The River Viking: Amos Burg’s Treacherous Canoe Trip
A young adventurer navigates the Columbia’s most lethal rapids in a 17-foot canoe, documenting the wild river before it is tamed.
In his little 17-foot canoe, ‘Song o’ the Winds,’ Amos Burg, Jr., a 22-year-old Portland boy who is making a trip down the Columbia river from its source to the Pacific ocean, arrived in White Bluffs Tuesday noon. Burg left the headwaters of the Columbia at Canal Flat, B.C., on October 20. He said the trip so far had been full of thrills, and that Priest Rapids was the most difficult of all the dangerous passages encountered. This part of the Columbia has always been considered practically impossible of navigation by any kind of craft at this season, when the water is near its lowest ebb; that Burg was able to pilot his canoe through leads one to suspect that all of the Vikings have not passed on. Burg expects to reach the Pacific ocean about December 17. He is documenting the trip for an Eastern magazine, having already taken over 600 pictures.
“Priest rapids... was the most difficult of all the dangerous passages encountered so far. That Burg was able to pilot his canoe through leads one to suspect that all of the Vikings have not passed on.”
Amos Burg’s adventurous spirit captures a Columbia River that looked very different before the massive dam projects of the mid-20th century permanently altered its flow. Today, the 'unnavigable' Priest Rapids are submerged beneath the reservoir of the Priest Rapids Dam, a stark reminder of how the geography of White Bluffs was transformed by industrial engineering.
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