Sauvie Island Wildlife Area

Sturgeon Lake is a lake on Sauvie Island in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is particularly notable in that it is the largest lake on the largest fluvial island in the United States and occupies quite a large area of that island.

Sauvie Island, in the U.S. state of Oregon, originally Wapato Island or Wappatoo Island, is the largest island along the Columbia River, at 26,000 acres (10,522 ha), and one of the largest river islands in the United States. It lies approximately ten miles northwest of downtown Portland, between the Columbia River to the east, the Multnomah Channel to the west, and the Willamette River to the south. A large portion of the island is designated as the Sauvie Island Wildlife Area. Sturgeon Lake, in the north central part of the island, is the most prominent water feature. The land area is 32.75 square miles (84.8 km2), or 20,959 acres (8,482 ha). Most of the island is in Multnomah County, but the northern third is in Columbia County. The Wapato Bridge provides access across the Multnomah Channel from U.S. Route 30 and was completed in June 2008, replacing the first bridge to connect the island to the mainland which was opened on December 30, 1950. The island received the name "Sauvés Island" after Laurent Sauvé dit Laplante, a French-Canadian who managed a dairy for the Hudson's Bay Company in the 1830s and 1840s. It is predominantly farmland and wildlife refuge and is a popular place for picking pumpkins, hunting geese and kayaking. There were 1,078 year-round residents at the 2000 census. There is an industrial zone and small grocery store in the southeast corner, near the bridge. Bicyclists flock to the island because its flat topography and lengthy low-volume roads make it ideal for cycling. Its nearest incorporated neighbors are the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area to its south and southeast; St. Helens across the Multnomah Channel from the extreme northern tip of the island; and Scappoose, across the Multnomah Channel to the west.

Coon Island is an island in the Multnomah Channel in Columbia County, Oregon, United States. The entire island is a park known as JJ Collins Marine Memorial Park. Coon Island includes docks on both sides, and is primarily used for recreational activities such as picnicking, boating, camping, and birdwatching.

Riverview was an unincorporated community on Sauvie Island in Multnomah County, Oregon, United States. However, according to the United States Geological Survey, a settlement named Riverview may not have existed in this location.

Curtis Lake is a lake in Clark County in the U.S. state of Washington. The lake, near the confluence of Salmon Creek and Lake River, is northwest of the community of Felida.The lake is home to two nonindigenous aquatic species; Perca flavescens (yellow perch) and Pomoxis annularis (white crappie).

The Sauvie Island UFO refers to the remains of an experimental concrete sailing boat designed by Richard Ensign during the 1970s. The boat ran aground and was abandoned on Sauvie Island, in the U.S. state of Oregon, and is now covered in graffiti.

Salmon Creek is a 26-mile (42 km) tributary of Lake River in Clark County in the U.S. state of Washington. Beginning from its forested headwaters on Elkhorn Mountain, Salmon Creek passes through rural, agricultural, residential, and urban areas before flowing into the river just north of Vancouver Lake. Lake River is a tributary of the Columbia River. Major tributaries to Salmon Creek are Mill, Woodin, Rock, Morgan, and Curtin creeks. Several smaller streams, including Curtis Creek also flow into Salmon Creek.

The Gilbert River is a tributary of the Multnomah Channel on Sauvie Island in the U.S. state of Oregon. About 14 miles (23 km) long, it flows from near the south end of the island into Sturgeon Lake and then north from the lake into the channel, a distributary of the Willamette River.The river loses only 9 feet (3 m) of elevation between source and mouth. It enters the channel about 6 miles (10 km) from its confluence with the Columbia River. Its three named tributaries from source to mouth are Ash, Jack, and Mud sloughs, and it connects by water to a complex of lakes across the island including Steelman, Round, Gay, Racetrack, Malarky, and McNary, as well as Sturgeon.The river is navigable by canoes and shallow-draft boats between Sturgeon Lake and the mouth. A mooring float with no shore access lies about a quarter mile from the mouth.The stream was named for a Hudson's Bay Company employee, a French Canadian named Gilbert, said to have drowned in the river. Gilbert was a trapper during the fur-trading era.

Fort William was a fur trading outpost built in 1834 by the American Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth, a Boston merchant, backed by American investors. It was located on the Columbia River on Wappatoo Island near the future Portland, Oregon. After a few years, in 1837 Wyeth sold the post to the British Hudson's Bay Company, which had much more power in the region from its base at Fort Vancouver on the north side of the Columbia River near Fort William. In 1835, the fort settlement was the site of a murder and the first European American trial to be held in what is now the state of Oregon.

