 |
|
| Volume XXXIX, Number 3 |
Fall, 2004
|
 |
|
| Tugs, launches,
houseboats, and a visiting naval vessel crowd
the busy South Bend waterfront in this circa 1915 scene. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Volume XXXIX, Number 3 |
Fall, 2004
|
|
|
|
| Tugs, launches,
houseboats, and a visiting naval vessel crowd
the busy South Bend waterfront in this circa 1915 scene. |
|
|
|
|
| The
Sou'wester |
| ISSN #0038-4984
Copyright, 2005, by the Pacific County Historical Society. No portion of this publication may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the Society's Editorial Board. The Sou'wester is a quarterly publication of the
Pacific County Historical Society and Museum. The Pacific County
Historical Society is a non-profit 501(C)(3) organization in South Bend,
Washington.
In addition to the Sou'wester, the Society publishes a quarterly newsletter for its members and operates the Pacific County Historical Society Museum in South Bend, Washington.
Design and electronic page layout by Charles B. Summers,
South Bend, Washington.
|
| The
Sou'wester Fall Issue, 2004
|
|
|
|
During the summer of 1921 college students Chris Hurtt and John Dierdorff (1899-1989) planned to make a little money, and return to Portland Oregon in a boat of their own. Although things did not work out exactly as they had planned, we are fortunate that Dierdorff wrote a story about their adventures. The story reprinted in this issue was originally published in the December 1933 issue of Motorboating magazine. One of our members (I wish I could remember which one) dropped a copy of the story by the Museum a couple years ago. With the assistance of the staff of the Oregon Historical Society, I found that the author had passed away in 1989. John Dierdorff had a long career as a public affairs executive for Pacific Power and Light. Prior to joining PP&L he had worked as a reporter and charitable fundraiser. My attempt to locate Dierdorff’s family was, however, unsuccessful. Not long after my first attempt to locate Dierdorff’s family I happened to run into Gus Norwood, long time public power advocate, outside the opera house in Portland. Figuring that Gus might have known his rival from the private power industry, I asked Gus about Dierdorff. Gus stated that Dierdorff was one of the few private power executives who were unceasingly gracious during what were frequently unpleasant conflicts between public and private power interests in the 1930s and 40s. Unfortunately, Gus could shed no light on the Dierdorff family. The trail went cold. |
Map by Ray Bethers used in the original magazine article |
| Later in the year,
I dusted off John Dierdorff’s Oysterville boat story and decided to make
one more attempt to reach his family. This time I was successful
in finding son David in Juneau, Alaska. David informed me that they
had recently donated an album full of photos taken by his father, including
the ones taken that summer in Pacific County, to the Columbia
River Maritime Museum in Astoria. With assistance from Maritime
Museum associate curator Jeff Smith I was able to view the album.
Not only did it contain some wonderful photos of the early Finn-Style salmon
troller Captor, but the collection also included a journal kept
by Dierdorff during the fishing trip down the Oregon Coast in 1921.
The Maritime Museum plans to publish the fishing trip journal in the near
future. Those wishing to read the sequel to the story presented here
should keep an eye on the Quarterdeck Review. We appreciate
the support of the Dierdorff family and the Maritime Museum’s willingness
to share some of the Dierdorff photos with Sou’wester readers.
A few other notes on this issue: Some readers may be familiar with John Dierdorff’s 1971 history of Pacific Power, How Edison’s Lamp Helped Light the West. The logging company where Hurtt and Dierdorff worked in 1921 was likely Bay Logging, on the South Nemah River. A history of this company can be found in the Fall 1999 issue of The Sou’wester. The only editorial change I made to Mr. Dierdorff’s story is to update the name from “Nasel” to “Naselle”, as it was properly used in the 1920s In this issue, we also present another story from Kathlamet Texts, by Franz Boas, as told by Chinook Indian elder Charles Cultee of Bay Center in 1891. These authentic Indian stories provide a unique insight into a very different world. This story is a continuation of the coyote myth told in the earlier publication, Chinook Texts. Coyote, the mythical trickster common to many tribes, learns how to fish for salmon. Bruce Weilepp, Editor |
|
| We Bought A Boat In Oysterville
By John Dierdorff
The trouble with a lot of these
yacht brokers is that they’re too blamed conservative. They tell
a prospective purchaser that the boat in question is as safe an investment
as a government bond and let it go at that. What they ought to do
is hold forth alluring assurances of paper profits, unearned increments
and all that sort of thing. And to make the thing graphic they might
get the customer comfortably planted in an easy chair and tell him about
the time Chris Hurtt and I bought a boat in Oysterville.
