Talk:The Dalles, Oregon

"the" dalles
why the "the" in the name I've always wondered? I seem to remember an awkward exit sign on eastbound I-84 that says "West The Dalles" --Kvuo 03:30, 2 August 2007 (UTC)


 * That's a good question. I found a website that says, "At the first the town was called Dalles City, but popular usage was always The Dalles." -- Axcordion (talk) 00:35, 8 March 2008 (UTC)

I found something about this in the book Oregon Geographic Names. Its entry on The Dalles says that even though the city's name was originally just Dalles, "for years the style in universal use has been The Dalles", used not only "for historical and sentimental reasons but also to avoid duplication with Dallas, Polk County. On June 7, 1966, the name was changed by ordinance to the City of The Dalles to conform with current usage." (I'm not sure what is meant by "historical and sentimental reasons"). It goes on to talk about the Post Office at The Dalles, which was established in 1851 with the name "Dalles", then changed in 1853 to "Wascopam", then changed again on March 22, 1860 to "The Dalles". That tells me that the use of "The" goes back practically to the earliest days of the city. The book goes on to say how the narrows of the river was long known, well before the city was founded, as "The Dalles of the Columbia River", and defines it rather precisely as a "collective term" for the series of rapids and falls between Big Eddy in the west to Celilo Falls in the east. From west to east including: Big Eddy, Fivemile Rapids ("Long Narrows"), The Dalles (or "The Great Dalles"), Tenmile Rapids (or "Short Narrows", "Little Narrows", and "Les Petites Dalles"), and Celilo Falls (of course these are all underwater now).

I'd try to just add this info to the article, but it is late and my brain is dead, so I'm just posting about it here. If someone thinks this info could be useful in the article and wants to add it, here's the book's full citation info, with the page number (edit page to see citation template):

Perhaps not the greatest answer to the question, but it is something. The comparison to Dalles in Polk County is interesting. Pfly (talk) 07:36, 8 March 2008 (UTC)


 * I think the original French name was slightly different/longer, wound up being contracted to just Les Dalles; wouldn't have been Les Grandes Dalles (the big rapids, though grandes woulc also mean "wide". Dropped by here because a google search for Dalles des Morts ("Death Rapids", "Rapids of the Dead Ones"), which I'm about to write/stub-up, turned up the Little Dalles in Washington; just a anarrows and gap according to topozone, not sure from the google results.  Figure it should be mentioned in the article somewhere, or there might haveto be a Dalles (disambiguation) page, as I think there's a few other dalles/rapids her e and there in history and maybe still on the map....or on old maps anyway.  PS "flagstone" is the singular translation of la dalle.  The plural form, especially as used by the voyageurs, nearly always refers to rapids; think flagstones beneath the water, causing a "stair" in the stream.Skookum1 (talk) 16:07, 2 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Just to add, although this could be in the French etymology section before, that other uses of "the Dalles" always have the "the" in them, I suppose as a legacy of the French usage; Dalles of the St. Croix River has this definition, which I hadn't seen before but knew was the case: "The Dalles, defined as the rapids of a river running between the walls of a canyon or gorge, ". I still have to take it up with French Wiktionary; I'm around the corner from Dalhousie University so maybe I'll bother their French department to see if any of the academics know of a source for the "rapids" meaning.Skookum1 (talk) 19:47, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

French etymology issues
It's as I thought; there's secondary/tertiary meanings to dalle,dalles; the flagstone meaning may share the same root morpheme: something vaguely meaning turns up as No. 4 of several meanings of dalle in French Wiktionary:
 * dalle ''feminin
 * ''4. Gouttière sur le pont d'un navire destinée à conduire l'eau vers les dalots.

Which still isn't rapids; it refers to a gutter on the bridge of a ship for water to drain out; dalots are the drains::
 * dalot ''masculin


 * ''1. (Maritime) Trou, canal pour faire écouler les eaux hors du navire.
 * ''" Il y a plusieurs dalots à chaque bord."
 * ''" Conduit maçonné permettant l'écoulement des eaux d'un remblai le long d'une route, d'une voie ferrée, etc."

