J. Malcolm and Louise Loring, 1990 COLUMBIA GORGE INTERPRETIVE CENTER MUSEUM EXPLO RATIONS

A PUBLICATION OF THE GORGE CENTER ASSOCIATES COUPLE’S FOUR-DECADE PURSUIT OF NATIVE AMERICAN ART PRESERVES TIMELESS TREASURES Authors and petroglyph experts J. Malcolm Loring and Louise Loring recently gave the Skamania County Historical Society 90 petroglyph rubbings and some 29 petroglyph replicas. These will go on exhibit in the Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center when it opens in 1990. In 1971 the Oregon Historical Society presented the couple with its Annual Heritage Award recog- nizing them as Conservors of J. Malcolm Loring and Louise Loring on a petroglyph field excurstion ni 1970. Ancient Oregon Life. site, the first he had ever seen. roglyphs, pictographs and petro- More than 40 years ago, J. “The petroglyphs, carved in graphs. Petrographs are pecked Malcolm Loring was a forester red sandstone, depicted human or incised. Pictographs are based in Denver with the U. S. figures in costume with face painted with color pigments, Forest Service, Region 2.* masks. Soon, on my own,” and a petrograph includes both While on a routine trail inspec- Loring recalls, “I encountered pictographs and petroglyphs. tion in Wyoming, a colleague others and began to photograph Exact dates of these ancient showed Loring a petroglyph them.” art forms are unknown as are Thus Loring and his wife the meanings of the drawings. *Region 2 of the U.S. Forest Service con- Louise began what has become “It is generally accepted,” says sists of Colorado, eastern Wyoming, South Dakota, and Nebraska. a four-decade commitment to Loring, “that the carving is locating, photographing and much older than the paintings. recording petroglyphs and pic- Carving, of course, lasts longer. tographs. Petroglyphs might be several “They are part of the cultur- thousand years old and the al resources left in our steward- paintings several hundred of ship,” says Loring. “Time, natu- years.” ral forces, and man already In 1946 Loring was trans- have changed, damaged and ferred to Okanogan, obliterated many. We felt an Washington, part of the Forest obligation to preserve all that Service’s Region 6. Eight years we could.” later the Lorings moved to John Loring defines the terms pet- Petroglyph; Rayed Concentric Circle Day, Oregon. There, in 1956, rayed-arcs above their heads, the couple joined the Oregon great numbers of concentric Archaeological Society. rayed-circles suggesting the Another transfer took them sun, owls, eagles (or condors), to Portland in 1960 where they big horn sheep, deer, bear track, served on an OAS committee and many objects we term whose task was to survey abstract, although they certain- Oregon petroglyphs and pic- lyhad meaning for their cre- tographs. ators. “In time,” says Mrs. Loring, “When man and his technol- “the committee dwindled to ogy discovered how to harvest just us two. We continue the the Columbia’s vast powers,” project on our own, using vaca- Grant continues, “the most tan- Petroglyph replica; Memsloon Bird tions and weekends to pursue gible records of prehistoric this engrossing challenge.” Fellow rock art expert man’s long occupation of the Loring retired from the Campbell Grant wrote the for- river gorges began to disappear Forest Service in 1963. “This ward to the Lorings’s 1982 vol- under rising water. gave us time,” says Loring, “to ume, Pictographs and “Dam after dam arose. Most experiment with photographic Petroglyphs of the Oregon destructive to rock art were The and rubbing techniques and to Country, Part 1, The Columbia Dalles, John Day, Priest Rapids, perfect our recording methods.” River and Northern Oregon. Wanapum and Rock Island be- “It also gave us time,” adds He writes: “By far the richest cause they coincide with rock- Mrs. Loring, “to track down trove of prehistoric designs on art concentrations.” known pictographs and petro- the Columbia River’s basaltic Goal of the Loring’s original glyphs and to follow up clues cliffs from Wenatchee to project was to catalog sites and about unrecorded ones.” Bonneville Dam. Especially record information on pic- From 1964 through 1967 abundant areas are those where tographs and petroglyphs locat- they traveled more than 43,000 the river narrowed to form falls ed throughout Oregon and on and rapids. both sides of the Columbia and “Examples of these sites are Snake rivers along the common the Long Narrows (or Dalles) boundaries in Washington and and Celilo Falls. Both attracted Idaho. large numbers of people “A pictograph or petroglyph because of bountiful salmon- site,” says Loring, “may be one netting opportunities. The area isolated rock face or panel, or it was a trading crossroads for may include many faces in prehistoric man, as well. close associations with one Penutian-speaking tribes who another. Usually only a few feet dominated the country created separate one from another. some of the most fascinating Along the Columbia and in northern Oegon, sites are gener- Petroglyph replica; Flying Hare pictures.” Grant describes the draw- ally small areas with the miles — searching, photograph- ings: “Large human heads and designs