Local Indigenous nations will host a two-day long event to showcase progress and future plans of efforts to reintroduce salmon to local waterways.
Troy Hunter, Special Initiative Coordinator with the Ktunaxa Nation said Bringing the Salmon Home is part of an Indigenous-led effort to restore the Columbia River’s natural ecosystem.
“It was part of our main staple as a food. For Ktunaxa people, it was a big loss to wake up and find out there was no salmon coming when 50 to 60 years before that, we were also impacted by the buffalo being wiped out. The buffalo and salmon were two main staples the Ktinaxa relied upon,” said Hunter. “The work that we’re trying to do with bringing the salmon back, is getting us back to our cultural roots.”
Bringing the fish population back up will also be beneficial to the local ecosystem.
“Millions of salmon would come up the river and they would spawn and their bodies would go back into nature. Bears and eagles would feed on them, and we would even use fish fertilizer in out tobacco cultivation at YaqÌ“it Ê”a·knuqⱡi ‘it,” explained Hunter. “Salmon is great for food, ceremony, cultural values as well as the ecosystem and environment.”
The Ktunaxa Nation is working on the salmon reintroduction program alongside the Syilx Okanagan and Secwépemc nations, with support from the B.C. and Canadian government.
Hunter said human construction has been a hindrance to the fish’s natural migration.
“The dams, particularly two of them, stopped the salmon’s ability to come up the Columbia River, that would be the Grand Coulee Dam and the Chief Joseph Dam,” said Hunter.
Studies through the salmon reintroduction program track the fish once they are released.
“When we do fish releases, such as salmon fry, we track how they’re doing, if they make it to the ocean, and if they make it back,” explained Hunter. “The work we’re doing, I think, is quite successful in finding out how the salmon are able to get through the dams when they’re juveniles and how they’re able to get back up the river and over the dams.”
Hunter touted the success of reintroduction efforts elsewhere, despite dams blocking the way.
“Just last year, they were able to celebrate the return of 500,000 sockeye salmon to the Okanagan system, when at one point they were blocked by dams,” said Hunter. “It just goes to show that the work the South Okanagan are doing on the rivers and lakes has worked. So, applying that same idea and concept on the Columbia River, and getting salmon on the Canadian side of the river is possible. I think we can do it.”
The two-day event will run from Tuesday, May 3 to Wednesday, May 4 over Zoom, with free registration available to those who want to attend.
“It’s a really good opportunity to hear from many of the different people involved,” said Hunter. “It will start off with the opening welcome on Tuesday, May 2 and then we go into a session in the afternoon that I’m actually going to be chairing. It’s called Swimming Upstream in a Digital World.”
More: Bringing the Salmon Home Festival event page