Chris and I worked in a logging camp one summer, so the story goes, said camp being situated on the South Nemah River which, in turn, is tributary to Willapa Bay in the southwest corner of the state of Washington. For five dollars a day, less one twenty for board, we sawed and split knotty logs into fuel for the most voracious donkey engine that ever existed outside the annals of Paul Bunyan. It was a big donkey engine, as donkey engines go, and it was working on a steady pull that kept the engineer yelling for more steam, the fireman yelling for more wood, and Chris and I too busy to yell for much of anything but our meals. As time wore on and the blisters wore off we became more expert at the task and occasionally would get enough wood stacked up to last for a couple of hours. Then we’d sit back and loaf for a while, if the woods’ boss wasn’t in the vicinity. During such interims we got quite chummy with Hank, the engineer, once his native prejudice against college punks had been overcome, and one day we confided in him a plan that we had been secretly nursing for some time. |
The author, John Dierdorff, aboard the Captor. Photo courtesy of the Columbia River Maritime Museum. |
| The Plan
Briefly, the scheme was this. We would buy an old fishing boat of the gillnet type, rig up a mast and sail, perhaps install a second-hand engine, and when our summer’s work was ended cruise leisurely to Portland. Chris and I had done something of the sort two years before in an old motorboat and we were keen to make the trip again. As a base for outfitting we intended to use the Hurtt’s summer cottage at Ocean Park, on the North Beach peninsula across the bay from the logging camp. Hank fell in with our plan immediately. “I’ve got just the boat you want,” he declared, “and I’ll let you have it for fifty dollars. I don’t know where you can get anything half as good for twice the money. The only reason I’d think of sellin’ is that the fishin’ ain’t been so good lately and besides I got married here about a year ago and the wife sort of likes to have me home nights.” “What sort of condition is she in?” we asked, referring to the boat. “Pretty good. She’s been out of the water quite a while and may need a little fixin’ up but that’ll be easy for you fellows.” We were greatly intrigued by Hank’s offer and began to look upon him as a benefactor and friend. Further questioning revealed that our bargain boat was available for inspection at Naselle, a little community at the head of navigation on the river of the same name. It was ten or twelve miles from our camp, ‘cross country. The following Saturday came an opportunity to go to see the boat. Hank and his wife were going to Naselle over Sunday to visit her folks and they invited us to accompany them. “It’ll be a good chance for you to get over there,” said Hank. “Unless you know the trail it’s pretty tough going. We can put you up for the night, too.” |
|
| Trip to Naselle
Supper was early on Saturdays and immediately afterward we set out for Naselle. Up the Nemah the trail led until the stream was but a tiny trickle. Then there was a steep climb over a high ridge and an equally steep descent through a logged-off area into the valley of the Naselle. Part of the time the trail followed an old skidway and the going wasn’t so bad. Wild blackberries grew in profusion and signs of bear were plentiful. Once in a moist gully we saw tracks of a band of elk. “Aw, that’s all right,” we assured him. We waded across barefooted at a shallow riffle. On the far side we found a little used wagon road which, after a couple of miles, joined a well traveled highway. By then it was quite dark and we were footsore and weary from the long hike. It was a great relief to be overtaken by an automobile whose driver recognized Hank and picked us up. A few minutes later we were at our destination. At the home of Hank’s father-in-law Chris and I waited outside while family greetings were exchanged. In a few minutes Hank came out, visibly embarrassed. “I’m sure sorry,” he said lamely, “but the folks are plumb full up with company and there ain’t an extra bed in the house. Maybe you better go to the hotel.” “Aw, that’s all right,” we assured him. “We know how it is. We’ll make out easy enough.” |
The Nahcotta Dock; transportation hub of the North Beach Peninsula on Willapa Bay. PCHS #2004.40 |
| A brave speech that, in view
of the fact that we had just one dollar and fifteen cents between us.