relatively close to one ing, and recording sites. The masks, stick men fantastic another. couple spent a good deal of “In southern Oregon, howev- time in isolated areas, some- er,” he continues, “we have fol- times seeing no one for several lowed a continuous rim for sev- days. eral miles and recorded the rim “Often,” Loring recounts, as one site.” “we left our camper early in the The Lorings’s visual records morning and returned well combine photography, rubbings after dark from sites that were or tracings, and sketches. many miles from passable Fining the best way to pho- roads.” tograph the design was a trial- Petroglyph replica; Two Chiefs and-error procedure. Eventually become reality when the Loring Loring, Louise, 1982. Loring found that color slides collection becomes part of the Pictographs and Petroglyphs produced better results than Columbia Gorge Interpretive of the Oregon County, Part. 1, black-and-white film. Center displays. The Columbia River and “As a method of supplement- Northern Oregon. ing the photographs,” Mrs. If you interesting in further I Loring, J. Malcolm and Loring explains, “we made reading, the Lorings suggest: Loring, Louise, 1983. exact replicas of many figures I Cressman, Luther S. 1937. Pictographs and Petroglyphs or series of figures by tracing Petroglyphs of Oregon. of the Oregon Country, Part 2. pictographs and rubbing petro- I Gebhard, David, 1969, Rock Southern Oregon. glyphs.” Art of Dinwoody, Wyoming. I Nesbitt, Paul Edward, 1968. In a 1970 interview in the I Grant, Campbell, 1937. Rock Petroglyphs of the Lower Oregon Journal, Loring predict- Art of the America Indian. Snake River. ed that their pursuit of petro- I Heizer, Robert F. and I Seaman, Norman G. 1946 & glyphs and pictographs would Baumhof, Martin, 1967, 1967. Indian Relics of the evolve into “a record for the Prehistoric Rock Art of Pacific Northwest. state. Someday,” he mused, Nevada and Eastern I Strong, Emory. 1959. Stone “somebody will want it. California. Age on the Columbia River. That elusive “someday” will I Loring, J. Malcolm and Columbia River Oregon traveled to the Pacific. In basaltic cinder cones completed gorge geologic the present Gorge cliffs we can construction of the Range. count 16 of the 270 flows. The second series of major cat- history When this second-from-the-last astrophies began 15,000 years ago, provides many Columbia Valley was filled by the near the end of the Ice Age, when possibilities for Crown Point basaltic lave flow an ice lobe from Canada moved streaming through the Cascades across Lake Pend Oreille and up exploration near Bull Run, the Columbia was Idaho’s Clark Fork Valley. It formed shifted to the north. There it cut a an ice dam 2,500 feet (762.5 By John Eliot Allen new next-to-the-last Bridal Veil meters) high, resulting in a lake in Professor Emeritus of Geology Canyon. Montana containing one-fifth the Portland State University The Bridal Veil deep canyon, amount of water in Lake Michigan. which lay ten miles south of the As the lake rose, and then When we examine the rock forma- present Gorge, was choked with undermined or overtopped and tions of the Columbia River Gorge 1,000 feet (305 meters) of river washed away the dam, 500 cubic we can see the story left by three sands and gravel washed down miles of water scoured across east- of the most catastrophic and cata- from Canada. ern Washington, carving out Grand clysmic series of events ever to It too was topped off by lava Coulee and hundreds of miles of occur on the North American con- flows which, during the final other now high and dry coulee val- tinent. seven million years, built up the leys. Cascade Plateau’s surface and During the next 3,000 years, The first long series of events moved the Columbia River to its new ice dams reformed and broke began 30 million years ago when present course. These thin lava between 40 and 100 times. Each Western Cascade volcanoes erupt- flows now make up the upper time the lake refilled, and calami- ed and for 12 million years built 1,000 feet (305 meters) of the cliff tous floods recurred. up a three-mile-thick (5 kilome- south of the Gorge. At The Dalles, flood water ters) pile of volcanic ash, lava, and For much of the last two mil- reached as high as 1,000 feet (305 mud flows. lion years, abundant meltwater meters); atop Crown Point, 750 feet In the lower cliffs of Table from Canadian ice sheets fed the (229 meters); and at Portland, 400 Mountain and Greenleaf Peak Columbia River, and river erosion feet (122 meters). north of the dam, you can see kept pace with the 4,000-feet In the Gorge, these floods cut 1,000 feet (305 meters) of mud- (1,220 meters) uparching of the back valley walls and changed the flows often including petrified central Cascade Range. It carved a V-shaped cross-section to the pres- wood. Similar evidence is visible deep canyon with a V-shaped ent U-shaped. Waterfalls now cas- in road cuts along eastbound I-84, cross-section. cade down these new cliffs. south of the dam. During the final 700,000 years, The third in the series of cata- Before the Gorge we know the 14 major High Cascade volca- strophies was probably caused by today took