THE DALLES-CELILO CANAL 135
miles in length, averaging about 200 feet in width (only two- thirds the width of the Panama Canal), the water rushes sea- ward with fearful violence. A mountain gorge or canyon with rugged walls rising toward the heavens in majestic silence is awe-inspiring, but this submerged gorge in the solid rock and filled with seething, whirling, rushing water is especially at seasons of flood terrifying.
The name DALLES is very correctly said to be a corruption of the French words "d'aller" meaning TO GO, but there is another French word of similar spelling meaning flagstone. So we have Father DeSmet's authentic statement in his book entitled "Oregon Missions" that dalles is "a name given by the Canadian Voyageurs to all contracted running waters, hemmed in by walls of rock."
The name CELILO attaches to the rather low but romantic horseshoe shaped falls at the rock reef composing the upper end of this obstruction, below which the Indian was accustomed to stand with his spear to pierce the jumping salmon. Like all other river falls these were known to the fur traders as The Chutes and when the name CELILO 1 was first used or whence it came is not known. The name does not appear in print before 1859, as far as yet discovered. The earlier journals and letters of fur traders and travelers do not mention it.
The Dalles-Celilo Canal then will remind the culture of com- ing generations of both the graceful figure of the Indian who originally held sway over these fishing rocks and river chan- nels and gathered there in such numbers, and the vivacious French-Canadian voyageur whose boat songs were periodically re-echoed from the surrounding hillsides.
Tribes of the Chinookan family of Indians inhabited the country adjacent to the Columbia from its mouth as far inland as Celilo Falls, and there were met by tribes of the Shahaptin family from the interior. The Chinookan family traveled for
i Suggestive meanings of the names are, in order of preference: (i) tumbling waters, (2) shifting sands, (3) an Indian chief; all of which presume it to be of native origin. A recent explanation that it is a corruption of the French "Cela 1'eau" by the Voyageurs is untenable. There is a suggestion that it first applied to the boat-landing, the falls being known as Tumwater.
