Snake and Columbia Rivers

Along the Columbia River, Lewis and Clark saw hundreds of Indians fishing for salmon. They waited on rocks and wooden platforms to harvest the unlucky fish with spears and nets.

When the sick and starving Corps of Discovery staggered into the Nez Perce camp of Chief Twisted Hair, they still faced hundreds more miles of travel and other hardships. They had arrived at the Clearwater River, but the Columbia River lay far ahead. The Columbia, too, awaited the explorers with its own challenges.

While resting at "Canoe Camp" with the Nez Perce, Lewis and Clark's men made new dugout canoes. They used large Ponderosa pine trees, hollowing them out way the Indians showed them---by burning out the heartwood. The new dugout canoes were clumsy and hard to manage, overturned easily, and sprung leaks. Supplies were damaged and lost in the water. However, the dugouts were transportation, and the men soon learned how to navigate them.

From Canoe Camp, the party rode the Clearwater downstream to the place where it enters the Snake River. (Today this is Lewiston.) From there, they rode the Snake River downstream to the Columbia, near the present city of Pasco, Washington. The trip was not easy, for the Snake has numerous rapids and narrow channels.

The Columbia River is a huge river, America's second largest. At places, Indians lined the river bank to watch the explorers go by, offering to sell them food---dried salmon and dogs. (Many of the men liked dog meat, but Clark could not bring himself to eat it.) The explorers saw hundreds of Indians fishing for salmon. Indian fishermen stood on rocks and wooden platforms over the water, waiting to harvest the unlucky salmon with spears and nets. To Indians living along the Columbia and Snake Rivers and their tributaries, food meant salmon. Though there are few salmon in these rivers today, the rivers then teemed with millions of salmon. The salmon in these rivers and tributaries fed thousands of Indian people who lived on the west side of the Rocky Mountains.

The Columbia presented its own problems to the explorers. The river had several major barriers to boat travel along one 55 mile stretch. Celilo Falls dropped 38 feet through narrow rocky channels and roaring cataracts. The Dalles (meaning steps) presented "swelling water, boiling and whorling in every direction." The Cascades of the Columbia, the last of the hazards, was four miles of rapids, chutes, and falls. For some, they had to make a portage (carry their things over land around the barrier), and others they surged through in their canoes. They shot some extremely dangerous rapids safely, much to the amazement of the Indians who lined the banks to watch.

Below the Cascades of the Columbia, the party found themselves in tidewater, a sure sign that the ocean was near. Also they suddenly found themselves in an entirely different climate, one with tree-covered, dripping mountains, and rain, rain, rain. Surely the Pacific Ocean couldn't be far away.