canoe.html

The Klickitat County Agriculturist, Goldendale, WA., October 30, 1909, page 16
"Goldendale"

One side of an ancient canoe was found recently on a "memaloose" island in the Columbia River, where it had been covered with sand for perhaps a century. The burial receptacle was of cedar and carved with the totem design of the Indian whose body had occupied it. At the time it was found however, nothing remained to tell the story of the approximate date of burial. Every bone and head and other things usually found in an Indian cemetery were gone, removed, presumably, by relic hunters. It is estimated that the burial canoe was made at least 150 years ago, as at that time the Indians of the Northwest Coast country did that sort of work, hewing the canoes from huge cedar boles and ornamenting them with a totem of the individual or tribe. Not only did the aborigines so build the burial canoe, but the navigation canoe as well. This burial canoe was ornamented with a design of lizards and frogs, the particular totem of the Indian during his life. The canoe was polished by the action of the ever-shifting sand of the Columbia River. The island of the dead, where the canoe was found, is situated in Klickitat county, above the ancient village of Wiskam. The relic was presented to the Old Fort Dalles Historical Society at The Dalles.