(1) origins of the naming of the Malheur River, and then Lake, County and National Forest and Wild Life Reserves. The story according to the Oregon Historical Society’s Oregon Geographic Names authored by L.A. & L.L. MacArthur cites the Hudson’s Bay Company Journal of Peter Skeen Ogden. « Tuesday, Feb 14, 1826 We camped on River au Malheur (unfortunate river) so called on account of property and furs having been hid here formerly, discovered and stolen by natives. » The MacArthurs go on, clarifying « The literal translation of the French malheur is « bad fortune, » a term used by the French Canadian hunters after they discovered their cache had been rifled. »

Note that another Oregon River in a more heavily frequented part of Oregon had also acquired a name associated with negative Canadien-Native incidents, La Riviere aux Coquins. However, this river was soon thereafter translated by the Americans to Rogue River, made infamous by two wars in 1852 &1855-56, and then nowadays, by a much appreciated brewery of that name.
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(2) origins of the name Rodriq/gue – Intermarriage with tribal members of ‘immigrants canadiens’ from the east has gone on for over two centuries. More recently, over the last sixty years Mexican Americans entering via California, have also been marrying into the tribes. I have come across no Rodrigue in the first several generations of Canadien emigrants of the northern Latino sort, but then I have never made it this deep into Oregon’s Indian Country either.

Rob Fx