Click image to enlarge
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Twin Sisters, Wallula Gap, Washington.
Image taken September 26, 2004.
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Twin Sisters ...
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The "Twin Sisters" is a distinctive basalt feature within the Wallula Gap at Columbia River Mile (RM) 313.5, just one mile upstream of Port Kelley, Washington and two miles upstream of Spring Gulch, the location of Lewis and Clark's campsite of October 18, 1805. The Twin Sisters are located on Washington State Route 730, two miles south of U.S. 12 between
Pasco, Washington, and
Umatilla, Oregon.
The Twin Sisters are located in T7N R31E, Section 33.
The U.S.National Elevation Dataset (2018) lists the Twin Sister's elevation at 449 feet.
While Lewis and Clark made mention of the Wallula Gap, they did not make separate note of this distinctive rock formation.
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Geology ...
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Twin Sisters, Wallula Gap, Washington.
Image taken September 26, 2004.
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The Legend ...
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According to a Native American legend:
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"Coyote, the mischievous spirit hero of many native stories, fell in love with three
sisters who were building a salmon trap on the river near here. Each night Coyote would destroy their trap, and each day the girls would rebuild it. One morning coyote saw the girls crying and found out that they were starving because they had not been able to catch any fish in their trap. Coyote promised them a working fish trap if they would become his wives. They agreed, and coyote kept his promise; however, over the years he became jealous of them. He changed two of the wives into
these basalt pillars and turned the third into a cave downstream. He then became a rock nearby so he could watch over them forever."
[Washington State Chapter, Lewis and Clark Trail Heritage Foundation, April 2000 Newsletter].
In the writings of
Paul Kane, written about his journey in 1847 (see below), the legend is similar, however the "Wolf" is the spirit.
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"... Now the great medicine wolf of the Columbia River -- according to the Walla-Walla tradition, the most cunning and artful of all manitous --
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Click image to enlarge
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Twin Sisters from, Port Kelley, Washington.
Looking upstream from Port Kelley at one of the Twin Sisters.
Image taken September 24, 2005.
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Early Twin Sisters ...
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This feature throughout history has acquired many names. They have been known as the "Two Captains" after Lewis and Clark, "Chimney Rocks" by early explorers, "Twins Sisters" or "Cayuse Sisters" by Indian legend, and even occasionally "Two Sisters", "Hell's Smoke Stacks", "Twin Pillars", and the "Twin Virgins".
Paul Kane in 1847 wrote:
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"... These are called by the voyageurs the Chimney Rocks ... The Walla-Walla Indians call these the 'Rocks of the Ki-use girls' ..."
In a 1940s photograph J. Boyd Ellis called them "McKinzie and Ross Rocks", presumably after two early explorers in the Pacific Northwest, Donald McKenzie and Alexander Ross.
In 1979 the U.S. Board of Geographic Names made "Twin Sisters" the official name.
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Views ...
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One of the Twin Sisters, Wallula Gap.
View from the west from turnoff on Highway 730. The Columbia River is visible on the left.
Image taken September 25, 2005.
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Click image to enlarge
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One of the Twin Sisters, Wallula Gap.
View from the west from turnoff on Highway 730.
Image taken September 25, 2005.
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Click image to enlarge
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Twin Sisters, Wallula Gap, Washington.
Image taken September 26, 2004.
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Click image to enlarge
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One of the Twin Sisters, Wallula Gap.
View from the east from turnoff on Highway 730.
Image taken September 25, 2005.
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- James W. Nesmith, 1843 ...
- Paul Kane, 1847 ...
- Lewis R. Freeman, 1921 ...
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James W. Nesmith, 1843 ...
"[Tuesday, October 10, 1811] ... Our camp is quite a picturesque place. Immediately under the high bluff of the far-famed Columbia, about one-half mile above are two rocks rising 100 feet above the level of the river. They are separated by a small space, and are nearly round, presenting the appearance of two towers. Mr. McKinley informed me that the Indians looked upon them with a great deal of veneration, and say that they are two Indian damsels, petrified. I must confess that their appearance does not correspond very well with the tradition."
Source:
James W. Nesmith, 1843, "Diary of the Emigration of 1843", IN: The Quarterly of the Oregon Historical Society, vol.VII, no.4, December 1906.
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Paul Kane, 1847 ...
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"...