Collins Beach is a sandy beach on the Columbia River side of Sauvie Island in Oregon, United States, located north of Portland. Part of it is a clothing-optional area. The beach is one mile (1.6 km) long and begins about 0.25 miles (400 m) after Reeder Road becomes gravel. Hours are 4:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. every day. The beach has been popular for nude use since at least the 1970s. It is surrounded by a 12,000-acre (49 km2) fish and game reserve, except for a 10-acre (4.0 ha) parcel of privately owned land west of Reeder Road at the north boundary of Collins Beach. Nude beach users continue onto the non-nude North Unit Beach which is poorly delineated and ineffectively screened from view, which has led to a legal complaint by the property owners.Collins Beach is one of two official clothing-optional beaches in Oregon after Glass Bar Island's in Eugene, Oregon closed. The other is Rooster Rock State Park. It is administered by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife in cooperation with the Columbia County Sheriff's Office.

The Peace Candle of the World, also known as the Scappoose Peace Candle, is an approximately 50-foot-tall (15 m) tower-like structure 18 feet (5.5 m) in diameter in Scappoose, Oregon, designed to resemble a candle. It was built in 1971 outside what was then the Brock Candles Inc. factory, which burned down in 1990. The land was formerly a dairy farm; factory owner Darrel Brock created the candle by covering a silo with 45,000 pounds (20 t) of red candle wax to advertise the factory.The candle was originally built with an actual wick. On May 9, 1971, the town's mayor and Oregon Governor Tom McCall lit the candle with a specially-made 60-foot-long match. President Richard Nixon declined a request to light the candle. Due to difficulties in keeping the candle lit during rainfall, the wick was replaced with a natural gas line up the center of the candle to create a real flame at the top. However, due to environmental concerns and high gas bills, the flame was eventually replaced with an electric neon light flame structure.The Peace Candle of the World was awarded the Guinness World Record for world's largest candle, but the record was later given to the 127-foot (39 m) wax candle that was featured at the General Art and Industrial Exhibition of Stockholm in 1897. The Scappoose Peace Candle sits on the east side of U.S. Route 30 and is visible from the highway. Each season the candle was re-coated with different colors to match the time of year, with red for Christmas and multiple colors being used in the fall. The wax around the candle was eventually replaced with more durable wax-like substances.The candle is meant to serve as a symbol for the desire for world peace. During the Christmas season the Scappoose Peace Candle is strewn with strands of Christmas lights. The Scappoose region around the Peace Candle of the World has become more and more developed in recent years, and local residents fear that the candle could be demolished for redevelopment.In June 2015 the Weather Channel website selected the Peace Candle of the World as the Oregon selection for its "Most Incredible Roadside Attraction in Every State" list.

The Willamette River ( (listen) wil-AM-it) is a major tributary of the Columbia River, accounting for 12 to 15 percent of the Columbia's flow. The Willamette's main stem is 187 miles (301 km) long, lying entirely in northwestern Oregon in the United States. Flowing northward between the Oregon Coast Range and the Cascade Range, the river and its tributaries form the Willamette Valley, a basin that contains two-thirds of Oregon's population, including the state capital, Salem, and the state's largest city, Portland, which surrounds the Willamette's mouth at the Columbia. Originally created by plate tectonics about 35 million years ago and subsequently altered by volcanism and erosion, the river's drainage basin was significantly modified by the Missoula Floods at the end of the most recent ice age. Humans began living in the watershed over 10,000 years ago. There were once many tribal villages along the lower river and in the area around its mouth on the Columbia. Indigenous peoples lived throughout the upper reaches of the basin as well. Rich with sediments deposited by flooding and fed by prolific rainfall on the western side of the Cascades, the Willamette Valley is one of the most fertile agricultural regions in North America, and was thus the destination of many 19th-century pioneers traveling west along the Oregon Trail. The river was an important transportation route in the 19th century, although Willamette Falls, just upstream from Portland, was a major barrier to boat traffic. In the 21st century, major highways follow the river, and roads cross the main stem on approximately 30 different bridges. In addition to sharing some of those, more than half a dozen bridges not open to motorized vehicles provide separate crossings for bicycles and pedestrians (mostly in the Eugene area), and several others are exclusively for rail traffic. There are also ferries that convey cars, trucks, motorcycles, bicycles, and pedestrians across the river for a fare and provided river conditions permit. They are the Buena Vista Ferry between Marion County and Polk County south of Independence and Salem, the Wheatland Ferry between Marion County and Polk County north of Salem and Keizer, and Canby Ferry in Clackamas County north of Canby. Since 1900, more than 15 large dams and many smaller ones have been built in the Willamette's drainage basin, 13 of which are operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). The dams are used primarily to produce hydroelectricity, to maintain reservoirs for recreation, and to prevent flooding. The river and its tributaries support 60 fish species, including many species of salmon and trout; this is despite the dams, other alterations, and pollution (especially on the river's lower reaches). Part of the Willamette Floodplain was established as a National Natural Landmark in 1987 and the river was named as one of 14 American Heritage Rivers in 1998.