MEMORY MAP
By the time the Confluence Project is complete, seven major site-specific installations by artist Maya Lin will dot the Columbia River system from Washington’s eastern border to the Pacific Ocean. One installation, at Cape Disappointment State Park, and a second, at the Vancouver National Historic Reserve, have been complete since November 16, 2007.
See www.confluenceproject.org for additional details.
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CAPE DISAPPOINTMENT STATE PARK The Confluence Project’s first completed site is located along the Long Beach Peninsula where Lewis and Clark first saw the Pacific Ocean. Lin’s artworks include a “cedar circle” representing the seven directions recognized by some Native American tribes: north, south, east, west, up, down and within.
Completed: April 2006
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RIDGEFIELD NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE Lin will design an environmental research center adjacent to an approximately 5,300-acre nature sanctuary near the confluence of the Columbia and Lewis Rivers—an area that once sustained large communities of tribal people where Lewis and Clark spent the night in 1806.
Scheduled completion date: TBD
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CHIEF TIMOTHY PARK An amphitheater-like “listening circle,” inspired in part by a Nez Perce blessing ceremony, will be constructed in a natural depression at the summit of this island wildlife preserve, which rises out of the Snake River near its confluence with the Clearwater in Clarkston, Wash. Scheduled completion date: 2008.
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VANCOUVER NATIONAL HISTORIC RESERVE An earth-covered pedestrian land bridge, designed by Seattle-based landscape architect Johnpaul Jones in consultation with Lin, will cross State Route 14, reconnecting the former trading post and military fort in Vancouver, Wash., with the waterfront. An artwork by Lin represents a treaty table at the water’s edge. Dedication: November 16, 2007
SANDY RIVER DELTA One of two projects on the Oregon side of the river [the other being Celilo], this site near Troutdale and the Sandy-Columbia confluence will feature a “bird blind,” a structure walled in wood slats that will display the names of the animal species that the Corps of Discovery recorded. Scheduled completion date: 2008
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CELILO PARK Just east of the Dalles, an arcing ramp will cross the long, narrow park and cantilever over the Columbia River, paying homage to the fishing platforms that Indian tribes from the region constructed there before Celilo Falls was inundated by the Dalles Dam in 1957. Text inscribed in the path will represent the history of the falls in geologic and cultural terms.
Scheduled completion date: 2009
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SACAJAWEA STATE PARK Large rings, inscribed with text, will be set into the waterfront lawn of this park at the Snake-Columbia confluence in Wasco, Wash. These “story circles” will relate aspects of the history and culture of the Columbia Plateau tribes. Landscape restoration, a redesigned boat dock and a pathway to a viewpoint overlooking the Snake River will complete the artwork.
Scheduled completion date: 2009
Published: November 2007
