Deer Island in the Columbia was named by the Lewis and Clark Expedition, which stopped to dine there on November 5, 1805, on its way downriver. On the return journey, the explorers camped on the island on March 28, 1806. Captain Clark recorded that they set out very early that morning and by 9 a.m. arrived at an old Indian village on the northeast side of Deer Island, where their hunters had halted and left one man with the canoes at camp. The hunters had arrived the previous evening, and six of them went out very early to hunt and returned by 10 a.m. after killing seven deer. The Indians called the large island E-Lal-Lar, or Deer Island.