History
In the early 19th century the valley of the river was inhabited by Nez Perce, Umatilla, Walla Walla, and Cayuse tribes of Native Americans. Numerous archaeological sites are on the public land around the river.
The Grande Ronde River was given its name sometime before 1821 by French Canadian voyageurs working for the Montreal-based fur trading North West Company.
In 1988, the United States Congress designated approximately 44 miles (71 km) of the river, from its confluence with the Wallowa River to the Oregon-Washington border, as the Grande Ronde Wild and Scenic River, as part of the National Wild and Scenic River program.
The river today is a popular destination for hunting, especially for game animals such as mule deer, elk, black bear, cougar, and bighorn sheep. Fishing, rafting and hiking are also popular along the designated Wild and Scenic portion of the river. Most of the middle reaches of the river are inaccessible to motor vehicles.
Read more about this topic: Grande Ronde River
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The disadvantage of men not knowing the past is that they do not know the present. History is a hill or high point of vantage, from which alone men see the town in which they live or the age in which they are living.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)
“The basic idea which runs right through modern history and modern liberalism is that the public has got to be marginalized. The general public are viewed as no more than ignorant and meddlesome outsiders, a bewildered herd.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“When the coherence of the parts of a stone, or even that composition of parts which renders it extended; when these familiar objects, I say, are so inexplicable, and contain circumstances so repugnant and contradictory; with what assurance can we decide concerning the origin of worlds, or trace their history from eternity to eternity?”
—David Hume (1711–1776)