Deschutes River Crossing

French-Canadian fur men called this the Rivière des Chutes, the river of the falls, for the great falls of the Columbia at Celilo a few miles below its mouth. Oregon Trail wagons forded it here, floating the wagon beds and swimming the stock, and used an island at the mouth when the water ran high. The board's last sentence holds the crossing's economy. Native canoe men took emigrant women and children over for shirts and other trade goods, a paid ferry run by the people who lived here.

What the plaque says

Historic Oregon Trail Deschutes River Crossing The Oregon Trail crossed the hazardous Deschutes River at this point by floating the prairie schooners and swimming the livestock. An island at the river mouth was often utilized when the water was high and the ford dangerous. Pioneer women and children were frequently ferried across the stream by native canoe men who made the passage in exchange for bright colored shirts and other trade goods

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Celilo Village — 2.7 mi
  The village that stayed on the bluff above the drowned falls, rebuilt half a century late by the government that flooded them, where the salmon season still opens each April.
• Rowena Crest and the Tom McCall Preserve — 19 mi
  A crest where the Ice Age floods jammed against a basalt promontory, above a plateau of mounds no one has fully explained, and a few in the parking loop that the highway department built.

More markers nearby

• Ancient Indian Fishing Grounds — 2.6 mi
• Cutoff to the Barlow Road — 20 mi