Until Next Time
Falling Back on the River written and photographed by Ryan Hashagen
THE “FALL BACK” daylight saving time switch is always one of my least favorite days of the year as we dive into darker days. This year I decided to ease into the shift by paddling the Willamette River from my Dad’s hometown of Salem to the Hawthorne Bridge in Portland in an old Craigslist kayak. It has been a life goal to paddle the river and now I’ve floated, in various segments, from Eugene to Astoria. To start off on this latest leg, I got dropped off in Salem at Wallace Marine Park at 2 p.m. on a Saturday and wasn’t sure how far I could make it before work on Monday. Newberg? Wilsonville? Oregon City? Paddling through the Keizer rapids and Lincoln rocks I passed the Wheatland farms where my dad used to work on strawberry fields. The river’s current was livelier and wilder than I’d expected. That night I camped out on a big sandbar under the rising blue moon. Got up before sunrise with a sky full of constellations and floated slowly in the fog towards Dundee. It was a cold morning, but the day warmed up before too long. The river current helped with progress until Newberg, but then the river slowed to a crawl. Accompanied by an FM radio and almost no boat traffic, I paddled all day Sunday until arriving at Oregon City. It was an exercise in patience as each bend of the river got closer. I wasn’t really sure how to portage the falls because the locks were closed 96
1859 OREGON’S MAGAZINE
JANUARY | FEBRUARY 2021
and Highway 99E is not very friendly for dragging a kayak on the non-existent shoulder. Fortunately, I found a spot to drag the boat ashore next to an auto repair shop. I’d just started to lash the boat to the skateboard for hitchhiking around Willamette Falls, when one of the guys at the shop offered a ride downstream of the falls! Was quite tired from the many miles on the river, but decided to push all the way back home to Portland with such nice weather and a well known stretch of the river ahead. This lower stretch of the Willamette is much more urban, with mansions and motorboats that were sending big wakes my way as they obviously roared by. I paddled steadily all the way back through Gladstone, Elk Rock, Milwaukee, Sellwood, Ross Island and then finally, back to the City of Bridges! I pulled up to the Hawthorne Bridge at 6:30 p.m. that Sunday, with plenty of time to make it home and to work on Monday. I counted the distance later. I realized that I’d just paddled 70 miles in twenty-and-a-half hours of paddle time.
