Off Beat: Vancouver Land Bridge provides long-term span of history

In 1999, Washington and Oregon were gearing up for the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The Corps of Discovery came through this area in November 1805, then spent a few days here in March and April 1806 on the way home.

Jane Jacobsen had a voice in the anniversary discussions as a staff member with what then was the Vancouver National Historic Reserve Trust.

She remembers one proposal: “Someone with a really great voice could go around the state to libraries and read parts of the (expedition members’) journals aloud,” she said.

That suggestion, and so many others, “all sounded very fleeting, and concentrated on the time Lewis and Clark were here — which was not much,” Jacobsen said. Later, she shared her thoughts with DiCesare.

About that time, they learned that a community member was considering a $500,000 donation for a piece of public art saluting the bicentennial. As Jacobsen and DiCesare talked, they agreed that any commemorative art would have to reflect centuries of local history, not just a few days in the 1800s. And it should include several sites up and down the river.

They also agreed on something else: “Everybody will laugh and say we’ll never get anything like that accomplished,” Jacobsen said.

But former Gov. Gary Locke helped bring noted artist (and fellow Yale alum) Maya Lin into the discussion. The result was the Confluence Project; Jacobsen and DiCesare became founding board members, and Jacobsen became executive director.

Seattle architect Johnpaul Jones came up with the idea of a land bridge. Reconnecting the Fort Vancouver National Historic Site with the Columbia River fit in with the Park Service’s long-range plan for pedestrian access.

Now the bridge reflects a mix of Northwest tribal heritage and American history. One aspect even echoes that concept of public proclamations from the writings of the Corps of Discovery.

Northwest plants are part of the structure’s landscape, with interpretive panels describing how native people used resources such as the camas bulb and Oregon grape and chokecherry. The text comes from the journals of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

Off Beat lets members of The Columbian news team step back from our newspaper beats to write the story behind the story, fill in the story or just tell a story.