May 3 – 4, 2022
A warm thank you to everyone who helped make our 2022 Bringing the Salmon Home Festival such a success. Over 1000 people registered for our two days of free online events. You can still watch and enjoy these diverse presentations from knowledge keepers, artists, musicians, biologists, elders and youth.
Just click the WATCH NOW link for any event you want to see, below.
Source of the River: Opening Welcome
The Bringing the Salmon Home Festival expresses the power of salmon to unite and mobilize our diverse communities to bring salmon back to the upper Columbia River. Drumbeats from within each Nation carry this message, with songs, prayers and stories rippling out from the Columbia’s headwaters to the mouth of the river and beyond. Join leaders of the Syilx Okanagan, Ktunaxa and Secwépemc Nations, federal and provincial representatives, and elders and young people as we celebrate the opening of this year’s festival.
Host: Mark Thomas
The Bringing the Salmon Home Festival expresses the power of salmon to unite and mobilize our diverse communities to bring salmon back to the upper Columbia River. Drumbeats from within each Nation carry this message, with songs, prayers and stories rippling out from the Columbia’s headwaters to the mouth of the river and beyond. Join leaders of the Syilx Okanagan, Ktunaxa and Secwépemc Nations, federal and provincial representatives, and elders and young people as we celebrate the opening of this year’s festival.
Host: Mark Thomas
Research to Reintroduction: Fish Passage Progress
Salmon reintroduction in the upper Columbia River is highly complex. Our collective challenge is to heal a river system that is impacted by hydro-electric dams, habitat disruption, climate change, development and industrial exploitation on both sides of the Canada-USA border. There are 14 large mainstem dams on the river; most dams in the upper Columbia currently lack fish passage. Eighty years of blocked fish passage cannot be repaired overnight or with short-term, conventional or siloed thinking. Learn about how, working across five governments and with counterparts in the US, committed collaboration can lead to innovation, alignment and durable solutions. This event includes a look at the historic distribution of salmon runs in the upper Columbia, an overview of our current research studies, and the vital contributions US Tribes are making to salmon reintroduction.
Host: Misun Kang
Salmon reintroduction in the upper Columbia River is highly complex. Our collective challenge is to heal a river system that is impacted by hydro-electric dams, habitat disruption, climate change, development and industrial exploitation on both sides of the Canada-USA border. There are 14 large mainstem dams on the river; most dams in the upper Columbia currently lack fish passage. Eighty years of blocked fish passage cannot be repaired overnight or with short-term, conventional or siloed thinking. Learn about how, working across five governments and with counterparts in the US, committed collaboration can lead to innovation, alignment and durable solutions. This event includes a look at the historic distribution of salmon runs in the upper Columbia, an overview of our current research studies, and the vital contributions US Tribes are making to salmon reintroduction.
Host: Misun Kang
Salmon Dinner Social
Food always tastes better when shared with friends and family. You are invited to make dinner before this online gathering and then enjoy your meal along with an engaging cultural program of stories, poetry, and music shared by Secwépemc, Syilx Okanagan and Ktunaxa Nation artists. Prizes too!
We encourage you to include wild Pacific salmon in your menu. Here’s a link to the video of our Salmon Chef event last year for recipe inspiration. If you’re in the Okanagan, you can also get Indigenous-caught canned or frozen sockeye salmon from the Syilx Nation’s Okanagan Select store in West Kelowna. See this link for Okanagan Select recipes and info.
Host: Valerie Michel
Food always tastes better when shared with friends and family. You are invited to make dinner before this online gathering and then enjoy your meal along with an engaging cultural program of stories, poetry, and music shared by Secwépemc, Syilx Okanagan and Ktunaxa Nation artists. Prizes too!
We encourage you to include wild Pacific salmon in your menu. Here’s a link to the video of our Salmon Chef event last year for recipe inspiration. If you’re in the Okanagan, you can also get Indigenous-caught canned or frozen sockeye salmon from the Syilx Nation’s Okanagan Select store in West Kelowna. See this link for Okanagan Select recipes and info.
Host: Valerie Michel
Remembering the Way to Bring the Salmon Home
Since time immemorial, Indigenous Nations and Tribes gathered peacefully each year at major fishing sites such as Kettle Falls and Celilo Falls along the Columbia River. Though dammed waters now drown these places, Indigenous peoples still gather along the banks of the river every year to honour the spirit of the salmon and to call them home. Salmon are central to Syilx, Secwépemc, Ktunaxa and US Columbia River Tribal relations’ well-being, culture, spirituality, sustenance, trade and livelihoods. In this session, Indigenous scholars and knowledge keepers discuss the responsibilities and expectations of visitors and respectful ways of upholding cross-Nation and intercultural relations. By working together with greater understanding and respect, we can fulfill our shared responsibilities to the salmon and ensure they return for the generations to come.
Host: Troy Hunter
Since time immemorial, Indigenous Nations and Tribes gathered peacefully each year at major fishing sites such as Kettle Falls and Celilo Falls along the Columbia River. Though dammed waters now drown these places, Indigenous peoples still gather along the banks of the river every year to honour the spirit of the salmon and to call them home. Salmon are central to Syilx, Secwépemc, Ktunaxa and US Columbia River Tribal relations’ well-being, culture, spirituality, sustenance, trade and livelihoods. In this session, Indigenous scholars and knowledge keepers discuss the responsibilities and expectations of visitors and respectful ways of upholding cross-Nation and intercultural relations. By working together with greater understanding and respect, we can fulfill our shared responsibilities to the salmon and ensure they return for the generations to come.
Host: Troy Hunter
Expressions of Our Relationships with Salmon
This event highlights reconnecting with Indigenous practices, technologies, and value systems in salmon harvesting and food preparation. Specific technologies can include baskets, mats, fish traps, hooks, canoes, drying, and pit cooking.
Host: Pauline Terbasket
This event highlights reconnecting with Indigenous practices, technologies, and value systems in salmon harvesting and food preparation. Specific technologies can include baskets, mats, fish traps, hooks, canoes, drying, and pit cooking.
Host: Pauline Terbasket
Reflections
The persistent vision and commitment of past and current generations continues to motivate the movement to return salmon to the upper Columbia River. It will take decades more of sustained collaborative effort to ensure success. Join us for closing reflections of hope and guidance from Nation leaders, youth, elders and knowledge keepers.
Host: Rosalie Yazzie
The persistent vision and commitment of past and current generations continues to motivate the movement to return salmon to the upper Columbia River. It will take decades more of sustained collaborative effort to ensure success. Join us for closing reflections of hope and guidance from Nation leaders, youth, elders and knowledge keepers.
Host: Rosalie Yazzie
