A Short Chronology of Treaty Fishing on the Columbia River

Time Immemorial - Indian people have lived in the Columbia Basin for thousands of years, using salmon as a staple of life and as a foundation of culture, economy, and a source of religion. According to conservative estimates, the river's annual salmon returns ranged from 11-16 million fish before European settlement.

1805 - Reaching the Columbia River, Lewis and Clark were amazed by the abundance of salmon.

1855 - Treaties with Columbia River tribes were signed. In these treaties, tribes ceded most of their lands -- but reserved exclusive rights to fish within their reservations and rights to fish at "all usual and accustomed fishing places...in common with citizens."

Fish wheels were used to automate the salmon harvest. Their overuse led to a steep decline in salmon runs in the late 1800's.

1905 - In the first major fishing rights case to reach the Supreme Court, U.S. v. Winans, the justices held that treaty Indians had reserved the right to cross non-Indian lands to fish at "usual and accustomed" places and that treaties are to be interpreted the way the Indians had understood them.

1938 - Congress passed the Bonneville Project Act to market power from Bonneville and other federal dams on the Columbia. Dams would eventually inundate such important Indian fishing places as Celilo Falls and block salmon migration to some 2,800 miles of fish habitat. Congress also passed the Mitchell Act, which promised that fish lost because of the dams would be replenished with the help of hatcheries.

1942 - The Supreme Court decided in Tulee v. Washington that because a treaty takes precedence over state law, Indians with tribal treaty rights cannot be required to buy state fishing licenses. However, the court also rules that the state could regulate treaty fisheries for purposes of conservation.

1948 - State and federal fish agencies began implementing the Mitchell Act by putting almost all of the hatcheries in the lower river, where mostly non-Indians fish, instead of in the tribes upriver fishing areas where salmon were being destroyed by the dams. Of the 25 Mitchell Act hatcheries eventually built, only two are above The Dalles Dam. The effect is that some 85 percent of the tribes' mainstem fishing area does not benefit from Mitchell Act releases.

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I am a Mid-Columbia River Indian. I grew up along the river. I have many close relatives and friends who lived their lives on the river, who died there, and who are buried along its banks. I know that river well. In my lifetime, I have seen great changes take place on the river. I remember the time when there were no dams, and the Columbia River was wild and free-flowing. I have observed the massive destruction caused by the dams. The lakes created by the dams have covered many of the places I knew as a boy and a young man. The fishing sites, the places where I camped with my family, and even the places where some of my children were born, are all under water.

Delbert Frank, Sr., Warm Springs

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