Many Indians followed us for a long distance on horseback along the shore. I obtained one of their horses, and, accompanied by an Indian, took a gallop of seven or eight miles into the interior, and found the country equally sterile and unpromising as on the banks of the stream. The bend in the river, which the boats were, of course, obliged to follow, enabled me to come up with them a very few miles further; the ride, although uninteresting as regarded landscape -- for not a tree was visible as far as the eye could reach -- was still a delightful change to me from the monotony of the boats.
As we approached the place where the Walla-Walla debouches into the Columbia river,
we came in sight of two extraordinary rocks projecting from a high steep cone or mound about 700 feet above the level of the river. These are called by the voyageurs the Chimney Rocks, and from their being visible from a great distance, they are very serviceable as landmarks. ...
The Walla-Walla Indians call these the "Rocks of the Ki-use girls"
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It must be borne in mind that all Indian tribes select some animal to which they attribute supernatural, or, in the language of the country, medicine powers: the whale, for instance, on the north-west coast; the kee-yeu, or war eagle, on the east side of the Rocky Mountains, supposed to be the maker of thunder; and the wolf on the Columbia River. Now the great medicine wolf of the Columbia River -- according to the Walla-Walla tradition, the most cunning and artful of all manitous
...
On arriving within a few miles of the Walla-Walla, he saw three beautiful Ki-use girls, whith whom he fell desperately in love: they were engaged in carrying stones into the river, in order to make an artificial cascade or rapid, to catch the salmon in leaping over it. The wolf secretly watched their operations through the day, and repaired at night to the dam and entirely destroyed their work: this he repeated for three successive evenings. On the fourth morning, he saw the girls sitting weeping on the bank, and accosted them, inquiring what was the matter: they told him they were starving, as they could get no fish for want of a dam. He then propsed to erect a dam for them, if they would consent to become his wives, to which they consented sooner than perish from the want of food. A long point of stones running nearly across the river is to this day attributed to the magic of the wolf-lover.
For a long time he lived happily with the three sisters (a custom very frequent amongst Indians, who marry as many sisters in a family as they can, and assign as a reason that sisters will naturally agree together better than strangers); but at length the wolf became jealous of his wives, and, by his supernatural power,
changed two of them into basalt pillars, on the south side of the river, and then changed himself into a lark rock, somewhat similar to them, on the north side, so that he might watch them for ever afterwards.
I asked the narrator what had become of the third sister. Says he, "Did you not observe a cavern as you came up?" I said that I had. "That, " he replied, "is all that remains of her!".
..."
Source:
Paul Kane, July 11, 1847, "Wanderings of an Artist Among the Indians of North America", published in 1859.
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Lewis R. Freeman, 1921, "Down The Columbia" ...
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"Homley Rapids, seven miles below Pasco ferry, are formed by a rough reef of bedrock running half way across the river from the right bank. Approached from the right side of the long gravel island that divides the river just above them, one might get badly tangled up before he got through; by the left-hand channel the going is easy if one keeps an eye on the shallowing water at the bars. A skyline of brown mountains, with a double-turreted butte as their most conspicuous feature, marks the point where the Columbia finally turns west for its assault on the Cascades and plunged to the Pacific. That bend is the boundary of the fertile plains extending from the Yakima to the Walla Walla, and the beginning of a new series of gorges, in some respects the grandest of all. The matchless panorama of the Cascade gorges is a fitting finale to the stupendous scenic pageant that has been staged all the way from the glacial sources of the Columbia. ...
The double-topped butte, an outstanding landmark fo voyageurs for a hundred years, has long been called "The Two Virgins." The story is told locally of a Catholic priest who saved his life by taking refuge in a cave between the castellated turrets during an Indian massacre, but who got in rather serious trouble with the Church afterwards as a consequence of sending words of his deliverance by a French-Canadian half-breed voyageur. The latter got the salient details of the story straight, but neglected to explain that the two virgins were mountains. The result was that the unlucky priest narrowly missed excommunication for saving his life at the expense of breaking his vows. I got no affidavit with the story, but local "stock" yarns are always worth preserving on account of their color."
Source:
Freeman, L.R., 1921, "Down The Columbia", Dodd, Mead and Company, New York (trip taken in September 1920).
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"The Golden Age of Postcards" ...
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The early 1900s was the "Golden Age of Postcards", with the "Penny Postcard" being a popular way to send greetings to family and friends. Today the Penny Postcard has become a snapshot of history.
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From the Journals of Lewis and Clark ...
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Clark, October 18, 1805 ...
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