New Portland

Boundaries: The city of New Portland lies at the confluence of the Columbia and Willamette rivers, somewhat south of where it used to be, essentially in Milwaukie. The Territory of New Portland is essentially the Northern Willamette valley, down to the ruins of Salem. It extends west to the coast, east up into the mountains to Sandy and Molalla, and north up to the landing near where Longview once was.

New Portland is centered on the highlands east of the Willamette and South of the Columbia Inlet built around Kelly Butte.

Government: Merchant Republic, now part of Greater Cascadia

Legal Code: British Parliamentarian.

Climate: New Portland lies in the Marine West Coast climate zone (Koppen Cfb), with some Mediterranean characteristics.

Population: 325,000

Economics: Trade, Manufacturing, Farming, Mining, some scavenging, textiles and industry.

Agriculture: Extensive, maize, wheat, hops, barley, oats, rice, fruit and vegetables, herding, fishing, the entire region is extremely wealthy in natural abundance.

Trade: Extensive, up and down the west coast, to Asia, and then up the river to the interior, all the way to Boise.

Religion: Post Rapture Order of the Redeemer 15%, Gaianism, 25%, Wiccan 50%, Unaffiliated 10%.

Standard of Living:

Gender Equity: Good.

Armed Forces: Militia, supported by small cavalry and a good sized merchant marine supplemented by steam frigates (allowing Portland to project power far more to the east then Pendleton would like).

Dominant Magical Tradition: Weird Science

History:

Retold by an old gaffer sitting on a porch in Hillsborough.

“This is what my grandpa said; Whomever hit us knew exactly where to hit us. Simple little 1 KT firecrackers, using our own GPS system to home in on the dam’s. Grand Coolie. Snake. Bonneville. Dexter. John Day. Hells Canyon. The Dallas. Lots of little firecrackers.  When all was said and done it was one hell of a wall of water that hit Portland. Scoured everything along the Columbia, from Vancouver to downtown, then down the Willamette to Corvallis really. Then out to the Ocean like a cannon ripping away Fort Vancouver and the Astoria bridge like a dream. Biggest damn flood since since the Montana glacier lake let loose. Its said the water shot through the Beaverton tunnel like God’s own shotgun.”

“A couple million people, drowned in an instant. Where there was a tunnel? Now a canyon. The dams? A nicely navigable river through what used to be The Narrows.”

“At the end of the day all that was left were some survivors out in Sandy, and some west side Farming communities like Forest Grove. A generation later New Portland was founded. where the larger and deeper Columbia meets up near the Willamette. The flood blasted whole new channels making Portland a real deep water port, if you can get past the current.

“Tales also say there are still gold reserves and treasures buried where Portland used to be. Lots of divers and miners don’t survive that gamble though. So what brings you to the neighborhood Scav?”

Today Portland is a thriving port city at the confluence of the Willamette, Columbia on the Pacific Ocean thanks to the Columbia inlet. The city is built on the eastern bank centered on Kelly Butte, where there was a sealed war bunker which allowed the founders of the city to survive the calamity. The flood washed away the old city, and those few hundred who made it to the shelter dug themselves out to a moonscape of primal devastation - a city of a million people wiped away in an instant.

Portland is a nation that thrives on trade, agriculture and manufacturing. The Portland merchant marine plies up and down the pacific with the Coos protectorates, Cascadia, all the way south to Baja. More importantly, they also travel up the Columbia basin to trade with Eugene in the South, Pendleton, the Deschutes People, Boisie, and all the way to Coeur d'Alene in the East - all made navigable by the floods.

Noteworthy things:

The Mist Gas Field

Kelly Butte Natural Area (hidden Cold War era Bunker)