Having drawn no pay as yet we were about out of pocket money. So
there we were, dead tired and on the verge of insolvency. Plodding
down the road in the direction of the hotel we debated whether to sleep
out or buy a bed for the night, and the latter won. It was chilly
outdoors and low-hanging clouds threatened rain before morning. What
if we did spend six-bits on a bed? We’d have enough left for a cup
of coffee and hotcakes in the morning and Hank would probably ask us around
for Sunday dinner.
The hotel wasn’t much of an establishment. The proprietor was out when we entered the dingy front room that served as a lobby and we were greeted by a self-conscious girl of thirteen or fourteen who said we could get a room. “It’ll be seventy-five cents, she stated in response to our query, and at that unfortunate juncture her father, the innkeeper, entered. “It’ll be a dollar,” he amended, and a dollar it was. Paid down in advance. We tried to talk him out of it but to no avail, and after that ten mile hike we simply didn’t have enough ambition to get mad and go out looking for a nice cozy haymow. |
Early Sport Fishing on the Naselle River. PCHS #2001.33 4 |
| The Naselle Boat
In the morning we awoke to find that we were as good as broke and very, very hungry for our accustomed breakfast of oatmeal porridge, hotcakes, bacon, fried potatoes, coffee and two kinds of cake. So we took the fifteen cents and bought chocolate bars, and then went to look for our boat. We found it on the river bank where Hank had directed us to look and our first impression of it wasn’t very favorable. Dead leaves, twigs and silt covered the bottom inside. The coaming was broken down in places and the planking none too good. Until we happened along I’m quite sure Hank must have regarded his possession as beyond salvage. Chris and I, however, were so fired up about our plan that once the initial shock had worn off we began looking for good points. We jabbed at the planking with a pocketknife and because a perceptible effort was required to push the blade clear through we nodded sagely as much as to say it wasn’t such a bad boat after all. Within half an hour we had decided to buy it. Then we strolled back through the village to give Hank plenty of opportunity to see us about that dinner invitation. |
An illustration by Ray Bethers in the original magazine article depicting how the Naselle boat may have looked. |
| Eventually we did encounter
him and we did get an invitation, not for dinner but to come around and
see him pitch for the local baseball team in the afternoon. Too proud,
or too dumb, to tell him we were broke and hungry we let him go his way
and then for lack of anything better to do wandered into the country, alert
for possible provender. At noon we dined on raw carrots and green
peas filched from a secluded garden patch. But somehow the meal didn’t
seem to satisfy. We were glad when the ball game dragged to an end
and the time came to start back for camp. Luckily we got a ride as
far as a car could take us, and on the trail our weakening legs were sustained
by the thought that every step brought us nearer to food. Supper
was over when we reached camp but a handout from a friendly kitchen helper
enabled us to survive the night.
