on leaving crater lake lodge we were admonished not to miss the sand creek canyon pinnacles, which we would pass just outside the park. sand creek canyon is a vast ravine several hundred feet in depth with walls so steep that only an experienced mountain climber would dare attempt the descent. at a point nearly opposite the eastern boundary of crater lake park, a multitude of slender sculptured spires ranging up to two hundred feet in height rise from the sides and bottom of the tremendous chasm. these weird gray needles of stone are cores of lava rock left standing after the surrounding sand and silt had been carried away by the floods which cut this mighty chasm in the sandy plain of central oregon. a sign, “the pinnacles,” apprised us of our proximity to these curious natural phenomena; they are not visible from the road, being hidden in the depths of the canyon. they seem strange and uncanny in the noonday sun and we wondered how weird and awe-inspiring they must appear when the pale moonlight filters into the deeps of the great gulch. at the111 bottom of the canyon a clear stream dashes through a fringe of good-sized pines with here and there a little green paddock. in one of these we saw the only wild animal life—except small birds and chipmunks—since we had left reno. a doe eyed us timorously and then slipped into the cover of the trees. they told us that there were many deer in this region but they are chary of appearing along the main-traveled roads.
sand creek canyon pinnacles
copyright by fred h. kiser, portland, oregon
for many miles after leaving crater lake we pursued a natural dirt road, innocent of any attempt at improvement save an occasional log culvert or bridge over a dry gully or small stream. it was fair, however, except for occasional sandy spots and at times good speed was possible over its long, level stretches, for there is scarcely a five per cent grade between the park and bend. nearly the whole distance it runs through forests, chiefly the worthless lodge-pole or “jack” pine, which grow almost as thickly as they can stand. one wonders that they have escaped the fires of whose deadly work we so frequently saw distressing evidences among the more valuable varieties of evergreens. we ran through these uninteresting trees for more than fifty miles without a single village or even ranch house to break the monotony. it was as wild and lonely a country as we had so far traversed and yet in a little shack by the road we passed a112 station of the bell telephone company—a reminder of the wonderful ramifications of the wires of this great organization. no railroad had as yet penetrated this wilderness but one from klamath falls to bend was projected, which will open up a vast territory to farming and stock-raising. even now there are many cattle in this country and we frequently saw notices referring to stock ranges posted on the trees. sheep are also common and in one place we passed a drove of many thousands of them.
crescent, about seventy miles from fort klamath, the only village on the road, has a dozen scattering houses, a store or two, the omnipresent sheet-iron garage, and a big wooden hotel. for some distance about the town the jack pines were being cleared and preparations made to till the land, though little had actually been done as yet in the way of producing crops. beyond crescent we followed the course of the deschutes river to bend, a distance of nearly fifty miles. the river here was only an ordinary stream and gave little hint of the stupendous scenery that skirts it beyond bend. on our left, beyond the river, ran the main range of the cascades and a little ahead rose the snow-clad peaks of the three sisters and mount jefferson. a few miles from bend we came into a region once the seat of great volcanic activity. here we passed113 black butte, a great conical hill of volcanic rock about which lie huge ridges of black lava with edges as sharp as broken glass.
the three sisters, deschutes canyon
copyright by fred h. kiser, portland, oregon
on entering crook county, about thirty-five miles from bend, it became evident that improved highways were to be the order of the day in this section, but said improvement had not progressed far enough to be of any benefit to us. a wide, straight road had been graded through the giant pines that cover this section, but no rain had fallen since the work was completed and the new “highway” was a wallow of bottomless yellow dust which concealed myriads of distressing chuck-holes. after trying the new road for a little while, we again sought the old, meandering trail and stuck to it as far as possible. however, for a good many miles there was no alternative and we plunged along, leaving a blinding dust-cloud behind us—a fine, alluvial dust that hovered in the air many minutes after we had passed. fortunately for us, the road was clear ahead and if anyone was behind us he has our unstinted commiseration. we did not go scot-free ourselves by any means, for it was quite impossible to get away from the dust which the front wheels stirred up and it soon covered the car and its occupants with a yellow film. nearer bend the road improved somewhat and no doubt after the grades have been thoroughly settled by114 the rains, they will be smoothed and perhaps surfaced, in which case the road would be unsurpassed, as it is quite level and straightaway.
