(wistful piano music) (Darnell speaking in a Native American language) - I am Salmon Chief.

As long as I'm alive, I will carry out that role.

Essentially, it's a role that I feel is about honoring that first food.

(wistful piano music continues) And our protocol within the language is incorporated to mother earth and all that she gives us.

So there's a relationship that's intertwined.

Mother earth needs our help.

What can we do to help her?

She's changing.

(brief tense music) (outdoor nature sounds) You're all right.

I took to hunting at a very young age.

I had a lot of uncles.

Every one of 'em took me hunting.

I got to know where to go.

But I also come to understand how to take care of that animal.

This buck was just taken two years ago but it was before the rut of the whitetails started.

So they're not gamey, they not ranked.

They have the most fat on them and that's when they're the tastiest.

(soft music) This animal gave up its life to put meat on our tables to put meat on our drying racks, to put meat in our freezers.

So here, I have a drying rack.

I have four tiers.

It's kind of my own makeshift design.

So my fire goes down here.

Your flames, if they get too high, they can burn your meat.

So I have these flame baffles in here.

These are to keep the flames down and allow the heat and the smoke to bellow around it.

We dry meat for our funerals, our memorials, our root feasts, our first salmon ceremonies.

The food is medicine.

Not just medicine nutrition-wise, it's medicine spiritually, culturally.

It gives us our health.

And if we eat the first foods and honor them and take care of them accordingly, they will take care of us.

We will always help the ones that are in need.

It's just ingrained.

In any of our constituent tribes, that's just a teaching that we're all here to take care of one another.

When I was on tribal council, we were doing a fish release on Rufus Woods, and they asked that I would stand up and share a song to honor that salmon.

But I just want to share that song with you.

(Darnell singing in a Native Indian language) (vehicle engine running) It's 10 to five right now.

I've been up since quarter to four.

Mentally, I'm going through where are they gonna be at.

Am I gonna hear 'em.

You really use your senses.

You hear them, you see them.

When you get close enough, you smell them.

In the end, we wanna taste them, so.

I gotta get out and stick him but we can't shoot them until it's daylight.

They're all over right here.

(Darnell chuckles) This area that we're going into was burned over a couple of years ago.

We've been having some pretty dry years.

We've been fortunate enough that we haven't had any really big, mega fires on the reservation.

Shut off here and get out and just listen.

(bull buck calling) See how deep and throaty that bull is?

That's tells me that's the herd bull.

(bull buck calling) (bull decoy calling) (bull buck responding, calling) (running water) For our Native people, our traditional foods has a season and a time where we follow that cycle through the year.

And we gather all of these foods, whether it be salmon, roots, berries, or we're hunting.

It's not just in the moment, it's for the year until we can gather them again.

(wistful music) (bull buck calling) (wistful music continues) Because of climate change, berries are coming earlier or they're coming later.

We don't see as much rain as there normally would be.

We have mega fires.

Big bull right there.

Environment affects our water, it affects our salmon, it affects our roots, it affects the berries.

It affects our deer, elk, and moose.

So this is happening faster than we can fathom right now.

(wistful music continues) (bull buck calling) (bull decoy calling) (rasping decoy calling) (wistful music intensifies) (wistful music calms) Well that's it for here.

Blew the herd out so they're heading out.

There's some stragglers this way but they're all spooked up, so they're gonna keep moving.

(wistful piano music) That's the way it goes.

I had a bull right here but he was just a little bit farther than I was comfortable to shoot.

And he gave me a shot, but nah, if you're not comfortable, don't take it.

It's not just about the kill, it's about the hunt.

You'll set an adrenaline rush the whole time and just, my ears get longer, my eyes get sharper and my heart is pounding out of my chest.

I feel very fortunate that we have the resources that we have, the management that we have.

And we're doing something right to see herds like this.

If we don't have our first food because of the climate change, we still have to adapt.

(wistful piano music) So what can we do to find a mitigation to help?

We might not be able to stop it here and we're gonna continue to do all we can to honor that spirit, honor that food, honor that process because our elders and our ancestors did.

(wistful instrumental music)