Icy Rescue on the Columbia River
Two men survived a harrowing five-hour drift in freezing temperatures after their scow broke loose near Stevenson.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Near Stevenson, Wash., Wednesday, James Cramblet and his son Ira were loading wood on a scow. Suddenly, the pressure of floating ice caused the rope by which the scow was tied to the river bank to part, and the craft was swept out into the swiftly moving current. Down past the town of Stevenson the scow floated toward the cascades and to almost certain death. Finally, the father and son managed to get out an anchor which caught. For five hours in almost zero temperature and imminent danger of being swept over the falls, father and son gestulated and shouted to people on shore, until Knos Johnson and Will Sweeney undertook the hazardous trip from the shore to rescue them.
“For five hours in almost zero temperature and imminent danger of being swept over the falls, father and son gestulated and shouted to people on shore.”
The reliance on volunteer rescue and the sheer danger of the Columbia River's currents for small-scale timber and transit workers remains a hallmark of life in the Columbia Gorge, despite modern maritime communication technology.
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