It has happened for many years: Nevada resident Willow Bill paddled a dugout canoe past Cathlamet last Friday.

Rick Nelson

Bill provides education programs for youth and was part of the group that paddled dugouts to replicate the 200th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark expedition a dozen years ago.

The canoe, named the Flying Eagle, was used in the replication, and Bill has been making the trip almost annually since. This year, a young woman from Italy joined him for the lower Columbia passage. The Flying Eagle is a local product, he said, hand made by 400 students in the Scappoose, St. Helen's and Columbia City, Ore., schools. The canoe is 24 feet long and weighs 850 lbs.

The canoe has an eagle face on the bow and a beaver face on the stern.