shape, there was anoth- noes — among them, Mount Hood, an earthquake, a mere 750 years er Columbia River valley located Mount Adams, and Mount St. ago, which resulted in the far to the south. Through this val- Helens. — and many hundreds of Cascades. ley basalt flows from eastern Prime Time — February 1992 — Page 15 Louise Loring Coquille couple preserve Indian rock drawings by Marilee Miller “I’d stayed home for years, Louise Loring’s house in Co- taking care of our three kids, quille abounds in the tantalizing while Mal went here and every- traces of a “vanished America.” where for the forest service,” Rubbings of Indian rock-draw- comments Louise. “So going ings look down from the walls. A was fun. We wore out two pickup wooden replica of a petroglyph, campers, and traveled 43,000 carved by her late husband, pre- miles between 1964 and 1967. sides over the kitchen. We’d be gone a week at a time On the coffee table, one sees and never see another human a two volume set of books, Pic- being. A lot of places, we would tographs and Petroglyphs of the have to hike for miles to get to Oregon Country, by Malcolm and the sites.” The texture of a lost art. Louise Loring. Mal photographed the sites, During Malcolm Loring’s work making notes of location and all his slides to make detailed for the forest service years ago, content. Louise’s simple sketch- drawing of the sites, UCLA pub- a colleague showed him a petro- es would remind them of the lished a two-volume set of books glyph site in Wyoming. Long photo’s content. They carefully in 1982-1983. Pictographs and ago, in the red sandstone, an traced pictographs through a Petroglyphs of the Oregon unknown Native American had plastic sheet. They made rub- Country, documented 50 sites in drawn human figures in cos- bings of the petroglyphs, one of Washington along the Columbia tume, with face masks. The them holding up a canvas to a River, and 152 sites in Oregon, sighting of this petroglyph trig- rock, the other rubbing it with an many of which are now under gered, for the Lorings, a four- oil-paint-impregnated roller, cre- water from dam construction, or decade commitment to discov- ating a work of art, a reverse destroyed by road builders. ering new sites, photographing image of the texture of the rocks The Lorings donated to the them and documenting the as well as the pecked designs. Columbia Gorge Interpretive finds. The Lorings had their little Center 90 rubbings of petro- “The only written communica- adventures. “One time a man glyphs and 29 petroglyph repli- tion of the Indians was rock-art,” took us up Lake Owyhee by cas pecked out with a cold chis- says Louise Loring. “So much of boat,” says Louise. “We hit a el in basalt stone by Mal. the culture has been lost rock, and after that the motor In 1971, the Lorings earned through erosion or man’s deci- didn’t run well. We didn’t sink or the annual Heritage Award from sion to build roads or dams. We get wet but it got dark and there the Oregon Historical Society. felt an obligation to preserve a we were on the lake. We were Mal’s heart gave out this year. part of our past.” pretty scared. But the man knew And their book is being sold out. There are three types of rock- where to take us in the dark. We Louise has received word that art: petroglyphs, pecked out stayed at an isolated cabin all UCLA will issue a reprint. incisions hewn into rock; pic- night.” “We never regretted all the tographs, which are painted fig- Louise Loring always carried hard work,” Louise says. “We felt ures; and petrographs, combi- a stick in case of rattlesnakes. like we were preserving some- nations of painting and pecking. “In one place, rattlesnakes had thing for the future that would During his working career, infested the cracks in a picto- overwise be lost forever.” Malcolm Loring photographed graph wall. I stood back and (Following is note that Louise had rock-art as a hobby. After retire- watched for snakes while Mal hand-written on the news story: “A ment, he invited his wife to climbed a ladder to copy the monthly senior citizen newspaper in accompany him in an earnest designs. But we had no trouble. Bandon. Marilee Miller goes to our study. After Mal spent years study- church. Mal carved Emory Strong’s Pedis Owl in reverse.) Page 6 — MILESTONES, Coos Bay, Ore., July 1995 Explorer extracts story from stone

By Linda Meirjurgen wrote a classic text on Columbia Coast Life Editor River rock symbols, but the Lorings ranged far and wide. Art or language, that is the ques- “It is really an interesting link to tion. our historic past,” Louise says. In the hot, high, arid regions of “Most of the works in the different the West, 88-year-old Louise Loring regions have things in common spent weeks at a time rumbling on, There are animal figures, human and off, road in a camper and climb- figures and what appear to be ways ing in stout hiking boots, all the to count. while prepared to bash a rattlesnake “Sometimes the rock tells a on the head should one dare to story — of a hunt or bear tracks — strike out from the rocks. or seem to give directions,” Louise These rocks had images on says. them left by the first residents of