The "Long Narrows" was known as the Fivemile Rapid, with it's foot at today's Spearfish Lake near Columbia River Mile (RM) 193, and it's head downstream of Horsethief Butte at approximately RM 194. On their trip down the Columbia in October 1805 Lewis and Clark called this "the great Shute".

The "Short Narrows" or Tenmile Rapid was the channel which passed Browns Island, which was not an island at the time. Browns Island is at approximately RM 197.

For early trappers and explorers, the "Long Narrows" and the "Short Narrows" were called "The Dalles", a term later taken as the name of the Oregon city located just downstream of the rapids.

"... The long narrows are much more formadable than they were when we decended them last fall, there would be no possibility of passing either up or down them in any vessel at this time. ..." [Clark, April 19, 1806]

"... a clear cold morning a little Snow fell on the hills last night. all hands went at packing the baggage past the portage which is about 2 miles towards evening we got all the baggag and canoes carried to the head of the narrows above the village & Camped carried our firewood past the portage also as it is so hard about the village that the Savages value it high. Capt. Clark bought 3 or 4 more horses this day. Capt. Clark and 3 men Set out this evening to go up to the Short narrows at a village in order to purchase horses untill our arival. ..." [Ordway, April 19, 1806]

"... The narrows of the river were generally known as The Dalles of the Columbia, and this collective term described the geographic features from the Big Eddy on the west to Celilo Falls on the east. All these rapids were inundated in March 1957, when The Dalles Dam was completed, forming Lake Celilo. Just east of Big Eddy was Fivemile Rapids, formerly known as the Long Narrows, The Dalles, or The Great Dalles. Further east was Tenmile Rapids, formerly known as the Short Narrows, Little Narrows, or Les Petites Dalles. ..." [McArthur and McArthur, 2003]

"The Dalles" was a term derived from the French. Historians give various meanings to the name. Some historians say "les dalles" or "dalles" means rapids running through a narrow gorge. Others translate the meaning as a corruption of "d'aller", meaning the raceway of a mill, a narrow chute which is used to transport logs quickly. And yet other historians translate the name from a French word for "flagstones" or "slabs," referring to the huge slabs of basalt constricting the channel.

According to Oregon Geographic Names (McArthur and McArthur, 2003) the first use of "dalles" in print was from Gabriel Franchere's writings of April 12, 1814, where it is used to describe the Long Narrows.

"... On the 12th, we arrived at a rapid called the Dalles: this is a channel cut by nature through the rocks, which are here almost perpendicular: the channel is from 150 to 300 feet wide, and about two miles long. The whole body of the river rushes through it, with great violence, and renders navigation impracticable. The portage occupied us till dusk. ..." [Gabriel Franchere, April 12, 1814, Narrative]

In 1825 John Work used "Dalls" along with "Dalles".

"... Dry weather a fine breeze from the N. W. Continued our journey at a little past 3 oclock with a nice sail wind and reached the lower end of the Dalles about two and got boats & foods about half way across the portage. We were detained more than two hours at breakfast below the portage, as Mr. McKay left his boat with two men, and the pieces had to be put in the other boats. On approaching the Dalls the current was very strong and the boats being deep laden it was difficult getting them up. My boat was caught in a whirlpool and very near sunk, she was wheeled around three times before the men got her out. There are a good many Indians on the portage we reckon from 400 to 500, however they were very peaceable. Gave them a little Tobacco to smoke and bought as much salmon as we required at equally as low a price as at the Cascades. ..." [John Work, Friday, June 24, 1825]

In 1845 John C. Fremont wrote about the Dalles of the Columbia, and described his passage in November 1843.

"... In a few miles we descended to the river, which we reached at one of its remarkably interesting features, known as the Dalles of the Columbia. The whole volume of the river at this place passed between the walls of a chasm, which has the appearance of having been rent through the basaltic strata, which form the valley of rock of the region. At the narrowest place we found the breadth, by measurement, 58 yards, and the average height of the walls above the water 25 feet; forming a trough between the rocks --- whence the name, probably applied by a Canadian voyageur. The mass of water, in the present low state of the river, passed swiftly between, deep and black, and curled into many small whirlpools and counter currents, but unbroken by foam, and so still that scarcely the sound of a ripple was heard. The rock, for a considerable distance from the river, was worn over a large portion of its surface into circular holes and well-like cavities, by the abrasion of the river, which, at the season of high waters, is spread out over the adjoining bottoms. ..." [Fremont, November 4, 1843, published in 1845]

In 1857 James G. Swan wrote:

"... From the point of junction of these two branches, the course of the Columbia is generally westward to the ocean. A little below that point it receives the Walla Walla, and then, in succession, the Umatilla, John Day's River, and the Chutes, or Falls River, all flowing from the south, and some others of less size from the north. Near the mouth of the Falls River, eightly miles below the Walla Walla, are situated the Chutes, or Falls of the Columbia, where the great stream enters a gap in the Cascade range of mountains. Four miles farther down are the Dalles (a corruption of the French D'aller, a term, as I was informed, applied by the Canadian French to the raceway of a mill, which this part of the river resembles). The Dalles are rapids formed by the passage of the water between vast masses of rock; and thirty miles below these are the Cascades, a series of falls and rapids extending more than half a mile, at the foot of which the tides are observable, at a distance of a hundred and twenty miles from the Pacific. ..." [Swan, The Northwest Coast, or, Three years' residence in Washington Territory, published in 1857]