Steigerwald Lake Trailhead

Reconnection Project | Catherine Corbett, Chief Scientist, Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership

Welcome to Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge. Steigerwald is a gem for visitors. It offers stunning views of the Columbia River Gorge, walking and biking trails, and a quick escape into nature just a short distance from the Portland-Vancouver metropolitan area.

Over 100,000 people visit Steigerwald each year. I’m Catherine Corbett, the Chief Scientist for the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership. This place is home to resident herons, eagles, and ospreys, and boasts a variety of short-term avian guests traveling along the Pacific Flyway, a migratory bird route extending from Alaska to Patagonia.

At the heart of Steigerwald Refuge is Gibbons Creek. Historically, Gibbons Creek flowed from the hills of Washougal and into the Columbia River. Gibbons Creek supplies water that creates wetlands, seasonal lakes, and multiple creek channels throughout the refuge.

But the creek’s natural flow was severed in 1966 when a levee was built along the banks of the Columbia River for flood protection. The levee provided flood protection when water levels in the Columbia River were high, but it also trapped water from Gibbons Creek inside the levee, causing waters to rise like a bathtub without a drain plug. In 2013, my team at the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership joined the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Port of Camas, Washougal, and dozens of other key partners funded largely by the Bonneville Power Administration to fix the problems.

Over the next decade, we made plans, raised money, got permits, and worked closely with engineers and our partners. Our core vision was to reconnect Gibbons Creek to the Columbia River. In 2021, our team saw its vision realized when for the first time in over 50 years, not only did Gibbons Creek flow freely into the Columbia River, but the Columbia was also able to again flood the site during the spring threshold, a period of time when heavy rain and mountain snow melt caused river levels to rise.

Today, Gibbons Creek spills across the refuge floodplains, spreading through wetlands before uniting with the Columbia River. Reconnecting Gibbons Creek to the Columbia River has many benefits, but the one I want to highlight today is the benefit to juvenile salmon. The restored habitat at Steigerwald is prized by juvenile salmon, who step over in the newly reconnected floodplain to feed on the nourishing prey offered by the site’s wetlands while hiding from predators.

The Gibbons Creek floodplain offers a much-needed respite from the churning waters of the Columbia River. These gentler conditions allow juvenile salmon to focus on getting bigger and stronger before making their way down to the estuary and entering the ocean phase of their life cycle. Levees, transportation, and other waterfront development have severed many of these connections between floodplains and the Columbia River.

Thank you for listening. Enjoy your visit.

Unwanted Hitchhikers | Ethan Coggins, Natural Areas Specialist, WA State Department of Natural Resources

Hiking is a wonderful way to experience the outdoors. Many folks carry the memories formed on a nice hike for a lifetime. Unfortunately, that may not be the only thing people take away from a hike.

Many weedy plant species like puncturevine, cheatgrass, and bircher wool are well adapted to cling to clothing and can pose a serious threat to native plants and wildlife. Species like this can often hitchhike on dirty boots and are frequently transported to new locations by unknowing individuals. These non-native species are like a virus for which local ecosystems have no immunity.

This can lead to popular recreation areas being overrun by noxious species that can degrade the ecosystem, reduce habitat for wildlife, and ultimately lead to negative outcomes for both humans and our native species. Fungal spores introduced on the feet of unsuspecting recreators have even been implicated in the spread of white-nose fungus, a devastating disease affecting our local bat species. Thankfully, you can help stop the spread of harmful species by cleaning your footwear before heading out on an adventure.

Please make sure to clean off any dirt and seeds before heading out on the trail. I’ve been Ethan Coggins with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, and I and your local ecosystems thank you for helping to stop the spread of these harmful species. For more information about invasive weeds, check out the Columbia Gorge Cooperative Weed Management Area website.

History of Steigerwald | Kevin Gorman, Executive Director, Friends of the Columbia Gorge 

As you look around, take in that you are in the midst of one of the most beautiful, ecologically significant, and culturally important landscapes on the planet. My name is Kevin Gorman, and I’m the Executive Director of Friends of the Columbia Gorge, and welcome to the largest national scenic area in the country, the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area. One of the most important things when the National Scenic Area was created was protecting the gateway to the western gorge to make sure that sprawl and development did not seep in from Troutdale or from Washougal and then into the gorge.

So places like Steigerwald Lake National Wildlife Refuge were huge pieces of protecting that gateway, and in the early 1980s, before the National Scenic Area even existed, local conservationists and bird enthusiasts were pushing to protect the Steigerwald area. It was a great place to see wildlife, but it had also been considered as a site for a future nuclear power plant. And so well before the National Scenic Area was created, before land acquisition was occurring there, these local residents worked with Friends of the Columbia Gorge and others to try to protect Steigerwald.

