Editing Celilo Falls (section)

==History==
[[File:Indians drying salmon by James M Davis, c1900.jpg|thumb|left|[[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]] drying [[salmon]], circa 1900]]

===Fishing and trading===

{{quote box|width=250px|quote=Our waters shall be free: free to serve the uses and purposes of their creation by a [[Divine Providence]].|source= —Portland investor and civic leader [[Joseph Nathan Teal]], at the canal's opening ceremony.<ref>J. B. Tyrell, ed., David Thompson: Narrative of his Explorations in Western America, 1784-1812 (Toronto, 1916, 496-97; "Address of Joseph Nathan Teal), The Dalles-Celilo Celebration, Big Eddy, Oregon (May 5, 1915," Oregon Historical quarterly, 16 (Fall 1916), 107-8. (As quoted in {{cite web |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3951/is_200004/ai_n8884518/pg_1 |title=The Columbia River's fate in the twentieth century |access-date=2007-04-16 |archive-date=2016-01-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160110105047/http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3951/is_200004/ai_n8884518/pg_1 |url-status=live }})</ref>}}

[[File:Celilofalls.ogg|thumb|right|240px|Newsreel footage of [[Native Americans in the United States|native]] fishers at Celilo Falls in 1956, shortly before the site was submerged by [[The Dalles Dam]]]]
[[File:Clark Family Collection- Volume 4. Voorhis Journal No. 4, page 7, October 22-23, 1806.jpg|thumb|left|[[Lewis and Clark Expedition]] map, 1806]]

For 15,000 years, [[Native Americans in the United States|native peoples]] gathered at Wyam to fish and exchange goods.<ref>{{cite book | last = Barber | first = Katrine |author2=Ed. William G. Robbins | title=Narrative Fractures and Fractured Narratives: Celilo Falls in the Columbia Gorge Discovery Center and the Yakama Nation Cultural Heritage Center | work = The Great Northwest: The Search for Regional Identity | publisher = Oregon State University Press | place = Corvallis, Oregon | year = 2001}}</ref> They built wooden platforms out over the water and caught [[salmon]] with dipnets and long spears on poles as the fish swam up through the rapids and jumped over the falls.<ref>{{cite book | last = Dietrich | first = William | title = Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia River | publisher = University of Washington Press | place = Seattle, WA | year = 1995 | page = 154 | isbn = 0-671-79650-X}}</ref> Historically, an estimated fifteen to twenty million salmon passed through the falls every year, making it among the greatest fishing sites in North America.<ref>{{cite news | last = Rohrbacher | first = George | title = Talk of the Past: The salmon fisheries of Celilo Falls | work = Common-Place | date = January 2006 | url = http://www.common-place.org/vol-06/no-02/talk/ | access-date = 2008-02-01 | archive-date = 2007-11-11 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20071111052106/http://www.common-place.org/vol-06/no-02/talk/ | url-status = live }}</ref>

Celilo Falls and The Dalles were strategically located at the border between [[Chinookan languages|Chinookan]] and [[Sahaptian]] speaking peoples and served as the center of an extensive trading network across the Pacific Plateau.<ref name="Ronda">{{cite book | last=Ronda | first=James P. | title=Lewis & Clark among the Indians | work=Down the Columbia | publisher=University of Nebraska Press | place=Lincoln, Nebraska | year=1984 | url=https://archive.org/details/lewisclarkamongt00jame | access-date=2008-02-01 | isbn=0-8032-3870-3 | url-access=registration }} {{dead link| date=June 2010 | bot=DASHBot}}</ref> Artifacts from the original village site at Celilo suggest that trade goods came from as far away as the [[Great Plains]], [[Southwestern United States]], and [[Alaska]].<ref>{{cite web|last=Center for Columbia River History |title=Oregon's Oldest Town: 11,000 Years of Occupation |url=http://www.ccrh.org/comm/river/celilo.htm |access-date=2008-02-01 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080215200136/http://www.ccrh.org/comm/river/celilo.htm |archive-date=2008-02-15 }}</ref> There are also numerous rock art drawings at the head of the falls. This demonstrates the site to not just be important for trading purposes. It acted as a melting pot for the cultures which fished and traded there.<ref>{{cite book|last=Snow|first=Dean R.|title=Archaeology of Native North America|year=2010|publisher=Prentice Hall|location=Boston|isbn=978-0-13-615686-4}}</ref> When the [[Lewis and Clark Expedition]] passed through the area in 1805, the explorers found a "great emporium...where all the neighboring nations assemble," and a population density unlike anything they had seen on their journey.<ref>{{cite journal | last = Cressman | first = L.S. | title = Cultural Sequences at the Dalles, Oregon: A Contribution to Pacific Northwest Prehistory | journal = Transactions of the American Philosophical Society | volume = 50 | issue = 10 | pages = 1–108 | doi = 10.2307/1005853 | year = 1960 | publisher = American Philosophical Society | jstor = 1005853 | display-authors = etal | url = https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/imgsrv/download/pdf?id=mdp.39076005656769;orient=0;size=100;seq=3;attachment=0 | hdl = 2027/mdp.39076005656769 | hdl-access = free | access-date = 2019-09-24 | archive-date = 2019-09-24 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20190924073658/https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/imgsrv/download/pdf?id=mdp.39076005656769;orient=0;size=100;seq=3;attachment=0 | url-status = live }}</ref> Accordingly, historians have likened the Celilo area to the "[[Wall Street]] of the West."<ref>{{cite news | last = Alpert | first = Emily | title = Remembering Celilo Falls | work = The Dalles Chronicle | date = 2006-07-10 | url = http://www.bluefish.org/celilofa.htm | access-date = 2008-02-01 | archive-date = 2006-10-08 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20061008082700/http://www.bluefish.org/celilofa.htm | url-status = live }}</ref> The [[Wasco-Wishram|Wishram]] people lived on the north bank, while the [[Wasco-Wishram|Wasco]] lived on the south bank, with the most intense bargaining occurring at the Wishram village of [[Wishram village|Nix-luidix]].<ref name="Ronda" /> Charles Wilkes reported finding three major native fishing sites on the lower Columbia — Celilo Falls, the Big Dalles, and [[Cascades Rapids]], with the Big Dalles being the largest. Alexander Ross described it as the "great rendezvous" of native traders, as "the great emporium or mart of the Columbia."<ref name=gibson/> [[Pinniped]]s such as sea lions and seals followed salmon up the Columbia as far as Celilo Falls. In 1841 [[George Simpson (administrator)|George Simpson]] wrote "these animals ascend the Columbia in great numbers in quest of the salmon."<ref>{{cite book |last = Mackie |first= Richard Somerset |title= Trading Beyond the Mountains: The British Fur Trade on the Pacific 1793-1843 |year= 1997 |publisher= University of British Columbia (UBC) Press |location= Vancouver |isbn= 0-7748-0613-3 |pages= 191–192}} online at {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=VKXgJw6K088C |title=Trading Beyond the Mountains: The British Fur Trade on the Pacific, 1793-1843 |isbn=9780774806138 |access-date=2016-09-23 |archive-date=2016-04-26 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160426045756/https://books.google.com/books?id=VKXgJw6K088C |url-status=live |last1=MacKie |first1=Richard |date=1997 |publisher=UBC Press }}</ref>

