On July 29, Greenpeace and Rising Tide protesters used ropes with linked lines to hang below Portland's St. John's bridge to block passage of an ice-breaker headed to bring parts for Arctic oil drilling in the Chukchi Sea. Protesters set up in the early hours before the expected departure of the Fennica, a Finnish ship hired by Shell Oil, but the ship remained in dock. Twenty-four hours later, the Fennica motored slowly down the Willamette River towards the bridge. After twenty minutes the ship turned around and remained stationary for a while, before proceeding back to its dock. The activists, who had supplies to remain in place for up to a week, dangled from the bridge for more than twenty-eight hours before police cut the tag lines between some of the protesters.

On the second day of the protest, a U.S. district court judge ordered that Greenpeace be fined $2,500 an hour for continued delay. In the afternoon, police rappelled from above and started cutting the tag lines. At least two protestors in the middle of the channel were lowered down to a sheriff's boat below. One protester initiated another blockade on a rail bridge upriver by locking himself to the vertical-lift bridge with a bicycle U-lock. That protester was removed and arrested. By evening, the Fennica, surrounded by police boats and protest kayaks, passed under the St. John's bridge between dangling activists.

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