Eventually, the Trust for Public Land bought it to temporarily protect it, and today it is a national wildlife refuge. So what you see today is a great example of a what-if. There literally could have been a nuclear power plant sitting right where the Steigerwald National Wildlife Refuge is.

And in recent years, Steigerwald got a wonderful makeover because of the work that the Lower Columbia Estuary Partnership did, as well as Friends of the Columbia Gorge Land Trust in purchasing 160 acres on the east end. With that purchase and the estuary partnership, a project was created to enhance salmon resting places in the Lower Columbia. There are not many places where migrating salmon have the ability to pause, rest, and gather their strength.

So this project became the largest restoration project for salmon recovery on the Lower Columbia that’s ever occurred. A $34 million project that actually removed the dikes at Steigerwald and is allowing what was originally wetland, converted to farmland, go back to wetlands. And so now Steigerwald is a true wildlife refuge.

It’s not simply farmlands that birds enjoy. Steigerwald is just a wonderful example of the importance of protection. But then also the importance of trying to restore a landscape to what it was before settlement came in and diked and farmed and really changed the landscape so dramatically.

Birds With Josie (for kids) | Josie Finley, Park Ranger, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 

Hi, I’m Josie. I’m a park ranger here, and the focus of my job is to help people explore nature. I’m so sorry I missed you, but I’m super grateful for this opportunity to connect with you through this audio tour.

One of my favorite things about this trail is that you get an amazing view of so many different habitats. Wait, does everyone know what a habitat is? A habitat is a place where an animal lives and gets everything it needs, food, water, and shelter. And habitats are usually made up of a lot of different types of plants.

So when we take care of habitats, we take care of wildlife. With so many different types of habitats at the refuge, it means a lot is going on around here. And with us staying on the trail up here, wildlife feels safe in their homes down there.

It also means that sometimes it’s a little difficult to see what’s going on. Do you know who can give us some clues? Look around you. Do you see anyone flying around? Yes, exactly.

Birds! Bird behavior can tell us a lot about what is around us. And when they are in the air or out in the middle of the lake, they don’t seem to be so worried about us. And we don’t have to know their names to be able to guess what they’re doing or why they are here.

So let’s try something. Look around you. Are there birds flying in the air? How big are they? Are they going fast or slow, flying straight, or making a lot of fun looking loops and turns like mini airplanes? If you said small birds doing fun flying tricks, what do you think they’re doing? I’ll give you a hint.

They get hungry just as often as kids do. And what they’re eating are also flying. Yes, if you guessed that they’re catching food, you’re correct.

Healthy habitats not only include a lot of different plants, but also a lot of different kinds of bugs. Birds eat so many of these bugs, which is awesome because that means less are buzzing around your face. Ever accidentally suck up a bug in your mouth? If you were a bird, you’d call that dinner.

My favorite little birds to watch are swallows. They often hunt insects in groups and they do the coolest loops and turns. When I see them, I know this is a healthy place for wildlife.

Okay, who saw a big bird? What was it doing? Flying in circles, chasing another bird, or maybe being chased by a little bird? There are a lot of raptors here. Those are the hawks and eagles and other birds of prey. They often fly over looking for food to catch.

Sometimes when little birds see these big feathered neighbors, they get really nervous and team up against them to keep them away from their homes. Oh, how silly it looks seeing a few small blackbirds taking on a big hawk and the hawk almost always gets out of their way. Maybe like a little brother or sister, you just want to get them off your back and be in peace.

One of these raptors that we see a lot of has a white stripe across its back. We like to pretend that the white is its underwear sticking out of its pants and that’s the tidy whitey bird or more commonly known as the northern harrier. It’s really a star out here and it hunts the fields for rodents and other small meals.

Okay, you probably want to get yourself further down the trail, huh? I know that I always like to keep moving when I’m outside. I have one more kind of bird to tell you about. Let’s see if we can find them.

Do you see any water? Depending on the season, you may see a lot of it or it might be covered up by a lot of green and you’ll have to look carefully. Check out the edges of the water too. Some birds are more comfortable there while others really like to be out in the open.

I wonder why that is. Okay, back to looking for birds around the water. A good way to be able to see better is to relax your eyes and just watch for movement.

It’s almost like you’re hearing a really boring story and you’re just spacing off, looking into the distance and, oh wait, I see something moving on that log. Is it a bird? No, it’s a turtle. If you’re here in the spring, you might see turtles stacked up on top of each other getting that wonderful warm sunshine.

In the fall and winter, those turtles will be snoozing, but you will likely see a lot of ducks and geese. Did you know that they come here in the cold months because they think it’s nice and warm? If you see something bobbing up and down, those are ducktails. Their faces are down under the water eating on all that green stuff that grew over the spring and summer.