much active lumbering is being done about bend, and the fine yellow pines through which we passed were being slaughtered at a terrific rate. temporary railroads were laid among the trees and logging engines were hauling trains loaded with the mighty boles that had fallen victim to the ax—or, more properly, the saw, which is generally used in felling these big trees. we learned later that this industry is chiefly responsible for the surprise which we experienced on arriving at bend. the 1910 census listed the town’s population at five hundred and we were wondering if we could hope for decent accommodations in a village of that size located in a comparative wilderness. it was an agreeable surprise, therefore, to find a town of four or five thousand inhabitants with many evidences of progressiveness and prosperity. true, a good deal of the straggling old village was still in evidence, but the fine new buildings in course of construction made it clear that such structures would soon elbow the ragged old wooden shacks out of existence. a beautiful bank building that would grace the main street of a city of fifty thousand was under way, as was also a fine mercantile115 building of white glazed brick with white tile trimming.
our hotel proved rather better than we expected from its outward appearance, though our room was somewhat dingy and a private bath was not to be had. the meal service, however, was excellent. we remarked that bend would afford a fine opening for a new and really modern hotel and only a few days later i read in a portland paper that such an enterprise had actually been begun by a local company. the deschutes river, a clear, swift stream, runs through the town and the new inn will have an ideal location on its banks. bend’s prosperity is, of course, due to lumbering—one great saw mill employing a thousand men. so vast are the yellow pine tracts about the town that it will be long before this resource fails. farming and stock raising are also being carried on to a considerable extent in the vicinity and these industries are bound to grow in importance in such a fertile and well-watered section.
another factor contributing to the activity of bend may be found in the numerous auto-stage lines that radiate from the town. it is the terminus of the railroad from the north and passengers’ mail and freight for the interior towns to the south and west are largely transferred by automobile. here they talk of jumps of fifty to116 two hundred miles in a day much as a san francisco commuter might speak of a trip to oakland or berkeley. the auto-stage agency in our hotel was in charge of a dapper, effervescent little fellow whose nationality we might have guessed even if he had not advertised himself as “frenchy” on the card which he obsequiously offered us. we had no need of “automobile transportation” so we did the next best thing and patronized a boot-blacking stand which this same expatriated frenchman was running—we were going to say “on the side,” though it may have been his main business, for that matter. while with the touch of an artist he put a mirror finish on our pedal extremities, he told us with a good deal of pride that his son was in the trenches somewhere in france, fighting to expel the invaders.
bend, though much the largest town in the county, is not the county seat. this is at prineville, forty miles to the northeast and nearly the same distance from the railroad. the logical thing would appear to be to move the county capital to bend within the next few years. taken altogether, bend seems to be a town with an assured future and one where moderate fortunes are likely to be made.
the deschutes near north junction
copyright by fred h. kiser, portland, oregon
leaving bend for the north early the next morning, we followed the deschutes river for117 several miles, crossing it three or four times. it is an extraordinarily beautiful stream, broad, clear, swift, and so shallow that the mossy boulders over which it dashes are clearly visible and a keen eye can often detect brightly tinted trout darting among them. our road kept near the river for a great part of the day and in places we were fairly overawed by the wild and stupendous scenery of the vast canyon through which it courses. some one has called it the grand canyon of the northwest, and we who have seen the arizona wonderland can not feel that such a characterization is altogether far-fetched. perhaps the element of complete surprise may have tended to give us a somewhat exaggerated impression, for we never had the slightest hint of what we were to see. we went to the grand canyon of arizona expecting much and were not disappointed; we ran unawares upon the grand canyon of the deschutes and our amazement may have warped our judgment to some extent. still, i find reference to this very region in a recent book by a well-posted oregonian who declares it “the most stupendously appealing river scenery in all the northwest—this same canyon of the deschutes,” and remember that this same northwest is the country where “rolls the oregon,” commonly known as the columbia, in all its majesty. at one point, not so very far from118 bend, was the scenery especially overwhelming in its grandeur. i wish i might adequately describe it, but i doubt if any printed page could ever convey a true idea of such a spectacle. i can only hope to direct attention of the tourist to this almost unknown wonder of america and to assure him that he will never regret a trip between bend and the dalles, which may be made by either motor or rail. in fact, the railroad follows the bottom of the canyon and in many ways affords better opportunities to view the scenery than does the wagon road.
