Exploring The Gorge Interpretive Center Displays The People, History And Nature Of The Area Where Columbia Gorge Meets The Cascade Mountains

This struggling former timber town finally has the tourist draw it’s wanted for 20 years, the Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center.

Visitors can learn about the formation of the stunning river gorge that slices for 80 miles across the Cascades, the native people who enjoyed its bounty and those who came later and changed it forever. The center has sweeping Gorge views, and a major hotel and conference center is a short walk away.

Never mind that an act of Congress said the center should go 60 miles to the east in The Dalles, Ore., or that The Dalles is still working to put together its own interpretive center.

Stevenson is celebrating. The center will be “yet another visitor magnet” in the Gorge, says Sharon Tiffany, executive director.

The Columbia River Gorge, which straddles the Oregon-Washington border just east of Portland, has long been attractive to tourists. Its waterfalls, dramatic cliffs and lush vegetation won protection as a National Scenic Area in 1986.

The new interpretive museum presents the history of the Gorge, good and bad. Particularly moving are the artifacts, pictures and accounts of the lives of the Gorge’s first residents, who were decimated by the diseases that arrived with white settlers, missionaries, trappers and explorers.

The interpretive center can easily be toured in a couple of hours, leaving time for lunch or visits to other Gorge attractions like Multnomah Falls or Beacon Rock. Travelers from Spokane may wish to stop off at Maryhill Museum at the eastern edge of the Gorge in southeast Washington, a fine art museum with an internationally recognized Rodin collection.

The scenery in the Gorge shifts dramatically around Hood River, Ore. That’s where the vegetation and weather change suddenly from the arid east side of the Cascades to the rain-forest feel of the west.

Stevenson sits at one of the most scenic points, just east of the “Bridge of the Gods” at Cascade Locks. Native American lore says a natural bridge once spanned the Columbia where the metal arched bridge now stands; recent geological discoveries back that up.

Visitors entering the $10.5 million interpretive center walk under an entry way reminiscent of a railroad trestle. Inside, there are simulated basalt cliffs, made from molds of the real thing with mineral deposits specially painted in by artists.

Among the center’s more unusual exhibits is a 37-foot-high fish wheel, an exact replica of one used in the Stevenson area. A single wheel could scoop out 3 million salmon and steelhead a year. Oregon voters banned the wheels in 1926, and Washington voters followed suit in 1935.

The interpretive center is also home to a huge working steam engine from a sawmill; a 46-seat “Creation Theater” where nine projectors present a dramatic version of the creation of the Gorge; the world’s largest collection of rosaries (4,000, meticulously catalogued by a Stevenson resident); and the priceless jewels and art left by a Russian aristocrat who believed the Gorge was a “spiritual vortex.”

The center was built with a $5 million matching grant from the Washington Legislature, land from the county and lots of private funds. It’s long been the dream of the Skamania County Historical Society.

Not available to the project was federal money that accompanied the scenic area designation. Politics being what they are, Congress gave Washington $5 million for a conference center in the Gorge, but said another $5 million for an interpretive center should go to Oregon.

Not to worry. The county historical society already owned the rights to the name “Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center.”

The conference center money helped build the $27.5 million Skamania Lodge in Stevenson, which employs about 200 local residents and helped drop unemployment in the county from a high of 34 percent in late 1992 to 11.2 percent today.

The lodge, with rooms starting at $95 a night, has spectacular views, rock fireplaces, hiking and horseback riding trails and a public golf course. It’s filled with mission-style wood furniture.

The lodge does lots of group and convention business. It’s not superfancy, and sound does seem to carry from the hallways into the rooms. But it’s otherwise quiet and pretty. There’s a library, fitness center with outdoor playground, and four whirlpools, one outdoors with a waterfall.

The lodge is operated by Salishan Lodge, which owns the prestigious lodge of that name on the Oregon coast.

The interpretive center is owned and operated by the Skamania County Historical Society, on land that once was the site of a sawmill, and, much earlier, of an encampment by explorers Lewis and Clark.

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MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: IF YOU GO Stevenson, Wash., is located in the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. From the Spokane/Coeur d’Alene area, take Interstate 90 west to U.S. Highway 395 south, to I-84 west, which runs through the Gorge. Exit at Cascade Locks, Ore., and drive across the Bridge of the Gods to reach Stevenson. The drive takes less than six hours from Spokane, but you’ll want to allow time for sightseeing stops in the Gorge. The new Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center is open daily, 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and students, and $3 for children age 6-12. Information: (509) 427-8210. Skamania Lodge has nearly 200 rooms, a full conference center, restaurants and lounge, an 18-hole golf course, tennis courts, fitness center and more. High season runs May 1 to Oct. 1. Rates start at $95 for a forest-view room or $120 for river view ($125 Friday/ Saturday). Reservations: (800) 221-7117.

Geography note Inland Northwest residents sometimes confuse the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area with a smaller gorge on the Columbia at George, Wash., that’s a popular concert venue. Some have even tried to book rooms at the Skamania Lodge for the concerts, which are 200 miles away. The big Columbia River Gorge is the only sea level route through the Cascade Mountain Range, carved by an ancient flood that sliced the Cascades from summit to base. It stretches from Wishram, Wash. to Troutdale, Ore.

Visitor information Skamania County Chamber of Commerce, (509) 427-8911; Cascade Locks Visitor Center, (503) 374-8619; Columbia River Gorge Visitors Association, (800) 98-GORGE; Hood River County Visitor Center, (503) 386-2000.