This part of the river features strongly in Noongar accounts of the area, including Warrkal (snake) sites, places where people used to (and still) camp, fish and swim. It features places known as ‘the log’, which has traditional significance and was also a place where many kids learned to swim and fish, and Wilson’s Rock, another very significant place for the Noongars of the area.
Harry Nannup says that Pinjarra is a famous `woodatji’ place, a place where ghosts and spirits are often around.
One of my cousins, her and her Mum was walking along … to their place, and when they started going from the Reserve, going across where that road way is, that wasn’t a road, they just kept walking along this old track. And Benita looked behind and she said, “Mum, there’s somebody following us”, and the old girl looked behind and she said, “Don’t look back there again”. And, being young, she looked back again and she see this fellow, “He’s still following us”, and he’s peeping behind another tree. And when she got up closer to near this house where Irene and Johnny used to live- Irene and Johnny Michael- she looked behind again and she couldn’t see him. Then she looked up in the air and there he was, like that, coming down for her with his hands open, coming straight down from up in the air. And she pulled her Mother like that and she says, “Look there”, and he’s going to catch them then, and they runned wicked screaming.