We are a vacation home for them. Okay, I’ll send you on your way. Keep looking for birds and ask yourself, what are they doing? What does that tell me about the habitat around them? Can I guess what else might live here? Have fun and I hope to see you on the trail.

Tastes Like a Potato | Emma Johnson, Cowlitz Tribal Member and Coordinator for the Indigenous, Traditional, Ecological, and Cultural Knowledge Program at Portland State University 

Náhkwes, Sensai, Sensquatch, Emma. Hello, my name is Emma Johnson. I use she, her pronouns, and I’m a Caldes tribal member who currently works at Portland State University in the College of Rural Arts and Sciences as the coordinator for the Indigenous Traditional Ecological and Cultural Knowledge Program.

I have had the joy of knowing about the Stagerwald National Wildlife Refuge. It’s a really important site within my ancestral landscape that I know many tribal members and community members in general are really thankful for with the support for habitat for many friends like salmon and beaver and lamprey and then also many plant relatives. And in particular, this site is home to a traditional food who we still cherish and engage with today, and that is wapato.

And wapato is comparable to a potato. When I’ve eaten this plant relative, I would say it tastes like a potato. It’s an important therapy tuber, and it’s commonly found along the edges of waterways that are like kind of slower.

So you’ll see in the Columbia Slough, there’s a lot in wetland areas that have fresh water coming in but not fast moving. You’ll kind of see them throughout the landscape, but the concern is is that they absorb heavy metals, which is important work, and we’re thankful that they can do that for us. But because they’re traditional food, that really impacts Native people’s ability to consume them in a safe manner.

And so a lot of people in our region are working on trying to figure out the best way to care for wapato and also make sure that we can still introduce this plant relative as a food to our tribal populations so that they can be familiar with the food that took care of their ancestors since time immemorial. And a really cool thing about wapato is they live in ecosystems that are called cultural ecosystems. And what that means is that these ecosystems actually depend on human interaction to thrive and survive.

And so there’s papers written about how Native people specifically up north in like the British Columbia area would make terraces to support wapato, basically gardens, and make sure that they were tended to and cared for in really intentional ways so that they would continue to care for their people. And so it highlights this really important reciprocal relationship between Native peoples and their plant relatives to ensure that they both continue to exist in a good way. They were traditionally harvested in my community and from what I’ve heard many others by walking into these wetland water areas with bare feet and loosening them up with your toes and then they would float to the top.

And people still will practice that today but also use other methods. And so there are super important traditional foods and a plant relative that’s pretty identifiable in the landscape once you get to know what their leaf structure and flower looks like. Students in my program at Portland State have been to this site and engaged with wapato seeds, introduced more wapato friends to that site.

Geese and ducks really love to eat them too and so we’re constantly trying to figure out ways to support everybody that relies on them but also make sure that they continue to have a good ecosystem environment to live in.

Swimming Bacon Cheeseburger | Joe Skalicky, Fish and Wildlife Biologist, US Fish and Wildlife Service

Lampreys are one of the most unique and enigmatic fish on the planet. In fact, the more you learn about them, the more you want to. If you didn’t notice, there’s one on the refuge sign greeting you when you enter the refuge.

Refuge staff were so inspired by the vast number of lampreys during habitat restoration and fish salvage, they decided one should be on their sign. Pacific lamprey are very important to native tribes in the northwest, both spiritually and as an important food resource. In fact, lamprey have six to eight times the caloric content per gram than salmon do.

Think of them as a swimming bacon cheeseburger. Lamprey have no scales or jaws, no paired fins, no swim bladder or bones. They are blind as larvae but can live up to 18 years.

They have a unique sucker-like mouth to hold on to prey and rocks, and Pacific lamprey have a very unique ability in that they can climb vertical waterfalls. They have been on the planet longer than dinosaurs and even longer than trees. Lamprey are rarely seen because they are nocturnal, only moving during darkness to avoid being eaten.

There are about 40 species of lamprey in the world 10 in the Pacific Northwest and three are found on the refuge in Gibbons Creek, including Pacific lamprey, Western brook lamprey, and Western river lamprey. Pacific and Western river lamprey go to the ocean like salmon to feed and grow, but Western brook lamprey are resident and spend their whole lives in one stream, filter feeding on organic detritus. Like salmon, juvenile Pacific lamprey go to the ocean to feed, but instead of eating whole fish, they simply feed on the blood and body fluids of host fishes, which often survive.

Think of the host fish as a blood donor. Unlike salmon, they generally do not return to their home stream, but instead are attracted to the scent of other larvae. If it’s good for them, it must be good for their offspring as well.

Lamprey return to Gibbons Creek to spawn in gravels, where they make a small nest similar to salmon. Like salmon, after they spawn, they die and their decaying bodies feed the stream with nutrients and, in time, their own offspring. During restoration at Staggerwald in 2021, a fish ladder on Gibbons Creek near the Columbia River was completely removed.

