Columbia River Maritime Museum

The Columbia River Maritime Museum is one of the finest maritime museums on the West Coast, and the best reason to spend a full afternoon in Astoria. The collection covers the history of navigation on the Columbia from indigenous canoes through the era of sail and steam to modern container shipping. The Lightship Columbia, moored outside and open to visitors, is the last surviving lightship to have served on the Columbia River Bar.

The museum's coverage of the Columbia River Bar — the so-called "Graveyard of the Pacific" — is particularly good: the wrecks, the rescues, the bar pilots who still guide ships through one of the most dangerous river mouths in the world. The Lewis and Clark collection, the salmon cannery exhibits, and the displays on the local Coast Guard station round out what is a genuinely comprehensive account of life on the river. Open daily; admission around USD 16 for adults.

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A story
The Columbia River Bar — where the Columbia meets the Pacific — has claimed more than 2,000 ships and 700 lives since European exploration began. The combination of a shallow bar, enormous tidal swings, and the frequent storms off the Oregon coast makes it one of the most dangerous harbour entrances in the world. The bar pilots who guide ships through have a casualty rate historically among the highest of any profession.

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