the canyon at the point of which i speak is a vast, rugged chasm many hundreds of feet in width and perhaps a thousand in depth, with precipitous, rocky walls almost as gorgeously colored as those of the grand canyon itself. at the bottom dashes the vexed river—a writhing thread of emerald—as though it were in mad haste to escape from such deadly turmoil. our road ascended to a vantage point where we could look for miles down the valley over a panorama of weird peaks whose crests were surmounted with a multitude of fanciful shapes, pinnacles, domes, and strange, outlandish figures in stone which the imagination might fitly liken to a thousand things. near at hand the hills seemed harsh and forbidding, but in the distance their drab colors and rugged outlines were softened by119 a violet haze that transmuted their sternness into ethereal beauty. the center of the plain skirted by these weird hills was rent by the vast chasm of the river canyon, its sides splashed with gorgeous colorings. against the silvery horizon to the westward ran the serrated summits of the cascades, dominated by the cold white peaks of the three sisters and, farther still, in lone and awful grandeur, the vast white cone of mount hood. and this same glorious mountain dominated our vision at intervals during the entire day until we saw it stand in crowning beauty against the wide, crimson band of the sunset.
our road soon left the river canyon, though we coursed through the deschutes valley the greater part of the day. the road varied greatly from fair alluvial dirt surface through great wheatfields to a wretched stony trail that wound around precipices, forded rock-bottomed streams and climbed over rugged hills. for a considerable distance we followed a stream at the bottom of a canyon, fording it several times over a trail so primitive and neglected that at times it was difficult to find it at all, but there was no danger of going astray—no one could climb the precipitous walls that shut us in.
coming out of the canyon we crossed a hill range into a beautiful little valley dotted with several prosperous-looking ranch houses. in120 front of one of these, under the shade of the immense lombardy poplars that surrounded it, we paused for our mid-day lunch. about the house was a beautifully kept lawn which the owner was watering at the time. he told us that there was plenty of water for irrigating in the valley if the rains happened to be too scant and a big yield was always sure from the wonderfully fertile soil. a small field—about thirty acres—near his house had just yielded over two thousand bushels of prime barley and other crops were in like proportion. fruit trees thrive, as was evidenced by several heavily laden pear trees near the house. the greatest drawback was distance from the railroad and poor wagon roads, making transportation very difficult. this was best overcome by feeding the products of the farm to cattle, which could carry their own carcases to a shipping point.
our road swung still farther from the deschutes river; we crossed one rugged hill range after another with the inevitable cultivated valley between. the upland plains had been tilled in spots and the irregular yellow patches where the wheat had just been harvested gave a curious effect to the distant hilltops. evidently much of the soil was not tillable—probably due to volcanic ash—which accounted for the irregularity and scattered aspect of the wheatfields. the121 heavy wagons carrying the wheat to market had wrought havoc with the roads, which were full of chuck-holes and distressingly dusty.
overlooking deschutes canyon, mt. jefferson
copyright by fred h. kiser, portland, oregon
upon one of the highest and bleakest of the hill ranges, we came into the village of shaniko—our first town in nearly a hundred miles—a place of three or four hundred people. it is, however, one of the oldest settlements of this section and until a few years ago a great staging center for freight and passengers from the dalles. the coming of the columbia southern railroad, of which shaniko is the terminus, changed all this and led to the rapid settlement of the surrounding country, which now produces wheat in considerable quantities. in spite of the dignity thrust upon it by being made the terminus of a railroad, shaniko is a forlorn-looking place, bleak and dusty, with a half-dozen stores and the inevitable hotel—a huge, red-brick structure seemingly out of all proportion to the probable needs of the town. the garage was deserted and it was with some difficulty that we located the owner to replenish our gasoline supply. he directed us to proceed by way of maupin, tygh valley, and dufur, to the dalles, rather than follow the railway line.
for twenty-five miles out of the town we ran through the huge, rounded hills, curiously mottled with the irregular golden patches of the122 wheatfields against the reddish brown soil. at maupin we came back to the deschutes, here a lordly river, spanned by a long, high bridge which afforded fine views of stream and canyon in both directions. here again we were directed to take the new tygh valley road and had more reasons than one to be glad that we did, for we saw some splendid canyon scenery and a wonderfully engineered road through the hills. a few miles from maupin we entered tygh valley canyon. a long, steep, and very rough grade led downward between the stupendous walls of shattered igneous rock—red and dull brown, splashed with spots of golden yellow. the sides were rugged in the extreme, and barren except for a few scrub cedars which clung precariously to the steep slopes. at the bottom of the canyon many varieties of trees flourished and here and there were green paddocks.
in one of the greenest of these nooks, at the point where the road reaches the floor of the canyon, is the village of tygh valley, as snug and sheltered as shaniko was bleak and windswept. there was a picturesque little church with a tall spire and the place seemed reminiscent of new england rather than the far west.