Other than noting écouler is related to couler and coulir, i.e. Grand Coulee, though here it's simply a verb referring to the pouring of the current...I'll translate the French bits later; I need to have more coffee and get some chores done...I think the evolution of the term in voyageur French may be a ref to the "gutter" meaning, i.e. a narrow, quickly streaming stretch of river, not quite a rapids in the usual sense; but a boaters' term transferred/conceptualized on the macro scale to a river ratehr than a ship's deck drains..... I'll post something in French on the French Wiktionary and Wikipedia pages later, to see what responses I get; my French is rusty so I need more coffee, a smoke and a walk...one last comment: Voyageur French is often different from mainstream Quebec French, especially modern quebecois, and very different at times, like other forms of Canadian French, from European French......Skookum1 (talk) 16:26, 2 April 2008 (UTC)
 * See Dalles des Morts for how I worded the issue there.Skookum1 (talk) 19:41, 5 April 2008 (UTC)

For what it's worth, a couple of books I have say that "dalles" in the sense of "rapids" is archaic French now, possibly never more than "voyageur" French. Another book translates it not as rapids but as "sluice" or "flagstone". The idea of "sluice" sounds kind of like your "gutter" idea. Pfly (talk) 03:27, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Oh, I didn't see that bit about archaic French - that's our cite, for the rapids meaning; which seems a combination of the flagstones and sluice meanings; I'm just about to ask French wiki - after fixing that link below, which I had going to the plural which there isn't a page for; it may, even in archaic French, only mean "rapids" in the plural form, not in the singular; does it describe it that way. Anyway, I'd say that's our cite so I'll wait to go to French wiki to see what it is, so I have one to start with there, other than pointing them to the Dalles disambig and this discussion; some French etymologist will be by once I do, I'm sure...Skookum1 (talk) 05:55, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I'd say it's the same, then; sluice<->gutter, in French anyway; often the same word means quite a few different things, even with the same general meaning; I'm sure they don't mean a gold-mining sluice, though, just the kind of trough you'd use to rapidly drain something. I still haven't posted to French wiktionary yet but will get to that; I gotta remember to get hold of a lexicological type at the French department around the corner and ask, also; maybe there's a dictionary cite; certainly there should be, given the meaning as it's used in the West vs what it is/was in other parts/cultures, i.e. this voyageur/Metis French or specialized local argot anyway.  The ones in Ontario near Kenora (see Dalles (disambiguation) seem to be the flagstones meaning, shallows under a lake, doesn't look like a rapid; haven't looked at all the Quebec ones but likely they're different in meaning (maybe).  The disambig page I need to add three French locations I remember seeing, I think at http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/dalle Skookum1 (talk) 03:32, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * On the other hand, one of the Ontario entries clearly says "rapid" so I'll look-see where it is; northwest of Lake Superior, or even in the pays d'en haut, the country in between there and Upper Canada, was part of the voyageur/coureur de bois cultural milieu and hence the resulting dialect/lexicon.Skookum1 (talk) 03:36, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * If dalles refers to a sluice, then maybe the best way to render dalot is "spout" (same root..."-ot" is something like a diminutive or makes something into an object/whatzit). Just guessing; it's not just a hole....Skookum1 (talk) 03:38, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Well, since this book I'm looking at online gives a definition and refers to the "columnar basaltic rocks", I just added it and reworded a little to include a link to Celilo Falls, which now describes all the rapids a little more. If you find anything better feel free to change it! I get the sense that both "sluice" and "flagstone" were fitting descriptions of the place. Pfly (talk) 05:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Also, it's quite possible than the same word became used in different ways in different parts of the continent, to describe different kinds of landscapes. Another example that comes to mind is "coulee" -- which seems to have at least three regional meanings quite different. In the PNW coulee means those big, dry canyons of the scablands. In the Great Lakes area it seems to mean a