===Navigation===
The seasonal changes in the Columbia's flow, high in summer and low in winter, affected Celilo Falls dramatically. Lewis and Clark reached Celilo Falls in the late autumn when the water was relatively low, turning the falls into a major barrier. In contrast, when [[David Thompson (explorer)|David Thompson]] passed Celilo Falls in July 1811, the high water obscured the falls and made his passage through the Columbia Gorge relatively easy.<ref>{{cite book |last= Meinig |first= D.W. |author-link= D.W. Meinig |title= The Great Columbia Plain |orig-year= 1968 |edition= Weyerhaeuser Environmental Classic |year= 1995 |publisher= University of Washington Press |isbn= 0-295-97485-0 |pages= 37–38, 50}}</ref> Modeste Demers wrote about the seasonal change in 1839: "One may be astonished to learn that these ''chutes'', so terrible at low water, are smooth and still at very high water, which does not happen every year. Then it is that, instead of fearing them, the [[voyageurs]] hasten to approach them, to light their pipes and rest."<ref name=gibson/> More difficult was the Long Narrows, or Big Dalles, ten miles below Celilo Falls. This section of the river was impassable during high water. During the autumn low water they were passable but with unloaded boats only, and even then the passage was very dangerous. "They are never passed without dread," wrote François Blanchet in 1839.<ref name=gibson/> [[Narcissa Whitman]] asserted in 1836 that over one hundred "white lives" had been lost at the Dalles.<ref>''The Lifeline of the Oregon Country'', p. 42''</ref>

In the 1840s and 1850s, American [[American pioneer|pioneers]] began arriving in the area, traveling down the Columbia on wooden barges loaded with wagons. Many lost their lives in the violent currents near Celilo.<ref>{{cite web | title = Waiilatpu Mission Resource Education Guide | publisher = Whitman Mission National Historic Site | date = 2004-11-14 | url =http://www.nps.gov/whmi/forteachers/upload/Waiilatpu%20Mission%20Resource%20Education%20Guide.doc
 | archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20080228153721/http://www.nps.gov/whmi/forteachers/upload/Waiilatpu%20Mission%20Resource%20Education%20Guide.doc
 | url-status =dead
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 | access-date = 2008-02-01|format=DOC }}</ref> In the 1870s, the [[United States Army Corps of Engineers|Army Corps of Engineers]] embarked on a plan to improve navigation on the river. In 1915, they completed the {{convert|14|mi|km|adj=on}} [[Celilo Canal]], a [[portage]] allowing [[Steamboats on the Columbia River|steamboats]] to circumvent the turbulent falls. Though the canal's opening was greeted with great enthusiasm and anticipation, the canal was scarcely used and was completely idle by 1919.<ref>{{cite book | last = Dietrich | first = William | title = Northwest Passage: The Great Columbia River | publisher = University of Washington Press | place = Seattle, WA | year = 1995 | page = 204 | isbn = 0-671-79650-X}}</ref>
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