Friday, September 16, 2005

Siletz River


This picture is from the earthen dam west of Valsetz. This is where the Siletz River begins its spiraling race to the Pacific. The distance is 30 miles by air and approximately 130 miles by water. The Siletz River is the true snake river because of the cutbacks it has carved out of the Coast Range Mountains. The river travels the furthest miles in the shortest space of all rivers in the world (That's what we were told by local experts when we were being tortured by them in school).

The word Siletz is from the local Indians that means Black Bear. Growing up in the area I had the chance to see several Black Bears in the woods and several hanging in garages being cut up for meat.

Seven or eight miles down the river is the local swimming hole, "Hang up". If I am able to post this weekend I'll tell you about four boys and their lure hunting expedition down the Siletz River to the "Hang up" in the summer of '72. In those days before there was an all out alert of protecting your children from molesting predators we would ride our bicycles a short distance from town to where we hid our truck tire inner-tubes and float the river to the "Hang up". Along the float we would hunt for lures and talk about all the things that concerned a young teen boy in those days.

In the late afternoon the day shift at the mill would get off work, grab their families, Blitz Weinhardt beer, habatchi bar-b-quers, and cool off the end of a hot summer day at the "Hang up". When it was time to head home we would load our inner-tubes in the back of a pickup and ride back to where we had stashed our bikes exchange the inner-tubes for our Schwinn sting rays.