Before it was removed, only a few adults could pass the ladder. Today, lamprey have no problem entering Gibbons Creek and reaching their upstream spawning grounds. Biologists are now studying lamprey in Gibbons Creek to learn how they are responding to restoration.

If you look closely, you may see research traps and research antennas in Gibbons Creek to track their movements. Thanks for listening. My name is Joe Skalicky

I’m a fish biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

This Was a Dairy Farm | Wilson Cady, Board Member, Vancouver Audubon Society 

I’ve seen photos of Steigerwald Lake with the water all the way up almost to the railroad tracks before the dike was built because there was a flood every year. And after that flood, as the river would drop, there were sandbars that are formed by the Columbia River going around Cape Horn. There was a current line and it drops a line of sandbars there.

And as the river dropped, those sandbars would cut the lake off from the rest of the river and it would slowly drop down. So Steigerwald Lake was a seasonal lake. And they’d farm, first started farming it in 1845 when a guy named John Gibbons brought his cattle out from Indiana, swam them across the Columbia River and settled there and started farming it.

And they’d farm it as the water would drop, he’d raise crops and his cattle going down to it. The name Steigerwald came in early 1900s because there was a dairy that ran cattle down there, the Steigerwald dairy. The Steigerwald family is out of Portland.

Their dad built his fortune by making equipment for the Klondike gold rush, mining equipment and barges and et cetera. He was also the head architect, supervisor of the Columbia Exposition that was held in Portland in the 1900s. He built the World Forestry Center was one of his projects that he built.

But his kids had different interests. One of them was in the gardening, the growing of things and they started Portland Nursery. And then the other two brothers did the dairy, the Steigerwald dairy.

Well you’re familiar with the Steigerwald dairy building in Portland, right? The milk model, and that was at the time when they built that in 1926, that was the tallest building in Portland. People came from town, they’d pay a nickel to take that streetcar across town so they could stand in front of that big building.

The Judges Liked It and It Won | Ken Pitts, Volunteer, and Contest Winners: Shaunak Desponde, Shalaka Desponde, and John Mendoza

My name is Ken Pitts and I have been visiting Steigerwald for the last decade. One of my favorite volunteer activities has been to run the Steigerwald Youth Photography Contest. This year, 22 youth submitted 77 photos in four different categories.

It was such a pleasure to meet the prize-winning youth at our award ceremony. Several of them have agreed to share their stories behind the photos. Hello, my name is Shalaka Deshpande and I’m a high schooler living in Camas.

I have always enjoyed photography since I was very young. When I got my first camera at the age of 10, the Steigerwald Refuge was one of the first places I ever took it with my family. I’d love to experiment with the settings, take pictures of different plants, birds, and the beautiful scenery.

Later, when my family discovered more refuges nearby, I’d always bring my camera with me to take pictures. This year, I won first place in the photo contest for the category Landscape for my piece titled Snowy Trees and Towering Mountain, A Vista of Boundless Wonder. This photo actually happened by chance.

Me and my family had planned to walk in Steigerwald during spring and we went very early when the automatic gates had just opened. I was very surprised to see how the snow-capped trees on the mountains looked from Steigerwald. I was able to capture them together with the Vista House.

Hello, my name is Shaunak Deshpande and I’m an incoming freshman and live in Camas, Washington. When I started taking photos, I was drawn to natural landscapes and wildlife. This passion led me to Steigerwald Refuge, where I could explore and capture the beauty of the environment.

The peacefulness of the refuge allowed me to observe nature closely and develop a deeper connection with it. Photography became a way for me to share beauty of nature with others, helping them appreciate it too. One of my photos titled Sun Gently Emerging from the Clouds in Fall won second in the photography contest.

I took this photo during an early morning hike at Steigerwald Refuge. The inspiration for this photo came from a peaceful atmosphere as the sun began to rise. A dense mist hung over the wetlands, creating a magical scene.

I waited for the right moment when the sunlight started to break through the mist, lighting up the scene with a warm golden glow. My name is John Mendoza. The story of one of my winning photos, Curiosity in a Friendly Hello, is a photo of a spotted tohihi.

This bird was just by the title, curious. I was originally photographing a starling on a bridge and I heard a rustle behind me in the trees. So I turned around and I just saw this black and orange bird behind me.

And as I got to the other side of the bridge, the bird started noticing me and flew closer. You’d think that a bird would fly away, but this one was more interesting. It was curious.

This bird landed on a log right under the bridge and started hopping around. It was funny because it always kept its eye on me, its red eye. And it was just dancing around.

It was like a poser for me. I snapped a few shots. One of them just happened to be the photo that just caught my eye.

And I fixed it up a little bit and posted it and it happened. The judges liked it and won.