On Tuesday October 2nd 1805, the Lewis and Clark expedition arrived at Celilo Falls, also known as the Great Falls of the Columbia. These falls marked the beginning of a section of the Columbia River thick with narrows, rapids, and falls known collectively as The Dalles.

Here, Lewis observed sea otters and purchased a canoe that was “calculated to ride the waves.” The sea otters, vital to the Pacific trade, and the coastal canoe, used to transport goods along the ocean shore, provided hopeful evidence of Lewis and Clark’s proximity to their ultimate destination along the Pacific coast.

Lewis and Clark passed through The Dalles in 1805 and again on their return trip in 1806, only a few years before this area became one of the most important fur-trading centers in the region. Dalles, in fact, comes from a word used by French-Canadian fur traders in the area meaning “flagstone” likely for the basalt stones that bordered the narrows.

More often than not, traders would have to carry their goods along the river by land, called portaging, until the waters became more navigable. Lewis and Clark and their crew navigated the “boiling and whorling” waters both by portage and by “shooting the rapids” in their canoes. According to Clark, the local Indians were amazed to see the Corps make it safely through these often dangerous and deadly narrows.

The Dalles Dam, built in 1957, obliterated most of the rapids of The Dalles narrows and sunk Celilo Falls beneath a lake. The nearby city of The Dalles, Oregon, still preserves the name of the once Great Falls.

Researched, written, and narrated by University of West Florida Public History student Jane Gagne.