For the next two weeks we planned in minute detail how we would renovate the decrepit old boat that was to be our own. Then along came Labor Day week-end. The camp closed down at noon on Saturday and Chris and I decided to go to Ocean Park. We rode the log train down river to the boom camp and from there crossed the bay to Nahcotta on the little tug Vamoose. In Ocean Park we got the key to the cottage from the caretaker and made ourselves at home. Ocean Park doesn’t boast of much night life but we spent a diverting evening going the rounds of the ice cream emporiums and gossiping with the inhabitants. Then back at the cottage we fixed up a bed in front of the fireplace and were lulled to sleep by the surf. Sunday morning we breakfasted late and wandered down the beach in casual search of interesting bits of wreckage that might have been washed in by the tides. Noon found us at a point opposite the village of Oysterville, to which quaint old place we made our way by following a vagabond road over the dunes and through alternate pine-clad knolls and cranberry marshes. We bought crackers, cheese, cookies and some bottles of pop at the general store and lunched sitting on a log beside the bay. |
| The Oysterville boat
Vamoose was to return to the Nemah in mid-afternoon so when we had finished our lunch we started for Nahcotta. But before we had gone a quarter of a mile we found something to interest us. It was a double-ended skiff that lay bottom up in the front yard of one of the villagers. Of course we had to stop to investigate. Except for a broken plank and some cracked ribs it wasn’t in such bad shape. Moreover, it was stepped for a mast. Inquiry revealed that it was for sale and could be had for ten dollars. We began to think that perhaps Hank wasn’t offering us such a wonderful bargain after all. A staunch and nimble skiff would serve our purpose just as well as a heavy fish boat, in many respects better. We lingered some little time but departed without buying. Our desires were flexible enough but we felt a certain obligation to go through with the other deal. Even though Hank had not turned out to be the ideal weekend host we could see no good reason for backing down on him now. |
|
Small trollers like the Captor were often repaired on the beach between tides. Her shallow draft would have been a liability however, during rough bar crossings. The small boat in the foreground is probably the "Oysterville" or "Shoalwater Bay" dinghy Dierdorff and Hurtt acquired and sold during their adventurous summer. Photo courtesy of the Columbia River Maritime Museum. |
|
| Tramping along the sandy road,
however, we became rebellious about going back to camp so soon. Monday
would be Labor Day, a workers’ holiday! And weren’t we workers?
Sure! Well, then we’d assert our rights and miss the darned old boat.
Which we did by a safe margin, thanks to a deserted boat yard that demanded
our attention on the way.
The trouble was that the woods’ boss opined he had some rights too, among them the right of expecting collegiate woodcutters to work like anybody else. When we did show up for work Tuesday morning our attempted nonchalance quickly wilted in the face of a brief but emphatic request to call at the office for our time. In a way it was good news. We sought out Hank to tell him of our imminent departure and to request release from our agreement to buy his boat. There was none too much money coming to us, we explained, and readily granted our request. He probably had felt all along that the deal was too much of a good thing. Then we rolled up our blankets and left camp on the morning log train. A supply truck took us from the boom camp to Raymond where we drew our pay and after a night in a waterfront hotel at South Bend we boarded a stubby little steamer for Nahcotta again. Back in Ocean Park we half-heartedly set about looking for new jobs and wholeheartedly to the business of acquiring the Oysterville skiff. For the stipulated ten dollars we got clear title to it and for fifty cents more had it hauled to Ocean Park and unloaded in the back yard. There we cut out and replaced the broken planking, reinforced the cracked ribs and caulked the seams. Somewhere we found a piece of light canvas and from it fashioned a sail. We cut a mast and boom from well seasoned poles. All in all, it was great fun. But we weren’t making any money. |
Chris Hurtt, Dierdorff's partner, mugs for the camera. Photo courtesy of the Columbia River Maritime Museum. |
| Salmon Fishing Adventure
There wasn’t any work to be had in Ocean Park so as soon as the skiff was about ready for use Chris boarded the narrow gauge train for Ilwaco to see if he couldn’t get a job on a salmon troller. Right away I got a postcard back saying he had jobs for both of us, and to put the skiff on the train and come along. At Ilwaco I was met by Chris and Roger Ward. Roger and his father were fishing together in Captor, it seemed, and his brothers Sam and Harry were each fishing alone in BettyBob and Ariadne, respectively. My job, it developed, was to keep Sam from getting lonesome in return for which he would provide bed and board on Betty Bob and let me learn all about the fishing business. Chris had a similar job with Harry. The fact that we wouldn’t make any money mattered not at all. We always had wanted to be deep-sea fishermen. |
Small fishing troller Captor on the Willamette River in Portland. She represents a first-generation "Finn-style" troller built on the Columbia River between 1900 and 1930. Her shape strongly resembles the sailing gillnet boats common to the Columbia. Photo courtesy of the Columbia River Maritime Museum. |
| The two weeks that followed
were filled with glamorous adventure. Never shall I forget the thrill
of rounding Cape Disappointment in the gray dawn, with the tall lighthouse
blinking red and white from the rugged headland, to feel Betty Bob lift
to the ocean swell. Nor shall I forget the fearful, joyous anticipation
which held me as we pointed out between the trestled jetties for the open
sea. It was my first time outside and BettyBob, for all or
her thirty-six feet, looked like a mighty little boat to brave the biggest
ocean of them all. But it didn’t take me long to learn that BettyBob
was capable of taking things pretty much as they came, even when the ground
swell started snarling at the ebb out by the north whistler and you could
see nothing but sky when down in the trough.
