The Sauvie Island Bridge has officially been renamed to the Wapato Bridge.
The name comes from a wetland tuber, long harvested from the Lower Columbia Basin by Indigenous tribes.
The Multnomah County Board of Commissioners approved the name change Thursday. The bridge spans the Multnomah Channel of the Willamette River, connecting Oregon Highway 30 northwest of Portland to Sauvie Island.
The board last year voted to rename the bridge to honor local tribes. They directed county staff to create an advisory committee led by tribal members.
Nez Perce member Lukas Angus was among committee members. Angus grew up in Portland. He is a skipper with the Seven Waters Canoe Family and paddles to the island every week.
“It’s a very large gathering spot historically for food gathering and trade,” Angus told the board on Thursday. “Today it still is very important for a lot of agricultural production.”
Committee member Corinne Sams — who is also a board member for the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation — echoed Angus’s sentiment.
“Since time immemorial, my people have been traveling down here to harvest and honor and preserve and enhance our first foods, which we hold to the highest honor,” Sams said. “It’s not a livelihood for us. It’s a way of life.”
The Sauvie Island Bridge is now named the Wapato Bridge. It connects Northwest Portland to Sauvie Island.
Photo courtesy of Multnomah County
Multnomah County Tribal Affairs Advisor Anna Marie Allen said the committee initially considered using one of several traditional spellings of wapato for the bridge. Public safety workers suggested the committee consider a name that most dispatchers and emergency responders could easily pronounce and identify.
“This feedback was carefully considered by the bridge renaming council and actually informed the final decision greatly,” Allen said. “Because of that feedback, we decided to use the anglicized version.”
County commissioners voted unanimously in favor of the new bridge name.
Commissioner Lori Stegmann suggested the name change extend to Sauvie Island.
“It really should be Wapato Island,” Stegmann said.