How First Nations Are Bringing Salmon Back After 85 Years
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📰 The quick summary: First Nations in British Columbia are leading ceremonial salmon fry releases and a formal reintroduction initiative to bring salmon back to the Upper Columbia River, where the species has been absent for over 85 years due to dam construction.
📈 One key stat: More than half of the Columbia River’s length was cut off from salmon when the Grand Coulee Dam was built in 1938 without fish passage, a loss that technical studies now show can be partially reversed through active reintroduction efforts.
💬 One key quote: “We need to make sure that we’re creating that pathway for the [salmon], that we’re setting that good foundation for them to find their way home,” said Vickie Thomas, the Ktunaxa Nation representative on the Bringing the Salmon Home initiative’s Indigenous knowledge counsel.
1️⃣ The big picture: For more than 85 years, salmon have been absent from the Upper Columbia River in British Columbia, blocked by dams built without fish passage, most notably the Grand Coulee Dam completed in 1938. The loss devastated Indigenous nations who had depended on salmon for food, culture, and identity for millennia. Now, three First Nations, the Secwépemc, Syilx-Okanagan, and Ktunaxa, are leading a formal reintroduction effort called Bringing the Salmon Home, launched in 2019 in partnership with the governments of British Columbia and Canada. Through ceremonial fry releases, Fish-in-Schools programs, hatchery development, and technical studies, these nations are rebuilding both salmon populations and the cultural connections that go with them. Experimental releases have already shown promising results, with tagged sockeye smolts successfully navigating downstream to the ocean and two returning adults detected near Washington state.
2️⃣ Why is this good news: Technical studies confirm that salmon reintroduction to the Upper Columbia Basin is feasible, giving a science-backed foundation to what Indigenous nations have long known to be possible. Experimental releases have already produced real results, including two sockeye that completed the full life cycle by returning as adults after being released as juveniles upstream. In the Okanagan subbasin, the Syilx-Okanagan Nation has already demonstrated that rebuilding salmon runs is achievable, having successfully restored populations there over the past 25 years through hatchery programs, habitat improvements, and ceremony. Restoring salmon to the Upper Columbia also brings broader ecological benefits, since the cold headwater habitats in Canada are critical refuges that support salmon throughout the entire river system in a warming climate. Beyond ecology, the initiative is rebuilding cultural knowledge and intergenerational connections, with young Indigenous people training as salmon warriors and junior salmon chiefs to carry these traditions forward.
3️⃣ What’s next: The initiative needs to scale up releases from tens of thousands of fish to millions to give smolts a realistic chance of surviving ocean migration. Fish passage solutions at both US and Canadian dams remain the single biggest infrastructure challenge, with trap-and-haul technology already operating at the Chief Joseph Dam on the US side. Building up broodstock genetic lines from spawners in the Upper Columbia Basin is also a priority, and the three First Nations along with the governments of British Columbia and Canada are actively working on both fronts.
Read the full story here: Mongabay – First Nations lead the return of salmon to Canada’s Upper Columbia River
