Geraldine Jim, Warm Springs, sits outside her tepee shivering, but still beaming, as a crisp chill wafts up from the water’s edge nearby. Before her is a fire pit, where she would later demonstrate traditional stick-roasted salmon preparation. But there was something missing.

Warm Springs tribal elder Geraldine Jim sitting outside her tepee set up on the banks of the Columbia River at Celilo Park.
“Do you have any newspaper? I need to make a fire!” she calls out to a friend.

As she waits patiently in her traditional Indian wing dress, Jim greets passing volunteers helping set up Wy-Kan-Ush-Pum Village in Celilo Park in preparation for the start of the Celilo Falls commemoration ceremony, which would be kicked off with the welcoming of several Northwest tribes arriving on the banks of the Columbia River in traditional native canoes. The village includes several other tepees, as well as a longhouse-size tent for a Celilo Falls history exhibit, cultural presentations by area tribes, and displays by regional environmental organizations.

A man walks up to hug Jim. “See, everybody knows me,” she says with a laugh.

Jim pauses to gaze out at the river’s calm, glass-like surface, frosted with a shallow morning mist that moves across it with ghostly grace, above the site that once was Celilo Falls, now entombed beneath a 24-mile-long reservoir the Army Corps of Engineers refers to as recreation-friendly “Lake Celilo.”

“I remember the falls,” she says. “I remember my mom and dad fishing, and my brothers. They were young.”

Jim didn’t go to school until she was 9 years old, when she would attend a boarding school in Warm Springs. The river was her early education.

“It was a teaching here. A life to live,” she says. “But it was hard. It was really hard. It was hard for us to see the falls go under. That was our life. We lived for the salmon. But we still eat it. We grew up with it, and I’m going to stick with it until the day I die.”

Allen Tahkeal, Yakama, sits in a walker at the river’s edge wearing a large-brimmed brown hat as he waits for the commemoration ceremony to begin. He remembers agreeing to take his wife to Pendleton so he didn’t have to watch Celilo Falls being flooded.

“I came back and this is how it was,” he says, pointing toward the water. “There’s no more left. No more falls. We lost most of our livelihood. It didn’t do us any good.”

Part of that livelihood, Tahkeal points out, was from money generated for the tribes from tourists flocking to the falls.

“People used to come here all the time. It was an attraction for the non-Indians,” he explains. “We had no limit. We’d catch whatever we wanted. We supplied people. A lot of it was trade. We traded for roots, or deer meat. They’d get fish; we’d get the roots. That’s what it was all about.”

And, like many tribal elders, he remembers “the roar.”

“Oh, it had a good roar. It had all kinds of noise, like the splashing of the salmon when you pulled them up,” he says.

But on this day, more than 50 years later, the only noise that can be heard is the sound of people talking, laughing, as they scramble along the tops of the two rock jetties extending out into the river from the park, and jockey for a good spot along the riverbank. Every few minutes, a train rumbles by and blasts its horn as it passes the park’s main access road from nearby Interstate 84, making conversation nearly impossible while it passes.

Celilo Chief Olsen Meanus welcomes the gathered canoes to the shore at Celilo Park.
As the crowd hushes, the faint sound of paddles splashing into the water can be heard as an armada of five Indian canoes appears in the distance. One is white, two are black, the others brown. They make several circles in the middle of the river before heading toward the park one by one. As they arrive in a tiny inlet near one of the jetties, a member of each canoe family announces the group’s presence, then addresses Chief Meanus, standing at the river’s edge in full regalia with his arms folded and holding an eagle feather fan.

“We’re the Chinook from the mouth of the Columbia River! This is part of our canoe family! We’ve come a long way and we’re asking for permission to come ashore!” one of the paddlers shouts.
“You’re welcome to come ashore and join us!” Meanus replies.

A member of another canoe family from the Puyallup Tribe expresses his sorrow for the lower Columbia tribes that suffered from the loss of the falls, but also encourages hope and healing that the commemoration ceremony would bring.

“We are the Puyallup people! We are the Puyallup people! We are the Puyallup people! We come today to visit you in commemoration of what happened 50 years ago! We come here today to lift your spirits! Our hearts go out to the elders, the echo of the falls! We come here to rejoice with the people of the Columbia River!”

Bureau of Indian Affairs Warm Springs Superintendant Paul Young wears the traditional regalia of his Haida heritage.
Meanus responds, “We enjoy your canoes and we invite you to join us in remembering the falls! We welcome you all!”

Alex Buck, Wanapum, of Priest Rapids chose to announce the arrival of his Wanapum canoe family in his native Chiskin language, a dialect of Columbia River Sahaptin.

“I told them I was joining up with them, that we’re all related, and that we’re happy to remember,” he says after stepping out of the canoe.

In all, five canoe families come ashore, including those of the Suquamish Tribe of the Port Madison Indian Reservation in Poulsbo, Washington, and the Squaxin Island Tribe in Shelton, Washington.

After the ceremony, Paul Young, Haida, and his son roam through the crowd gathered in the park, wearing their traditional dress. Young is wearing a wood helmet carved in the shape of a killer whale, an animal revered by the Alaska tribes.

“I think it serves a good purpose to raise people’s awareness,” Young says of the commemoration. “Once something’s out of sight, it’s usually out of mind with the public. [The ceremony] reminds us of an important event in this part of the country.”

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