the Now a petite woman with curly West who lived 7,000 to 9,000 years gray hair and a warm smile, in 1930 ago. the bob-haired, proper young “I really don’t know after all woman married her handsome these years whether they are art or Malcolm after they graduated from whether they just had something to college in Maine; he went to Yale say to anyone who might pass by,” School of Forestry and they headed she says. “out to Colorado” to the Rockies. Today, Louise lives surrounded “When we arrived by train, the by the symbols she and her late hus- forest service fellow who had been band, Malcolm, collected during sent to pick up Malcolm looked very more than 40 years of wonderings. surprised. It seems they didn’t know Louise Loring preserved stone carvings and drawings of the West. Many of the originals are buried he had a wife. There was no home under roads, housing develop- for the ranger, so part of the head- ments, and especially under dams. quarters space was converted and their vital “hobby,” they began to Gorge and eastern Oregon lava were But the reproductions live on in we lived without electricity or run- receive more information about the harder to carve and perhaps took two volumes of extensive field notes ning water,” Louise recalls. location of sites, Louise says. weeks to finish, Loring theorizes, published by the University of During World War II, Malcolm Unlike some Northwest hobby- and they last longer than sandstone California at Los Angeles, in rub- was called to Washington, D.C., to ists, the Lorings were “not in the elsewhere in Oregon. bings scattered on campuses help in the war mobilization effort; business of destroying sites and Sometimes stone tools are throughout the the West, and at the Louise and their three children hauling them away,” Louise found at the sites; in the younger new Columbia River Gorge Interpre- remained in Colorado — gas explains. “We were really angry petroglyphs there are boats and hats tive Center which opened this rationing prevented a drive across when the modern dams on the similar to those in the Far East. spring. the country, she says. Columbia were built, too. No one Louise thinks prehistoric people One of these rubbings — A son, John, retired from a took the time or made the effort to probably came both over the land Tsagagalal — is now used as the career in the military, and was save the petroglyphs flooded by The bridge that scientists believe existed center’s logo. It is the face of a recently commander of the Dalles or John Day dams, for between Russia and Alaska, and human in a style Northwesterners Colorado Veterans of Foreign Wars. instance.” from South America through the might call Chinook — but it is at Daughter Priscilla and her husband When the couple first started, Southwest. least 7,000 years old. live in Tacoma, and daughter Janet “we were using crayons or charcoal, “Many of the best petroglyphs Louise has a hand carved Coleman and her husband own the way people take rubbings of are on the east side of canyons fac- Tsagagalal image in wood done by NAPA Auto Parts in Coquille. Louise gravestones,” Louis explains, but ing the setting sun — some of them her husband on the wall of her has 10 grandchildren, 17 great- they soon discovered a method run for a mile or so along the cliffs home in North Bend. grandchildren and two great-great- using old, but strong bed sheets and and rocks,” Louise remembers. The Lorings knew the images grandchildren. oil paints. They would squeeze the “We didn’t ever consider the should not simply be carried off the After the war, Malcolm returned tubed oil paints into a professional sites art, we just thought they were bluffs and cliffs and into museums, to his career in the forest service. painter’s paint tray, then use a hard all about something they wanted to so the couple developed techniques During one trip, a fellow showed roller to pick up the color and roll it say so others could ‘read’ it.” for nondestructive rubbings and him some petroglyphs and a hobby onto the sheet which was taped over scale drawings and photographs of was born. the petroglyph — the image on the petrographs — painted images on When the couple retired in the rock would appear as white on the rock. 1960s, they began a 40-year journey sheet. Using a light coating of paint Her husband also created copies to some of the most rugged, primi- and cotton sheets kept any paint of some petroglyphs by chiseling tive country in the West. from getting on the prehistoric cre- images in similar rock — basalt for “We would stock up the camper ations. Sometimes it took a long instance — with a cold chisel. and carry a huge block of ice — time to brush all of the moss and Several of these artworks are on dis- when it ran out, we had to turn lichen off the stones first to prepare play at the new interpretive center around and come back. Otherwise, the prehistoric image. and information from their field we were gone from civilization,” To make the petroglyphs, pre- work is available through the Emory Louise laughs. historic people used rock on rock Strong Library there. Ermory Strong Once folks found out about — the tough basalts of the Columbia