coast and lower Columbia River, who lived in their canoes and fed on fish, though short and stout, were experts in the water.
Fish abounded in all the streams. One family of those unnumbered throngs, that "trace their liquid paths along" this broad river, puts out to sea when still mere minnows—going on a four years' cruise. No chart or compass have they. yet when fully grown (some weighing fifty pounds or more) they come again in schools, enter the stream of their nativity, and there complete the cycle of life.
In former years the fish literally filled the rivers, and just below Celilo Falls they were so plentiful that bands of Indians from many tribes, made long journeys from the East to get this wholesome sea food, of which there was enough for all.
By that same law which governs wild beasts at the water-hole in the jungle, each came and took enough to satisfy his needs and went away. All difference, fear, hatred, or remembrance of former strife, was forgotten, while receiving this bountiful gift from God.
Today remnants of these Indian bands continue to come from different sections of the country, just as their fathers did. They stand on the jagged rocks in the rapids and spear the salmon coming up, or dip them out with nets. Many of the fish leap high out of the water below the falls in attempting the ascent of this great river.
Measureless milleniums, mystic centuries passed while God prepared this region for the coming of civilized man. Then Captain Gray, in his little bark, "Columbia-Rediviva," crossed the bar from the Pacific Ocean, and discovered the broad rixer, which he entered and named. A little more than one century has elapsed since those intrepid explorers, Lewis and Clark—wise men of the East—climbed over the mountains and spied out this land.
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