mt. hood from tygh valley
copyright by the winter co., portland, oregon
“and what is the most distinctive thing about tygh valley?” we later asked a friend who frequently visits the town and he as promptly123 answered, “rattlesnakes; the canyon is one of the greatest habitats of this interesting reptile in the whole country. the last time i was there a local character who makes a practice of hunting the snakes had just come in with the carcases of forty-five of them, which he was proudly displaying on the street. he makes a good revenue from the oil, which is in great demand, and the skins are worth from fifty cents to a dollar each. the snake hunter once started to breed the reptiles to increase his gains but the citizens objected. they thought there were quite enough rattlesnakes in the canyon without raising them artificially. since then the hunter has confined himself to catching the denizens of the wild and is doing tygh valley a good service in reducing the number of the pests.”
we ourselves, however, saw nothing of the valley’s aboriginal inhabitants, though we might have looked more closely for them had we known of their presence.
almost immediately after leaving the town we began our climb out of the canyon, ascending one of the longest grades that we found in all our wanderings. this road is a wonderful piece of engineering, swinging its wide ribbon in long loops around and over the giant hills and affording some awe-inspiring vistas of barren summits and wooded canyons. it is a road of thrills for124 the nervously inclined, for in places at its sides the slopes drop almost sheer for a thousand feet or more and there are many abrupt turns around cliff-like headlands. but for all that it is an easy road, smooth, fairly free from dust, and with no rise greater than seven or eight per cent. may they do more road work of this kind in oregon!
at the summit we paused and caught our breath at the panorama that suddenly broke on our vision. an endless sea of blue mountains stretched out to meet the sunset and dominating them all rose the awful bulk of mount hood, sharply silhouetted against a wide stretch of crimson sky. there was something awful and overpowering in its lonely, inaccessible majesty—the sunset and the mystery of the blue shadows that enveloped its feet gave it something more than the fascination which the lone snow-covered mountain ever has for the beholder—its relative isolation from other peaks giving it an added grandeur and individuality. mount hood, for example, with an altitude of 11200 feet, is far more impressive than mount whitney, the culminating peak of a range, though its actual height is 3300 feet greater.
and so, as we contemplated this mystery mountain looming in lonely majesty in the fading twilight, we could not wonder that indian myth and legend made it the subject of many a weird125 tale. it dominated the western horizon during the remainder of our run except at short intervals and presented many fascinating changes of color and light ere it faded away in the darkness. from a hilltop several miles out of the dalles we caught our first glimpse of the columbia in its mad dash through the narrow straits that give the name to the town. the valley and surrounding hills were bleak and cheerless in the extreme and in the gathering shadows of the distance the mad tumult of the waters was hardly visible, but if the first view was distinctly disappointing, the unfavorable impression was to be effaced by our later acquaintance with the noble river.
we were glad indeed to come into the well-lighted streets of the dalles. it had been an exceedingly hard day’s run—nearly two hundred miles with much bad road, stony and deep with dust in places. the dust was especially annoying during the last twenty-five miles of our run; the wind was blowing a perfect gale and there were numerous cars on the road. when we entered the dalles hotel our appearance hardly fitted us for civilized society, but such a plight creates no comment and attracts little attention. it is too commonplace here—the party that preceded us and the one that followed were very like unto ourselves in unkempt appearance. the hotel with its large comfortable rooms and well-ordered126 bath was indeed a haven of rest after the day’s experience and when we had regained the semblance of respectability we descended to a late dinner, for which we were quite ready. we found everything about the hotel decidedly first-class and more metropolitan than is common in towns of five thousand, for that is all the census books accord to the dalles. of course it claims to have gained considerably since the last enumeration and its private and public buildings, well-improved streets and general business activity seem to bear out the contention.
the town is built on a historic site. old fort dalles was a milestone of pioneer travel, having been established here in 1838 and about the same time a mission was founded—not by father junipero, whose name always comes to mind in connection with the word in the west, but by the methodist church. the name was given by canadian voyagers in the hudson bay service—the dalles signifying gutter or trough, referring to the chasms between the great glacier-polished sheets of basaltic rock which break the river into the wild cascades opposite the town. a short distance above this broken pavement the river is thousands of feet in width but where it forces its mad passage through these rocks it is confined to a few yards and where the channels are most contracted it sweeps through three rifts of rocky127 floor, each so narrow that a child might cast a stone across.
