The Columbia Maritime Museum (and the Astoria Riverfront Trolley).
Our next stop was the Columbia Maritime Museum, devoted to the rich maritime history of the Columbia River region. The current special exhibit is “Envisioning the World,” about the first printed maps — they’re stunning, but my kids had a little less patience for those. However, there was plenty to keep them busy, too. There were various different types of boats that were or are used on the Columbia River, from the sailing gillnetter which is no longer used to the Coast Guard motor lifeboat that sits up at an incredibly steep angle, simulating what it’s like when you hit the big waves.
We watched a short video about the Columbia River Bar and it was fascinating and terrifying. Where the river meets the Pacific Ocean, there’s a treacherous sand bar; in addition to that, the river itself can be very difficult to navigate. There are specially trained bar pilots (only two dozen of them now) who will get on board a moving ship, navigate them over the bar, and then jump back into the small boat to shore. Then a Columbia River pilot boards and takes over the rest of the navigation down the river. The pilots have to be able to draw a map of the river by heart, knowing what all the landmarks and buoys are, and where the river is deep enough for these big cargo vessels to go.
20mm anti-aircraft gun from the USS Missouri.
How my kids learned to stop worrying and love the 16-inch shell.
In one area of the museum, there was a section devoted to warships. They actually have the entire bridge of the USS Knapp, a destroyer that was decommissioned (for the last time) in March 1957. The ship was sold and broken up for scrap in 1973, but the bridge was donated to the museum. They shipped it down the river, put it at its current location, and then built the museum building around it. Museum visitors can walk around inside it and fiddle with controls, and my kids loved getting that hands-on experience.
There were also some things from the USS Missouri battleship, and since we’d just assembled the Kre-O battleship set recently, they were fascinated to see the real-life counterparts. Above is one of the 20mm anti-aircraft guns from the Missouri, and to the left is a 16-inch shell from the big guns on the ship. They had a photo of the Missouri firing one of these shells, and it’s amazing to see this actual shell sitting next to the photo and think about it flying out of the end of a barrel so huge I could just about put both my kids in it next to each other. (Now there’s a mental image for when I’m totally fed up at bedtime.)
The museum also has exhibits covering the long history of ships on the Columbia, from paddleboats to tugboats to galleons to the massive modern-day cargo ships. I could have spent even longer browsing the exhibits but eventually the kids got impatient and needed to get outside.
Speaking of outside, the museum also has the Columbia Lightship (pictured at top) permanently docked outside and you can go on board. I didn’t know anything at all about lightships, but they were basically floating lighthouses, used in areas where it wasn’t feasible to build an actual lighthouse. The Columbia was the last active-duty lightship on the West Coast when it was decommissioned in 1979. It sat about 5 miles out from the Columbia River mouth, signalling to ships where the bar and port were. Imagine living on a small boat for extended periods of time, so close to shore but unable to walk on dry land. Remember, kids, this is before iPhones and Xbox.
