(light music) - There were three brothers, and they're going up the stream, and they're fishing, and they're walking up, and they're looking at this really pretty blue water.

And they're walking up the river and looking for a fish, and they looked down and they see this fish.

And that fish looks up at him.

He speaks.

Talks to them.

And that fish starts singing.

And then they start singing him with the fish, and they become one as they traveled together up the stream.

(dramatic music) - [Narrator] Before trains and trucks connected the coast to the desert, there was a river.

And in that river were fish.

There were people who ate the fish, cared for them, and revered them.

They still do.

- My dad was Nez Perce.

My mom was Nez Perce, Yakima.

But I consider myself from the Columbia River, I guess.

And fishermen.

I've been born and raised a fisherman as a child and watching my parents fish.

A lot of our fish is food fish.

We're not a sport fishery.

We're food gatherers.

- He cleans them, but I'll filet.

I'm particular like that.

I'll admit it.

I have a certain way I like to have things done and put away correctly.

(wind swooshes) Okay, start with five.

I think it was around eight when I first started being able to cut.

When you think about traditional teaching for natives, it wasn't like the square European school setting where you read it and do it, you know, take a test on it.

It's just watching and watching.

And then when you feel that you're ready, then they'll let you.

And so I was around eight, and then I just was like well, I want to try, you know?

So they gave me a knife and start cutting.

I always look for the fish that have no blemishes or bruises.

So there's a clean cut, and it's pretty.

Our wind dried salmon, it's the oldest processing that we have.

It hasn't changed from forever, you know?

And traditionally our tribes went down to the mouth of the Columbia and traded for salt, and the salt was to cure the fish, and the wind dried it.

And it's the best way to preserve it, you know?

You don't need jars or anything to store it.

And it's, it's so good.

(light music) - [Narrator] Salmon have fed the Northwest for millions of years.

They evolved to eat mainly in the salty ocean where food is plentiful, but spawn in freshwater streams where predators that might eat their young aren't.

Every year the bodies of migrating salmon bring a huge influx of nutrients from the ocean to the land, feeding animals, plants, and the next generation of salmon.

Earthquakes, eruptions, landslides, and glaciers change the landscape.

But salmon always found their way back.

And when people eventually arrived, they found the salmon.

- Before Indian people were ever part of the Columbia basin, there was a great council, and the creator asked all the different animals, you know, what they could do to help this new, new creature to survive 'cause it would come to this landscape.

It wouldn't know how to feed itself, you know?

It would need to know sort of the order of how it needed to coexist within the ecosystem.

Salmon was the first animal to stand up and, you know, offer itself.

When it, what it said was, you know, I offer my body for sustenance for these new people.

I'll go to far off places, and I'll bring back gifts to the people.

My requests are that they allow me to return to the place that I was born.

And also as I do these things for people I'll lose my voice, and that their role is gonna speak up for me in the times that I can't speak for myself.

There is a lot of indigenous knowledge within the landscape here in the Columbia River.

I mean you don't live in a place for 16,000 years without learning something, and you don't live in a place for 16,000 years by messing it up.

- [Narrator] By some estimates, the Columbia once held runs of tens of millions of salmon a year.

They reached as far as inland Canada and Idaho.

Individual fish could weigh up to a 100 pounds each.

As settlers made their home in the Pacific Northwest that changed.

Large-scale fisheries and canneries weakened the runs, and dams changed the river.

(dynamite bangs) (water splashes) Today, fish ladders and hatcheries help support salmon runs and the people who depend on them, but just a fraction of the fish return.

Scientists with the tribes and state keep track.

- We're taking genetic samples to give us an idea of, you know, what the run composition is.

So we can identify which hatchery that fish may have came from, or in some cases, you know, what system or a particular population that fish came from.

And, you know, in some cases they can tell you who the parents were of that fish.

And even some cases they can tell you who the grandparents were of that fish.

You know age composition can give you some ideas about what's gonna happen with their progeny the next couple of years.

- [Narrator] These measurements help predict salmon runs, which in turn helps set limits on how many fish can be safely caught and when.

Many Northwest salmon are caught in the ocean, but there would be no ocean fish without the river fish.

- The Columbia River, I mean, is probably one of the bigger arteries of salmon production in the Pacific Ocean.

You know a lot of our wealth was accumulated from having abundant salmon runs.

Celilo Falls was considered for a lot of the tribes as the Wall Street of the Pacific Northwest.

- Everybody who went there or was there created their best to take the river to trade 'cause we're salmon people.

The dried fish is a great commodity, you know, and I'm always thankful that I was taught well.

(gentle music) The two big trade items that people went to the river for was the beads and the fish.

And so when we opened our store, I was like beads and fish.

Let's do it.

The sale of fish is something that our people have always done.

You know the market of fish, whether you're catching it to sell or trade or subsistence, ceremonial, or commercial, we're just continuing the practice at another level.

(upbeat music) - [Narrator] In 1855, tribes in the Pacific Northwest ceded lands in treaties with the US government.

But they reserved the right to fish at their usual and accustomed places.

And the government accepted a trust responsibility to ensure the health and livelihood of the tribes.

Court cases in the 1960s and 1970s affirmed these rights and specified that tribal fishers were entitled to 50% of the harvestable fish in the Columbia.

Today, these legal obligations are crucial to the livelihood of people who depend on salmon, but the salmon runs continue to struggle.

- We're fighting for our food.

We're not fighting just for the commercial fishery.

We're fighting for families to have food at home.

They have that trust responsibility.

They have clean water to have fish return.

So we have our foods.

- Let us fish.

Let us practice our treaty rights on the Columbia River.

(light music) - [Narrator] On a different river closer to the city, tribes are taking the lead to help salmon and the communities that depend on it.

(singing in Chinuk Wawa) - There's so much stuff here that needs to be cleaned up.

Getting all this stuff out of here.

And so things aren't going into the river.

Just that alone is gonna, gonna help the fish.

We used to have a village just not a few 100 feet from here.

So our chiefs that were here and the villages that were here been taking care of these Falls since time immemorial, since they were created.

- [Narrator] What most recently was an abandoned paper mill will be a cultural center, improved fish habitat, and fishing grounds.

- The main reason we're here is to be able to fish, you know?

Just to be able to provide those fishes for our ceremonies, it's kind of a big deal.

You know we're doing that for, for all our people and well, whatever happens down river affects us.

Whatever happens here affects our relatives up river.

And so we all got to be on the same page to take, take care of these fish.

(debris crashes) Our bodies, our DNA, it knows this fish.

- Whoever works with fish, you know, whoever works with food, it's important to be happy.

The old saying don't cook when you're mad, you know?

That's true in every culture, you know, 'cause we are putting yourself into what you're creating for somebody to eat, you know?

And if you don't have those feelings and thoughts and prayers of thankfulness, you could hurt someone.

You know you can make them sick.

So it's really important to, to be happy.

- That food is goes into your body, and it goes into your soul.

So that's that spirit that comes in.

That Wy Kan Ush it provides for us.

We can at least provide for the spirit, right?

- [Narrator] If we are what we eat and what we eat is of a place, then we are that place.

Its health is our health.

It's future, our future.

(birds chirp) (light music)