The Lewis and Clark Expedition reached this place after running the rapids of the Short Narrows, where the Columbia River was forced through a basalt channel that narrowed its width from 400 to 45 yards. William Clark and his principal waterman, Pierre Cruzatte, inspected the violent water and chose to take their canoes through despite the danger. Clark wrote of the agitated passage as swelling, boiling, and whorling in every direction, yet through skill and luck they passed safely. Cruzatte, a small, wiry, one-eyed and nearsighted man, was an excellent boatman who led the expedition's canoes through rapids in this area; he also regularly played the violin for the explorers and tribes, and on the westbound journey the expedition named present-day Wind River for him as Cruzats River. On October 24, 1805, Clark recorded the great roaring he heard, the difficult passage visible for several miles below, and the shocking boils, swells, and whirlpools in the narrows through which the whole current of the great river had to pass. The Dalles Dam, built in 1957, later transformed the river and surrounding landscape by drowning the Short and Long Narrows, widening the river, inundating village sites, and covering much of the original village site visited by the expedition beneath Horsethief Lake.