be incarcerated. Portland became one of the most popular cities for crimping on the West Coast.

I know there is a bar in downtown Portland called the Shanghai, and they offer tours of these underground tunnels upon request. I think I'm going to have to contact this bar and report back on more details I discover about this crazy-ass practice.

As we went further down the Willamette River, we left downtown and began going through the industrial areas of Portland, including all the ship yards. From this point out, this trip baffled me with the incredible things humankind has invented and built. Ships alone are an impressive feat, especially ones as huge as those that are docked in the Port of Portland. To work on and repair these ships, someone invented this sort of air dock; huge boxes of metal shaped in a U so that the boat can ride into it, where the metal boxes are pumped with air, lifting the boat right out of the water to grant easy access to every side of the ship. Who thought of that?! Brilliant!

The tour went up the Columbia River and ended in Cascade Locks. Since the fourth grade, I've heard about the lock system on the river when we did our Oregon History unit, and this just topped off my human-invention-fascination that I had been experiencing that day. We actually went INTO the locks! Okay let me explain: they have created dams on the Columbia River for one reason or another. To get up beyond these dams, boats go into this chamber which is filled with water and let out on the other side when the water is equal to the river.

So that is what we did. Our little jet boat slowly entered the chamber, which was HUGE. These massive concrete doors, probably 100 feet high, admitted us into this enormous concrete box measuring 665 feet long by 84 feet wide. We went into the chamber and the doors shut slowly behind us, trapping us in. The damp walls rose up eerily on either side of our little boat. The vastness of the chamber and the high concrete walls trapping us in made me feel as though we were awaiting some terrible fate. Then we sat. We waited. And suddenly, we were rising. Millions of gallons of water flooded into the chamber from somewhere underneath us, and in about 10 minutes we had risen 75 feet and were floating at an equal level to the river on the other side of the walls. As impressive as that was, it was a relief to be up in the sunshine again with only a few feet of concrete separating us from the open air.

The door shutting us in!

The same doors, after we floated to the top.

 

From there we went just into Cascade Locks, had some lunch, then headed back. If you feel like you would like to experience Portland in a different way, I would suggest this tour. It was really informative, and since I've only been living in Portland for a few years it was nice to actually learn about the history involved. Now I feel like I know my city a little better, and even though this place is a little crazy, I do love it dearly.