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The Dalles of the Columbia River |
| Credits |
July 10, 1811
A fine morning. Having gone twenty-one miles, we came to eighty-two families who were well arranged for salmon fishery. Their seine nets were eight feet in width, strong poles at each end, and fifty fathoms in length. They also had dipping nets with strong hoops running about five feet in depth. Their canoes, as with other tribes were made of hollow trees that had drifted down the river. I measured one and it ran thirty-six feet in length by three feet in width. The night being clear, I observed for latitude and longitude and make this a constant practice.
July 12, 1811
We were now at the head of The Dalles to which there is a carrying place of a mile. I have already mentioned the dalles of the Salish and Spokane rivers. These dalles were of the same formation with steep high walls of basalt rock and sudden sharp breaks in them. These breaks formed rude bays with a violent eddy under each point and a powerful dangerous whirlpool. The walls of rock contract the river from eight hundred to one thousand yards in width down to sixty yards or less. Imagination can hardly form an idea of how this immense body of water works under such compression, raging and hissing as if alive. Mr. Peter Ogden, one of the partners of the Hudson's Bay Company, later came to these dalles on his way to Fort Vancouver in a canoe with eleven men. He put ashore and walked down, advising the men to do the same with the canoe and baggage, but with the water being low they preferred trying to run these dalles. To avoid the ridge of waves, which they ought to have taken, they took the apparent smooth water and were drawn into a whirlpool which wheeled them around into its vortex. The canoe with the men clinging to it went down end first and they were all drowned. At the foot of the dalles a search was made for their bodies but only one man was found.|
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Artist, Jim LeGette Click to enlarge. |
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