By Bob Van Leer

  (PASCO WASHINGTON, April 18, 2005) - This morning our cruise ship, the Queen of the West, made a bow-in landing at the tiny Oregon community of Irrigon. The Queen has a bow ramp that extends like a stinger and the ship noses up to the shore and drops the ramp on land and passengers get off. No dock is needed.

   During the night we passed through the lock at the John Day Dam, at 113 feet the highest we will go through on this trip. The lock is one of the highest single-lift locks in the world. Buses were waiting for us just off the ramp at Irrigon and the ship proceeded up river. We were taken to the Pendleton Roundup grounds at Pendleton and treated to a western show.  The country between the Columbia River and Pendleton is gently rolling with a lot of irrigation. Our guide said crops are diverse, onions, potatoes, carrots, sugar beets and alfalfa, but the dominant crop is soft white wheat. Almost all of the wheat is shipped to the Far East and used to make noodles. The river is conduit to take grain to Portland for shipment overseas.

   One interesting development is plantations of hybrid cottonwood trees here and elsewhere in the region. Our guide said this particular plantation is owned by the Potlatch company of Idaho and comprises 100,000 acres. He said trees are planted at about three feet tall and grow to harvest size of 85-90 feet tall in just 8-9 years. The growing trees are drip irrigated as the annual rainfall here is only 7-10 inches. Trees are machine-harvested and processed on the spot. Branches and leaves are chipped and left on the site. Trunks are chipped and hauled to the paper mill.

  At the Roundup grounds, we were told that Pendleton is a city of about 16,000 but this swells to 35,000 -50,000 during the Roundup in the fall. The rodeo is the third or fourth largest in the world. We were treated to a show of riding, roping, sheep dog working and livened with songs and comedy. From there, we were taken to the Wildhorse Resort and Casino on the Umatilla Indian Reservation near Pendleton. Our drivers bypassed the casino to take us to the cultural center, Tamastslikt, which was started as an Oregon Trail interpretive center from the Indian point of view. (The word translates to "interpreter".) We had lunch there and then toured the center, concluding with a session of native dancing. 

   The casino has improved the reservation dramatically. A spokesman said unemployment on the reservation is down from over 30 percent to 10 percent. The tribal budget is up from $7 million to $100 million. A hotel and golf course have been added to the casino. And the tribe has some other developments including a truck stop. After the reservation, we had an hour and a half drive to meet the Queen at Pasco. The ship made another nose-in stop at Sacajawea State Park at the confluence of the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Nine miles up the Snake we were locked through Ice Harbor Dam, a lift of 100 feet. This is the first of a series of four dams on the Snake that environmentalists want to tear out to let more salmon go up the river. Tonight we will proceed to Clarkston, WA, to take a jet boat trip up the Snake into Hells Canyon.