Bridge of the Gods (land bridge)
A legendary landslide dam across the Columbia River.
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The Bridge of the Gods was a natural dam formed by the Bonneville Slide, a major landslide that blocked the Columbia River near present-day Cascade Locks, Oregon. The river eventually breached the dam and washed much of it away, but the event is remembered in the legends of local Native Americans as the Bridge of the Gods. The name was later given to a modern bridge crossing the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington.
Quick Facts
- Location
- Columbia River near present-day Cascade Locks, Oregon
- Type of feature
- Landslide dam
- Height of dam
- approximately 200 ft / 61 m
- Length of dam
- 3.5 mi
- Area covered by debris
- more than 5.5 sqmi
- Distance forest was drowned
- about 35 mi
Facts from the source article.
Geologic history
The Bonneville landslide's age has been debated as research methods improved. Early studies using tree rings and carbon dating placed it between 1060 and 1180 or 1250 and 1280, often citing 1100. Later carbon dating and lichen growth measurements suggested a range from 1500 to 1760, which could connect it to the 1700 Cascadia earthquake. More recent work with tree rings and carbon dating points to around 1450, possibly linked to a major mid-1400s earthquake.
The slide sent debris from Table Mountain and Greenleaf Peak south, covering over 5.5 square miles. It blocked the Columbia River near modern Cascade Locks, Oregon, with a natural dam roughly 200 feet high and 3.5 miles long. The backed-up river created a lake that submerged a forest for about 35 miles. The Columbia eventually broke through, washing away most debris and forming the Cascades Rapids, which were later flooded in 1938 by the Bonneville Dam.
Geologists found that multiple landslides in the area overlap, creating the Cascades landslide complex. The Bonneville event is the most recent and likely the largest. Mapping of individual landslide lobes in the 1960s and 1970s revealed this composite structure, which may explain why earlier date estimates varied.
Native American legend
Among the stories the Klickitats tell about the Cascade volcanoes, the most well-known is the legend of the Bridge of the Gods. In this tale, the great chief Tyhee Saghalie traveled down the Columbia River from the far north with his two sons, Pahto and Wy'east, looking for a place to live. They reached an area now called The Dalles and were struck by its beauty. The sons argued over the land, so their father shot two arrows from his bow—one north, one south.
Pahto followed the northern arrow and settled there; Wy'east followed the southern one. Saghalie then built a great bridge called Tanmahawis so the family could meet. Later, both sons fell in love with a woman named Loowit, who could not choose between them. The brothers fought over her, destroying villages and forests, shaking the earth so hard that the bridge collapsed into the river, forming the Cascades Rapids.
As punishment, Saghalie struck down the lovers and turned them into mountains. Wy'east, proud and with his head lifted, became Mount Hood. Pahto, with his head bowed toward his lost love, became Mount Adams. Loowit became Mount St. Helens, which the Klickitats call Louwala-Clough, meaning "smoking or fire mountain."
More in Religious Places of the Indigenous Peoples of North America
Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Bridge of the Gods (land bridge) (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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