type of relatively large river, while in Louisiana it is apparently a common term for "brook", used in conjunction with "bayou" (ie, a coulee is a little bayou). Just a random thought. Pfly (talk) 05:35, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Yeah, there's definitely variation in meaning, witness the Quebec entries where one is a cape; depends on the context or root-verb; we got into this discussion in CHINOOK-L a long time ago, re Grand Coulee, because there's a CJ word cooley, to run which comers from courir (rather than coulir) as opposed to coulee which comes from couler (which is similar to but not quite the same as coulir); note the confusion regionally with the other word "coolie", which comes from the Hindi kuli for slave or worker.... In the Louisiana case, it helps to bear in mind that Cajun usages come from Acadian French (btw there are no Dalles in Acadian parts of Canada, unlike QC or ON) while voyageur French comes from Quebec French; there's a big, BIG difference, and not just in pronunciation (thank god for Acadian broadcasters here in teh Maritimes, I can actually understand them, unlike Quebec-based shows) but also in lexicon.  But still, the essential meaning is the same between the three variations you've observed - from "to flow", the noun form coulee (adapted without the necessary coulée accent) is a place where something flows; there's no topography in Louisiana to speak of '-) so flat-water "flows" also applied; the parallel term in English, actually, I'd say is "wash", as in "dry wash", where you'd find a flash flood (or hope not to); Grand Coulee's a bit of an odd dog in the PacNW isn't it?  Are there other coulees in these parts?  The ones on the plains that seem to be big rivers are actually the troughs those rivers/creeks run in, below the surface of the overall Prairie; "down in the coulee" has a very literal sense; the coulee is where the river flows, and potentially whhich might fill up with water entirely; not always; places like Medicine Hat are built right in a big coulee, so there's only so much flooding you'd worry about; the Grand Coulee would seem to be a spinoff from that meaning; a broad trough/gorge below a flatter upland.  But coulee may mean something different on either side of the border, though I doubt it between MT-AB or ND-SK, but maybe farther south the meaning has mutated; an instance of cross-border meaning-variation is Missouri Coteau, which in Canada isn't a plateau, but the edge of that plateau.  Not from couteau, knife, from couter, "to cut" but from côte, the side of something....well, utliamtely there's a common root, as with couler and coulir but you get the idea....Skookum1 (talk) 16:44, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Just posted this on French Wikipedia/ will do the same on French wiktionary. out of battery power, and it's bedtime. Later....Skookum1 (talk) 06:14, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * I should have added that western Canadian French, like manitobaine, is often archaic, just as Acadian and rural Quebec dialects have forms long disappeared from France; makes sense to me it's the archaic meaning; in Quebec yes, it has a different meaning; look at hte French Dalle page for the town on the Channel with the cliffs; cliffs once again, as also at Dalles des Morts; maybe it's a hybrid meaning, like I said, a pun of sorts. But archaic certainly is a very valid context for western Canadian/PacNW French usage/nomenclature/toponymy; their French was isolated, and like outlier dialects as in Appalachia with English preservedd pronunciatiosn and meanings disappeared from the linguistic homeland, or considered archaic there; I'll get to coulee later I know my laptop's going to die any second...time for bed....Skookum1 (talk) 06:19, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Yea there are quite a number of coulees in Washington, and all or nearly all are dry canyons. Moses Coulee is a larger one. I think they are mainly a type of scabland / Missoula Flood landscape thing. You might like this map I made a while back. USA only, sadly, using USGS GNIS data to map placenames that end in either Coulee or Bayou. I'd forgotten until just now that there seem to be four areas of coulee usage in the US -- Washington, where it mainly is those dry canyons, Montana and North Dakota (must be similar to Alberta and Sask. usage), a little patch in Wisconsin (where I think it has a different type of usage), and Louisiana. A friend of mine who lives in Louisiana told me that a coulee is a brook small enough to jump over. Pfly (talk) 22:05, 8 April 2008 (UTC) ++Conversation/continuation moved to my talkpage.Skookum1 (talk) 22:31, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

