Wanapum

The Wanapum are a Sahaptin-speaking people of the Columbia River, especially the country around Priest Rapids. Their village of P'na stood beside the rapids, its name recalling a basketry trap used to catch salmon. In 1811 David Thompson travelled down the Columbia and recorded the Wanapum and their river country. Later that summer, members of the Pacific Fur Company met a local leader and named the rapids for him. The river's fisheries remained central to life in this dry plateau landscape.