After leaving Idaho and putting the Clearwater and Snake Rivers behind us, we’re now on the Columbia River in Oregon that will takes us to the Pacific Ocean. This is where the Corps of Discovery spent the winter, and we spent a full week there ourselves. Oregon is the last state we’re adding to our map as we finish the first half of the Lewis and Clark expedition. But on the trip home, we’ll be adding Washington and Wyoming. Too bad we won’t be putting Kansas on the map.
Before we start on the Corps challenging trip down the Columbia River through northern Oregon, let’s review where the expedition has been so far.
four major barriers on the Columbia
October 23 – 30, 1805. “The mountains on the left side of the river became ever higher, and the landscape gradually changed from tawny grasses to green forests of conifers towering above mossy banks. The Corps encountered ‘swelling and boiling’ rapids and waterfalls dropping from great heights. It took the explorers more than a week to cover a mere fifty-five miles, sometimes running the rapids, sometimes portaging around them. In some instances the men had to unload the canoes, portage the cargo, and lower the empty canoes back into the water with ropes they had made of elk hide.”
The four major barriers the expedition had to face on the Columbia was Celilo Falls, Short Narrows, Long Narrows at The Dalles, and the Cascades. The whitewater was dangerous and exhausting.
On October 24, 1805, Clark wrote about the Short Narrows, “in those narrows the water was agitated in a most Shocking manner, Boils, Swell & whorl pools, we passed with great risque.”
Deciding to shoot the rapids, Lewis and Clark sent the non-swimmers by land, carrying their most valuable items: the journals, rifles and ammunition, and scientific instruments.
Local Indians lined huge rocks along the Narrows to watch. Much to the amazement of the Indians, all five dugouts made the run safely.
Despite the number of men, firearms, and their military discipline, just Sacagawea’s presence signaled peaceful intentions.
Today, the quarter-mile-long Short Narrows would be classified as a Class V rapid, meaning it cannot be run even in special white-water canoes.
In their headlong rush to the sea, the captains had to portage around Celilo Falls, the first in a series of shoots and cascades.
They lowered canoes using strong elk skin ropes while portaging baggage with the help of local Indians.
They switched to dog meat and bought 40 dogs from one village to supplement their food stores. Lewis actually preferred dog meat to lean venison, while Clark never developed a taste for it.
From Undaunted Courage, “On the night of October 23, Twisted Hair said he had heard form his relatives among the local Indians that the Chinookan people living farther down the river intended to kill the Americans when they arrived. . . . The next day, Twisted Hair and the other chief said they had decided to return home. They explained that the Chinooks would surely kill them if they had a chance; besides, they could not speak the language, so they could no longer serve as interpreters.. The captains persuaded he chiefs to stay with them for two more days, until the expedition had gotten below the next falls, which were but two miles downstream, to give the captains an opportunity to bring about a peace between the warring nations.”
The Dalles
Most river travelers stopped at The Dalles to portage the white-water rapids of the Columbia River. Here goods changed hands, linking Chinookan (Indians who lived closer to the Pacific Ocean) to the Sahaptian-speaking (like the Nez Perce) people in an intricate trade network of dried fish, wapato (a starchy tuber), hides, European goods, and camaraderie.
Arriving in late October, Lewis and Clark missed the fall heydays at The Dalles when as many as 3000 people gathered at this “great mart of trade.” But sturdy wooden plank buildings and giant stockpiles of dried salmon—as much as 10,000 pounds each—gave the captains a good idea of the immense volume of goods changing hands annually.
From Undaunted Courage, “The next river obstacle was the Long Narrows, where the river narrowed to fifty to a hundred yards for some three miles. As at the Short Narrows, the captains decided to have the non-swimmers portage the most valuable items while they ran the river in the canoes. Again Indians gathered on the banks to await the inevitable disaster; again the canoes made the passage safely.”
“Below the narrows, where the river widened, the party made camp on a high point of rocks. The captains chose the site because it formed a kind of fortification. . . . They called it ‘Fort Rock Camp.'” (Later in this post we’ll show you where this camp was.)
There they rested, dried out equipment, and hunted.
Indians harvested salmon by standing on fishing platforms, and netting and clubbing the fish in a swift motion. The Dalles were a natural fishing station during the spawning runs [in the fall months], and dried salmon was a valuable trade commodity.
When meeting a new tribe, Lewis wrote down the Indian equivalents of common English words, recording the responses phonetically on vocabulary sheets prepared by Thomas Jefferson.
They had left behind the Sahaptian speakers—Nez Perce and related tribes—and entered the land of the Chinookan speakers. (We’ll learn more about the Chinookan Indians in the next post.)
Jefferson was ahead of his time in using language as a key to understanding the origin and relationships of Indian nations.
They viewed the goods as payment for passage and services rendered, and in their opinion, the explorers appeared to have more than they needed. The losses put a serious drain on the Corps’ dwindling supplies. Frustrated, the captains posted guards.
our view of The Dalles
Rock Fort
As previously mentioned, the expedition stayed on a promontory area along the Columbia. One afternoon we drove into The Dalles and found Fort Rock.
The men probably spread out on smaller open areas during their stay here.
info at Rock Fort
Natives at the warm Springs Reservation used to tell about Coyote’s prophecy of the coming of a different race of people. Lewis and Clark’s journals indicate that the men of the expedition were not the first white people seen on the mid-Columbia.
Determining the exact location of the campsite used by Lewis and Clark is not as easy as it may seem. Proof of the location of both the lower portage camp below Great Falls and Travelers’ Rest has been determined. No other camps where the expedition stayed have yielded conclusive archaeological evidence.
Clark’s route is an approximation that totals 10 river miles, but a 1934 USGS map (pre-Dalles Dam) has the route at actually only 3-5/8 miles. Also, on October 26, 1805, Clark wrote in his journal that he made observations of the sun, moon, and the star Fomalhaut and determined the latitude at Rock Fort to be 45 degrees 0′ North latitude; this latitude is 41.5 miles due south of where we are standing today. Oops.
All of his drawings had horseshoe shapes for Fort Rock.
The journal tells of the men taking a stream off of Columbia River to get to Fort Rock. We can see this same stream on the screenshot.
leaving The Dalles
Native peoples have resided along this river for hundreds of years. These lands have provided a bountiful life and a highway for extensive trade and travel. In the 1700s, European and American seafarers began plying the Pacific coast, seeking commerce, mapping, and claiming places.
In October 1792, HMS Chatham entered this river. Lt. W.R. Broughton, ship captain, led the party in small boats upriver to this point. His party traded with residents of the many plank house villages, took soundings, and journaled.
On our actual trip, we decided to get to the Oregon coast as soon as possible to get away from the smoke from the fires, but since the next week or so isn’t part of our Lewis and Clark trip, we’ll add it to our Sauntering Home posts.
So . . . our next post will be about the Chinooks that Lewis and Clark started meeting, the expedition’s ride down the Columbia farther on downstream, and the first place when the expedition was in sight of the Pacific Ocean.
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