The Great Ice Blockade of the Snohomish River
A historic winter freeze has choked the river with ice, threatening the timber industry and commerce in the early days of Snohomish.
The Oxymonia gorge, the narrow reach of the upper Snohomish river, remains a grim distance in the future yet. Notwithstanding the cold weather we have recently had, logs are reported from above the gorge in a greater quantity than seen for many years. Early in the winter, these logs surged through the river, but they have now lodged into a jam twenty feet thick above the ordinary level of the water, and likely much more. This formidable wall of logs and ice blocks the river and presents a difficult situation for local loggers. It is now feared the ice surge will not give for several weeks, and if winter weather should prevail, the lower watershed of the river will suffer further delay. The river is also being blocked by a similar gorge as far as a mile below the town.
“This formidable wall of logs and ice blocks the river and presents a difficult situation for local loggers.”
The Snohomish River remains a vital, sometimes unpredictable artery for the region. Just as 19th-century loggers grappled with ice jams that threatened their livelihoods, modern Snohomish continues to navigate the tension between river-dependent industry and the ecological realities of a flooding, shifting landscape.
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