In the excitement our skiff was practically forgotten but one day a stiff nor’wester made it nasty outside and we came in early from fishing. In the curve of the bay it was comparatively sheltered and we decided to go for a sail. We quickly discovered then what we should have recognized in the beginning, that here was an exceedingly cranky boat. Its bilge was as round as a barrel and if Chris and I hadn’t done more or less sailing in a canoe we would have capsized a dozen times. |
| The Plan Abandoned
Stock in the Hurtt-Dierdorff On-to-Portland-by-water Expedition began to show a decidedly bearish trend. Anyway we were having a vastly more adventurous time fishing than we had ever expected to have sailing up the river and our original plan began to savor of the anticlimactic. Its complete abandonment was easy when in the middle of September Chris got a letter saying that if he intended going to college that fall it was time he came home and started packing. A week later I had to bid a reluctant adieu to Sam and BettyBob and likewise start for home and higher education. Custody of the skiff I entrusted to Roger who said he would use it until the fishing season ended and then bring it to Portland on Captor. He had lost his own skiff shortly before and our double-ender would come in handy, cranky as it was. If opportunity presented, he was authorized to sell the boat for us. That was the last I ever saw of our Oysterville skiff. Late in the fall Roger brought it up to Portland as promised, but I didn’t get to see him until Christmas vacation. In the city for a day I looked him up and was warmly greeted.
Now just suppose we’d taken our ten dollars and bought a government bond instead of a boat. A fat chance we’d had making a fifty per cent profit on our investment! |
Editor's note: The main story in this issue
was published about ten years after events described. For another
perspective on the town of Ilwaco and the rapid changes taking place during
the 1920s we include the following newspaper story by John Dierdorff from
the Portland Oregon Telegram. The date of publication is assumed
to be about 1926. The original clipping was found in the Dierdorff
album, at the Columbia River Maritime Museum.
|
| Kathlamet Texts: The Myth Of The Coyote
Editor’s Note: Coyote is one of the most ubiquitous characters in Indian mythology. Many tribes tell stories featuring the trickster, and his adventures. In this story, Coyote learns how to fish properly for salmon. The illustration below was drawn for this publication of the Coyote Myth by Diantha Weilepp. |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
 |
|
 |
In 1928, the 46’ double-end troller Petrel, representing the second
generation of Finnish design, was built in Astoria at the Tolonen yard
for the tuna and salmon fisheries. The picture above (courtesy of
Scott Robinson) was taken in Astoria soon after construction was completed
for original owner Matt Sorvaag. Coos Bay cabinet maker Scott Robinson
bought the boat in 1995, and after five years, hundreds of hours, and a
substantial investment, he re-launched the Petrel in 2000 as a converted
pleasure boat with a new house, new deck, new engine, and a virtually new
hull. The photo on right was taken prior to final rigging with traditional
mast and trolling poles.
16 |
|
(This is a repeat of the page 7 photo) |
