Cape Disappointment State Park
Scope and Contents
This series consists of material related to planning and construction of the public art installations including designs, site plans, correspondence, contracts, and financial records. There are also eleven oversize models of the sites.
Dates
- Creation: 2000-2013
Creator
- From the Collection: Confluence Project (Organization)
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research. Series 3 and Series 5 contain unprocessed born-digital files on CDs, MiniDisks, Betacam SX, and VHS. Unprocessed content includes files from Confluence in the Schools, Confluence in the Classroom projects, recorded interviews, and footage from sites. For more information, please contact the Archives.
Historical Note
Cape Disappointment State Park was the first of the Confluence sites to be constructed because Maya Lin was interested in reflecting back on the journey of Lewis and Clark and the mythology that has grown around it. Cape Disappointment is where the Columbia River empties into the Pacific Ocean and where Lewis and Clark’s journey west ended. Here, Lin worked with park staff and contractors to reclaim a small sheltered bay from what was once a series of boat docks and before that an elevated rail bridge connecting the Fort with the nearby town of Astoria. The team replanted the site with indigenous trees and plants and installed a basalt fish scaling table etched with a creation myth from the local Chinook tribe. The interior bay is connected to a separate site across a highway facing the Pacific Ocean. There, a series of walkways made from crushed oyster shells create a bifurcated path leading to a sheltered listening circle, an open-air amphitheater, and Waikiki beach. One pathway features quotes from a Chinook praise song. At the listening circle, a small grove of cedar driftwood columns affixed with steel plates surround the trunk of a dead elm that would have been alive when the Corps of Discovery crew arrived at the site. The planks of the other pathway are etched with an index from William Clark’s journals documenting the different species encountered at the site. The initial building stage of the project lasted from 2002 to the blessing and dedication completed in 2006. Restoration work was done on the fish cleaning table from 2008 to 2009. As of 2015, the fish cleaning table is no longer in use due to environmental concerns about solid fish waste disposal and the state park’s concern about the degrading of the table as an art object.
Extent
From the Series: 46.65 Linear Feet (10 boxes, 16 tubes, 11 oversize models)
Language of Materials
English
Repository Details
Part of the Whitman College and Northwest Archives Repository