NELSON, British Columbia — For thousands of years, the stretch of the Columbia River that passed through Kettle Falls, Washington, was so full of life that it was said you could cross it on the backs of salmon. But in the early 20th century, major dam construction — most significantly the Grand Coulee Dam — […]
  • For thousands of years, Kettle Falls was a vital salmon fishing ground for the Sinixt, but early 20th-century dam construction blocked salmon migration.
  • Wrongfully declared extinct in Canada in 1956, the Sinixt fought for recognition and were officially acknowledged as Aboriginal Peoples of Canada in 2021.
  • In 2023, the U.S. government signed a $200 million agreement with a coalition of tribes, including the Sinixt, to fund an Indigenous-led salmon reintroduction program into the Columbia River system above dams in Washington.
  • Sinixt leaders say this project is an important effort to help right a historical wrong in the legacy that led to their “extinction” status, while many hope to one day join salmon efforts on their traditional territory in Canada.

NELSON, British Columbia — For thousands of years, the stretch of the Columbia River that passed through Kettle Falls, Washington, was so full of life that it was said you could cross it on the backs of salmon.

But in the early 20th century, major dam construction — most significantly the Grand Coulee Dam — blocked salmon from migrating upstream to spawn. From then on, a way of life that had lasted millennia ended abruptly.

“My grandmother’s earliest childhood memory was going to Kettle Falls,” says Aaron Fitzpatrick, a registered member of the Colville Confederated Tribes (CCT) and Sinixt Confederacy.

Kettle Falls was once one of the Pacific Northwest’s most significant salmon fishing grounds with historical reports of Indigenous fishers catching from 400-1,700 large salmon a day. Two centuries ago, at least 10 million salmon, like the chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and sockeye (O. nerka), swam the river. Today, that number is 1 million.

“When the salmon used to run before the dam, [my grandmother] went out into the center of the river and watched her father net salmon,” Fitzpatrick tells Monagaby. “Salmon was our lifeblood before the dams.”

Now, after decades of advocating to bring salmon back to Kettle Falls and the Upper Columbia River (shwan-etk-qwa in the Sinixt language), Fitzpatrick and other Sinixt are beginning to have some hope. In September 2023, the federal U.S. government signed a $200 million agreement with a coalition of tribes to reintroduce salmon above the Grand Coulee Dam into the Upper Columbia River system over 20 years. Almost a year later, the project is now in full swing.

“For us Sinixt, we’re not going to be whole as a community and as a people until the salmon are returned to the Upper Columbia,” he says.

For many, it’s also an effort to address a legacy that led to their peoples’ extinction status.

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