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Douglas fir trees Lewis marked with astonishment in his journal entries. Today, Interstate 84 follows the south bank of the Columbia from near Hermiston, Oregon, to Portland. Washington State Highway 14 parallels the route on the north bank. Working its way down the Columbia River in late October, the Corps of Discovery was forced to negotiate dangerous rapids at several points, particularly in approaching The Dalles. Celilo Falls near Wishram, Washington, and the Short and Long narrows, which comprised The Dalles, could only be passed by portaging and guiding the dugout canoes with ropes from the bank.

    Fig 2.7
Clearwater River west of Orofino, Idaho, near the spot where the expedition built new dugout canoes for the journey to and down the Columbia River, for which it departed on October 7, 1805. Photo by Peg Owens. Courtesy, Idaho Department of Commerce.

    Fig 2.8
Columbia River east of the gorge. Photo by Jeffrey Phillip Curry. Courtesy, Jeffrey Phillip Curry.

    On October 23, assisted by Indians who fished for salmon from the rock islands, the expedition portaged around Celillo—long called the “Great Falls” of the Columbia—on the north side. Here the group found the great commercial marketplace of the Columbia, presided over by the Wishram Indians on the north bank and the Wasco on the south, where goods from the Pacific coastal region were traded for those from the inland plateau. Not far downstream lay the Short and Long narrows. A day after completing the Celilo portage, the party observed two stretches at which the river was suddenly confined by enormous rocks. The first, a quarter mile long, funneled the entire river through a 45-yard channel. The second, the Long Narrows, William Clark noted as 50 to 100 yards wide, swelling and boiling “with a most Tremendeous manner” over a distance of about three miles. [V, 329] The dugouts and most of the baggage had to be ridden through both of these chutes, as the portage pathalong the rock faces was narrow. The narrows were not the last river obstacles the group faced. On the first two days of November the party encountered a long series of rapids and chutes, the Cascades, which required similar time-consuming handling of canoes and portaging of supplies. 19
    Past the present site of Hood River, Oregon, into the Columbia Gorge, the dry country gave way to timber and green undergrowth as the Corps of Discovery entered the coastal climatic zone. The explorers gazed with wonder at landmarks that today are among the main attractions of the Columbia River Gorge National Scenic Area: Beacon Rock, Rooster Rock, Phoca (Seal) Rock, and Multnomah Falls. At Vancouver, Washington, north of Portland, Oregon, the Columbia River turns to the north and then, near Longview, Washington, west once more to the Pacific. By November 7, near Pillar Rock, the expedition was close enough to the mouth of the Columbia to hear ocean breakers. In his journal Clark wrote, “Great joy in camp we are in
View
of the
Ocian.
” [VI, 33, 34n9] But what they were actually seeing was the wide Columbia estuary; there was still some distance to travel. At Chinook Point on the Washington side the expedition beached its canoes and sent exploratory parties out along the shore of Baker’s Bay (“Haley’s Bay”) to the hook-like peninsula dubbed “Cape Disappointment” and through the vicinity of Ilwaco and Long Beach.
    The company, whose members—including Sacagawea and York—voted on the issue, elected to spend the winter of 1805–1806 not in Baker’s Bay but instead across the estuary on the banks of the Netul (now Lewis and Clark) River, south of Astoria, Oregon. There they built Fort Clatsop and made forays to the ocean’s coast near Cannon Beach and Seaside to see a beached whale and to set up a salt works to produce salt from seawater. Bad weather, much of which was rain or fog, plagued them and made it difficult to preserve