70 FISH HARVESTING. 
and ox-teams. The road lies over a steep ridge © 
of hills to the junction of the Des Chutes, or ‘ Fall 
river,’ with the Columbia. Fishing at the Dalles 
is much the same as at the Cascades. 
Great numbers of salmon turn off and ascend 
the Snake river, to be captured at the Great Sho- 
shonee Falls by the Snake and Bannock Indians. 
We follow on the vanguard of the swimming 
army, passing numberless tributaries, up which 
detachments make their way, right and left, into 
the heart of the country—supplies for tribes living 
near the different streams—to the great falls of 
the Columbia, the ‘ Kettle Falls ;’* why so named 
is not very clear. These falls, except when the 
river is at its highest flood, form an impassable 
barrier to the salmon’s progress ; the distance from 
the sea is about 700 miles, and the first arrivals 
are usually about the middle of June. 
The winter-quarters of the Boundary Com- 
mission were about two miles above the falls, 
and close ‘to the falls is a trading-post of the 
Hudson’s Bay Company, Fort Colville. The 
gravelly plateau on which the trading-post stands, 
together with one or two houses belonging to old 
employés, was clearly once a lake-bottom. The 
water at some remote period filling the lake ap- 
* Vide Llustration. 