or bon deschutes river canyon
from photo by the weister co., portland, oregon
the surrounding country is a fit setting for such a wild and turbulent scene. on either hand lie monotonous plains, now brown with sunburned grass and studded with gray sagebrush. to the north rise the rugged peaks of washington and eastward is the long sweep of the river valley guarded by rounded hills. westward we see the broad bright river, released from the dreadful turmoil of the dalles, vanish into the giant hills over which the majestic white-robed form of mount hood stands, an eternal guardian. it is a scene that never failed to arrest the eye of the observant traveler from the earliest day and even before his time the “untutored mind” of the poor indian was impressed with the weirdness and beauty of the spot. to account for the strange phenomena of the dalles and explain how the mighty river was compressed into the three deep narrow channels, the savage mind was busy with myth and legend and, like most of the myths of our aboriginees, there appears to have been a sub-stratum of truth.
the story tells of the fierce volcanic action once common in this section when hood, adams, and st. helens were lurid fire mountains and when a great range of hills ran across the valley where the dalles now are, damming the waters128 of the river into a great inland sea. naturally enough, fiends of great power and malignancy were fabled to have congregated in such a spot and to have had much to do with the manifestations of fire and water. here, too, is a hint of geologic truth, for the fiends were huge monsters with very powerful tails, probably the dinosaurs and mud pythons of the reptilian age, of which remains have been found in this region.
these fiends, according to the legend, congregated here when the volcanic furies were subsiding and chief among them was a master fiend or devil who had been first in malignancy and hatred. whether he was sick and would be a monk, as in the old proverb, we do not know, but the story is that he proposed to the lesser fiends to give up their wicked revels and assume the role of beneficent spirits and friends of man. the increasing peacefulness of the elements, he declared, foreshadowed better things. why should they not give up wars and cannibalism, to which they were so terribly addicted, and seek the quieter pastimes of peace?
a strange story and a strange sentiment to put in the mouth of a devil, but the consequence was stranger still. instead of receiving the beneficent proposal with favor, the fiends turned on their leader in a furious rage; pacifism was no more popular in that mythical time than it is129 now. “he would beguile us into a crafty peace,” they shrieked as one, “that he may kill and eat us at leisure. death to the traitor!”
alarmed at such a sudden and unanimous uproar, which was followed by an onslaught of all the legions of fiends, this pre-historic prince of darkness lost no time in taking to his heels, pursued by the howling pack that thirsted for his blood. swiftly he sped toward the great ridge of land that held back the inland sea, seeking doubtless to hide in the rugged hills to the north. but he was pressed too closely by his enemies, to whom he seemed sure to fall victim unless saved by some desperate expedient. summoning all his vast powers as he crossed the spot where the river now rages among the dalles, he smote with his huge tail upon the smooth flat rocks. a great chasm opened, down which poured a dreadful torrent from the waters of the inland sea, tearing boulders to fragment. this frightful performance stopped the greater part of the fiends, but some of the more venturesome were not to be deterred. with a bound they crossed the chasm and were again on the heels of the fleeing devil. in desperation he smote once more upon the rocks and another and still vaster chasm was opened up and a still greater torrent poured down it. still the villains pursued him, for some of them were agile enough to vault130 across the second rent, and the indian satan was again in danger. with one last and desperate effort he dealt the rocks a third smashing blow with his caudal appendage and a third chasm, twice the width of either of the others, split the rocks behind him and with the speed of lightning the wild waters rushed in to fill it.
only a few of the hardiest of the pursuing fiends dared attempt this awful maelstrom and they fell far short and were ground to powder by the furious stream. the fiends who leaped the first and second torrents now essayed to return, but lacking the zeal of pursuit they, too, fell short and were swept to destruction. evidently determined to make a clean sweep, the myth-makers even doomed the hesitating demons who refused the first leap, for the bank on which they stood gave way, precipitating them into the mad stream.
and so the whole race of these troublesome fiends perished. the devil himself had escaped, however, and paused, panting and overcome, on the opposite bank to take inventory of himself. he was not unscathed by any means. his tail, the powerful weapon that had wrought his salvation, was hopelessly crippled by his last gigantic effort. it was of little consequence, since his enemies were all dead; he was now free to pursue the peaceful policy which he had advocated.131 so, leaping back over the torrents, he went to his home—wherever that may have been—to found a new race of demons, all of whom, like himself, had flaccid tails.
the deschutes river canyon
from photo by the weister co., portland, oregon
such are the bare outlines of the legend of the dalles, which shows no small power of imagination on part of the savage originators. the fuller details of the story may be found in “canoe and saddle,” by the lamented young new england writer, theodore winthrop, who visited this region about 1857 and no doubt learned the story from the natives at first hand. winthrop lost his life in one of the earlier battles of the civil war and thus one of the most promising lights of american letters in that day was forever extinguished. his story of this western wilderness at the time of his visit is one of the most vivid that has ever been written and deserves a permanent place in the historical annals of the great northwest.
