Bringing Salmon Home to the Columbia River

The Columbia River was once the source of the greatest salmon runs in the world. Millions of life-giving sockeye and giant chinook swam upriver to spawn each year.

The Columbia’s headwaters are in British Columbia. The upper 40 per cent of the river winds through the province before entering the U.S. in Washington state and emptying into the Pacific in Oregon.

An epic 2,000-kilometre journey.

But massive dams, beginning with Grand Coulee in Washington, have blocked salmon from returning to the headwaters of the Columbia River for almost a century. In the 1960s, under the Columbia River Treaty, more dams were built without consultation with our Indigenous nations on our unceded territories in B.C.

The dams and the hydroelectric power they created lit up the West and made governments and utility companies rich on both sides of the border. But the ongoing losses to Indigenous nations, tribes and the transboundary ecosystem have been immense.

After years of negotiation to modernize the Columbia River Treaty, an agreement in principle was announced July 11. The Syilx Okanagan, Secwépemc and Ktunaxa asserted our rights to be at the negotiating table this time. Canada and the United States have agreed to incorporate new provisions including to support salmon restoration and ecosystem health.

Under the modernized treaty, the United States and Canada will “form an Indigenous-led advisory body that will provide recommendations on how treaty and other hydrosystem operations can better support ecosystem needs and Indigenous and tribal cultural values. This body will integrate a ‘One River’ approach to ecological health along the Columbia River and adopt an adaptive-management framework.”

Yet recognition of the transboundary One River approach, including more consistent flows for salmon, rings hollow without continued investment in salmon reintroduction by Canada and B.C.

Bringing the Salmon Home: The Columbia River Salmon Reintroduction Initiative, established in 2019, continues the long-standing collaborative work of the Syilx Okanagan, Secwépemc and Ktunaxa nations to bring salmon back to the upper Columbia.

Though our peoples have been divided by colonial boundaries, the salmon know no borders.

This is a continuation of our work through the decades, along with U.S. tribes, in a One River cultural process to return the salmon.

It is our sacred responsibility.

Every year since the salmon stopped returning, we’ve gathered on the banks of the Columbia in ceremonies to call the salmon home.

Our work combines Indigenous knowledge and western science and a strong cultural foundation. The Bringing the Salmon Home initiative stands as a model of success for Indigenous-led ecosystem stewardship.

We have the track record, and the technology — such as the Whooshh system and “trap and haul” — available to deliver fish passage both down- and upriver. Through our combined efforts, salmon are swimming today in the upper Columbia system in Canada.

The fish are coming home.

In July, over 756,000 adult sockeye salmon were recorded in the biggest return to the Columbia River in recent years. Some three-quarters of all sockeye entering the Columbia originate from the Syilx Okanagan Nation’s conservation fisheries program.

The largest run in the whole system.

In another historic achievement, tagged salmon fry from the Okanagan hatchery that were released in the upper Columbia River in Canada in 2019 made it downriver through the gauntlet of dams and matured in the ocean, and several were detected returning as adults into the Columbia in July 2023. Our salmon reintroduction studies are continuing to monitor recent releases of both salmon fry and adult fish in the upper Columbia.

These are phenomenal outcomes. Compelling proof that we can bring the salmon back.

Yet government funding for the work of the Bringing the Salmon Home initiative runs out in March 2025.

Bringing the salmon back takes more than project funding that lasts just the single life cycle of a salmon. This is generational work that requires sustaining funding for decades to come.

The rewards will be great.

The U.S. government recently committed to contributing over $1.2 billion over the next 20 years to tribal-led salmon reintroduction on the American side of the Columbia River.

But salmon reintroduction on this transboundary river can’t be accomplished by one country alone. It’s time for the governments of B.C. and Canada to step up with substantial contributions to support our initiative’s long-term efforts.

We must do equal work in parallel on our end of the river.

We are all already invested in, and need to continue to build on, partnership with the U.S. tribes and governments — including through the Columbia River Treaty — to ensure successful salmon reintroduction, flow management and fish passage.

We call on B.C. and Canada to provide the Bringing the Salmon Home initiative with the sustaining core funding required to support the Indigenous-led reintroduction work that will ensure adequate salmon stocks return to the Canadian portion of the Columbia River system.

We propose a phased funding commitment for a minimum of 20 years, to maintain work in complement with U.S. tribal-led salmon reintroduction programs.

Investing in the Indigenous-led Bringing the Salmon Home initiative for salmon reintroduction and ecosystem restoration in the upper Columbia will provide improved food security and social, cultural and economic benefits for everyone.

It benefits the entire Pacific salmon ecosystem, fisheries and communities.