Er, well, still...

 * The name of the city comes from the French word dalle (meaning either "sluice" or "flagstone" and referring to the columnar basaltic rocks carved by the river, what the French-Canadian employees of the North West Company called the now-inundated rapids of the Columbia River between the present-day city and Celilo Falls.

Well, the flagstone context works if it's only these Dalles they're talking about; but the "rapids" meaning was in their argot way back in Ontario and points between; interestingly not in SK, MB or AB....but lots out here, especially upstream the Columbia (see maps discussion at bottom of my talkpage); that they would have come to first, and which may not have looked like the flagstone/staircase type of rapid - which I understand Dalles des Morts did, if I remember the Paul Kane painting right; have to dig that up for that article. So the wording/meaning still bothers me; for now it's OK, the sluice thing works, I guess that'll do for the gutter meaning; this could be a name section, y'know, with Dalles which leads off with where all the dictionary citations and etymology can be, instead of in this city article....Skookum1 (talk) 05:45, 8 April 2008 (UTC)


 * Yea, that cite is about these Dalles, ie, the ones below Celilo Falls. There's a bunch of old descriptions of the rapids as falling over series of giant basalt "slabs" and other terms that sound much like flagstones. I have no idea what the original voyegeurs were thinking exactly, just citing sources. :) Bedtime here too. Pfly (talk) 06:36, 8 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Well, there does seem to be a tie-in to overhanging cliffs, also, but my guess is that the staircase/steps look of Celilo Falls was a happy circumstance as far as the "flagstones" meaning; the "rapids" meaning must have already evolved by the time they got there....I'm gonna query this more on the WikiProject Canada discussion board; a few people there are francophones although I don't think any of those are fur trade/western francophonia specialists. Re your reply in the section just above it's not that I want a whole rewrite; I just want to know what redirects to what and was trying to figure out CeliloFalls vs Cascades Rapids vs Big/Little Dalles vs Columbia Gorge the rest of the related list.  Can't think of any similar many-headed beasts on this side of the border, that's for sure... Skookum1 (talk) 14:29, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

WikiProject Pacific Northwest?
This was a thought that came to me over the last weeks off the Talk:Columbia River discussions and also this and related cross-border ones; a common forum for OR/BC/WA/ID/MT/AK articles, a subproject or joint project by those respective WikiProjects; not sure if it's worth the rigamarole but stuff like this French etymology issue would be helped by more Canuck-side presence on the relevant pages, which would include all the various steamboat and river and dam and aboriginal articles and so on....whaddya think?Skookum1 (talk) 14:58, 8 April 2008 (UTC)

More Dalles etymology/usage
On Talk:Cascades Rapids a link was posted to an article on the Dalles which is very thorough, but also included William Clark's words "I heard a great roreing" "The Dalles Type of River Channel", demonstrating that L&C knew the term before they saw the Dalles; i.e. the term was not coined-over from French because of the appearance or structure of the Columbia Dalles, which means an adjustement to the syntax of the opening line; it was a pre-existing term, not adapted into English because of these rapids, which teh article currently suggests. Still looking for first provenance of the term in English, that will prove interesting, but very obscure....Skookum1 (talk) 15:52, 9 April 2008 (UTC) this page is the article that cite/quote is on.Skookum1 (talk) 15:53, 9 April 2008 (UTC)
 * Just notiiced on fr.wiktionary.org, where I'd gone to see if I had any replies, taht from the "gutter/trough" meaning it (in sing. form la dalle) can mean "throat" (la gorge in Fr.)...seems we're getting close as to how the narrows/canyon/gorge-rapids meaning evolved, though still don't have a cite for it.Skookum1 (talk) 18:16, 22 April 2008 (UTC)

Pronunciation
It would be helpful to indicate how the name of this city is pronounced locally- is it like "dales" (the name), or something like "dallies" or "Dallas"? --Clay Collier (talk) 04:12, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * "Dalls", like Dall's Sheep ("flat"/"broad" /a/, not like "dolls"). Not sure how to IPA that, though.Skookum1 (talk) 04:24, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, rhymes with "gals," as in "guys and gals." I think the IPA code is . Northwesterner1 (talk) 04:58, 28 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Just to further comment that the vowel is similar to that in the Canadian French pronunication of les dalles, without the final /-s/ of course; I've heard people try and pronoucne this what they think is the French pronunciation - like "doll(s)" - but it's an affectation; similarly "portage" (as in Seton Portage, where I'm sorta from) is with a flat/broad /a/ and a -dg- /g/, but know-better types often render it port-OZH, thinking that's like French, but again the French vowel is in fact the flat/broad a. "More French than the French" is the way one of my francophone buddies put such attempts at "correcting" English.....Skookum1 (talk) 14:17, 28 August 2008 (UTC)

Sister City?
It would also be helpful to distinguish which Ikeda, Japan that The Dalles is a sister city to as there are many Ikeda, Japans in different prefectures. Taylorrific (talk) 23:38, 13 September 2008 (UTC)

I added a (disambiguation needed) to the city's name in the meantime... Tkd 2000 (talk) 23:35, 14 September 2008 (UTC)

Terrorist Attack
There should be some mention that The Dalles is the site of the very first biological terrorist attack in the United States (Salmonella by Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh's cult). If you don't know anything about The Dalles, I know this sounds bizarre, but its true. Also, links from Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh wikipedia's site and the cult he set up frequently mention The Dalles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.10.218.25 (talk) 04:21, 14 August 2009 (UTC)
 * Hi, and welcome! It's already listed under The Dalles, Oregon. Cheers, tedder (talk) 05:19, 14 August 2009 (UTC)

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