was a stretch of rapids known variously as the Short Narrows, Ten Mile Rapids, the Little (or Upper) Dalles, or Les Petites Dalles. These rapids were about long and wide. Ten miles (16 km) below Celilo Falls was another stretch of rapids, this one known as the Long Narrows, Five Mile Rapids, the Big (or Lower) Dalles, Les Grandes Dalles, or Grand Dalles. This stretch of rapids was about long, and the river channel narrowed to . Immediately downstream were the Dalles Rapids (or Wascopam to the local natives), about long. Here the river dropped in a tumult much commented on by early explorers. The Long Narrows and the Dalles Rapids are sometimes grouped together under names such as Grand Dalles, Les Dalles, Big Dalles, or The Dalles. One early observer, Ross Cox, noted a three-mile "succession of boiling whirlpools." Explorer Charles Wilkes described it as "one of the most remarkable places upon the Columbia." He calculated that the river dropped about over here. During the spring freshet, the river rose as much as , radically altering the nature of the rapids. Fur trader Alexander Ross wrote, "[The water] rushes with great impetuosity; the foaming surges dash through the rocks with terrific violence; no craft, either large or small, can venture there safely. During floods, this obstruction, or ledge of rocks, is covered with water, yet the passage of the narrows is not thereby improved." History Fishing and trading For 15,000 years, native peoples gathered at Wyam to fish and exchange goods. 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. Historically, an estimated fifteen to twenty million salmon passed through the falls every year, making it among the greatest fishing sites in North America. Celilo Falls and The Dalles were strategically located at the border between Chinookan and Sahaptian speaking peoples and served as the center of an extensive trading network across the Pacific Plateau. 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. 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