Cape Disappointment State Park was the first of the Confluence sites to be constructed because Maya Lin was interested in reflecting back on the journey of Lewis and Clark and the mythology that has grown around it. Cape Disappointment is where the Columbia River empties into the Pacific Ocean and where Lewis and Clark's journey west ended. Here, Lin worked with park staff and contractors to reclaim a small sheltered bay from what was once a series of boat docks and before that an elevated rail bridge connecting the Fort with the nearby town of Astoria. The team replanted the site with indigenous trees and plants and installed a basalt fish scaling table etched with a creation myth from the local Chinook tribe. The interior bay is connected to a separate site across a highway facing the Pacific Ocean. There, a series of walkways made from crushed oyster shells create a bifurcated path leading to a sheltered listening circle, an open-air amphitheater, and Waikiki beach. One pathway features quotes from a Chinook praise song. At the listening circle, a small grove of cedar driftwood columns affixed with steel plates surround the trunk of a dead elm that would have been alive when the Corps of Discovery crew arrived at the site. The planks of the other pathway are etched with an index from William Clark's journals documenting the different species encountered at the site. The initial building stage of the project lasted from 2002 to the blessing and dedication completed in 2006. Restoration work was done on the fish cleaning table from 2008 to 2009. As of 2015, the fish cleaning table is no longer in use due to environmental concerns about solid fish waste disposal and the state park's concern about the degrading of the table as an art object.

Celilo Falls is the most culturally and structurally complicated of the Confluence sites. For at least 12,000 years, Celilo was a sacred fishing ground where regional tribes caught giant Chinook salmon migrating upstream to spawn. It is estimated that during its peak flood season, the water flowing over the falls was ten times greater than Niagara. And where once there were over 4.5 million migrating salmon, today there are fewer than 100,000. In 1957, the Dalles Dam pool inundated this section of the Columbia ending a rich tribal food source along with thousands of years of ritual celebrations. Here, Lin plans to oversee the construction of a curving cantilevered bridge or pier that extends out over the river close to where the falls once raged.

Chief Timothy State Park is the easternmost Confluence site. It is located on an island at the confluence of the Clearwater and the Snake Rivers in Clarkston, Washington. The earthwork here is a Listening Circle made of concentric rings of basalt sculpted out of a natural amphitheater in the land. The work was inspired by a Nez Perce ritual that Maya Lin saw here in 2005. The site was completed in the spring of 2015.

Sacajawea State Park was dedicated in 1931 at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers. Lewis and Clark camped there for two days and traded with local Sahaptian-speaking Indians who had used this location as a gathering spot for thousands of years. At the southernmost tip of the park are seven story circles connected by a winding reinforced pathway. The structures are not uniform, but their circumference is approximately 10 feet in diameter. Each circle is composed of one- to two-foot tall carved basalt blocks. The southernmost circle is actually an elliptical enclosure that mimics the footprint of a native longhouse, a social and ceremonial space central to the cultural traditions of the indigenous tribes along the Columbia. Another circle represents the importance of salmon to tribal peoples and features etchings of a large Chinook salmon along with the English name and its Sahaptin counterpart, "susayns." A third circle represents the different animal species that inhabited the region along with corresponding pictograms and linguistic signifiers. Several of the circles are "empty," or rather filled with rough gravel, and feature carvings on both the exterior and interior surfaces of the basalt blocks encouraging movement and contemplation within and around the spaces. Other circles are filled with indigenous flora and fauna with wheat stalks and tall grasses jutting up into the sky. The project at Sacajawea State Park spanned from 2002 to 2010, and was officially dedicated in August of 2010.

Sandy River Delta lies outside Troutdale, Oregon, and was home primarily to the Clackamas tribe. Lin selected this location, in part, because it provided a narrative of successful ecological rejuvenation. The Sandy River Delta Dam, built in the 1930s, was removed in 2013, reconnecting the Sandy and Columbia Rivers. There is also an ongoing riparian reforestation program of 17 acres in and around the river that includes a mix of native trees and shrubs. The site includes a bird blind, which has an elliptical structure approximately twelve-feet in diameter. It is perched on the precipice of the river's original channel which will gradually be redirected now that the dam is gone. Inside, the wooden slats of the bird blind are ten-feet tall and engraved with a list of those species observed and recorded by William Clark. The text is oriented vertically and lists 134 birds and animals, the date encountered, common name, scientific name, and their current ecological status. Planning and construction of the site lasted from 2002 to 2008.

At Fort Vancouver, Washington, Maya Lin and Native American architect Johnpaul Jones reunited the Klickitat Trail with the banks of the Columbia in the form of a land-bridge over Interstate 5, one of the nation's busiest north-south commercial highways. The bridge features indigenous plants, circular walkways, tribal ideograms and, most prominently, a view of the multilane highway and railroad tracks below. This bridge is in the shape of a halfmoon that curves out over the highway with different viewing points and plants that encourage visitors to linger rather than pass through. The bridge seeks to tell the complex history of this site, balancing the narrative of western progress with a more subtle discussion of the relationship between the river, the land, and the people that lived here before "progress." On one side of the bridge there is is a canoe paddle gate by artist Lillian Pitt that welcomes visitors. As the bridge slopes upward there are a series of historical images of the site starting with the Hudson Bay Company, continuing through the massive shipyards of the World War II era, and ending with the "modernity" of the highway that the viewer is traversing. The project was completed between 2002 and 2008.