Catalog Number: OHS Lib 9178T428eV7
Date: August 1811

 Adventures of the First Settlers on the Oregon or Columbia River, 1810-1813
Alexander Ross, vol. 7, pp129-130

The main camp of the Indians is situated at the head of the Narrows, and may contain, during the salmon season, 3,000 souls, or more; but the constant inhabitants of the place do not exceed 100 persons, and are called Wyam-pams. The rest are all foreigners from different tribes throughout the country, who resort hither not for the purpose of catching salmon, but chiefly for gambling and speculation; for trade and traffic, not in fish, but in other articles; for the Indians of the plains seldom eat fish, and those of the seacoast sell, but never buy fish. Fish is their own staple commodity. The articles of traffic brought to this place by the Indians of the interior are generally horses, buffalo robes, and native tobacco, which they exchange with the natives of the seacoast and other tribes, for the higua, beads, and other trinkets. But the natives of the coast seldom come up thus far. Now all these articles generally change hands through gambling, which alone draws so many vagabonds together at this place, because they are always sure to live well here, whereas no other place on the Columbia could support so many people together. The Long Narrows, therefore, is the great emporium or mart of the Columbia, and the general theater of gambling and roguery.

We saw great quantities of fish everywhere; but what were they among so many? We could scarcely get a score of salmon to buy. For every fisherman there are fifty idlers, and all the fish caught are generally devoured on the spot, so that the natives of the place can seldom lay up their winter stock until the gambling season is over, and their troublesome visitors gone. All the gamblers, horse-stealers, and other outcasts throughout the country, for hundreds of miles round, make this place their great rendezvous during summer.