Out on the water, James Rideout thinks about his parents. When he was a child they would leave at night to fish, and he would cry because he missed them.
At the time it was illegal for tribal members to fish off the reservation but that did not stop them.
“Without our salmon, there is no us,” says Rideout, now a member of the Puyallup Tribal Council.
On the banks of the Puyallup River, Ramona Bennett remembers the violent struggle by her people to defend their treaty fishing rights against hundreds of law-enforcement officers.
Fifty years ago next month, federal Judge George Boldt affirmed those rights in a landmark decision. But the tribes’ struggle didn’t end — it changed.
“If you don’t have a right to harvest, you have no voice in protecting,” says Bennett, now 85.
Today, tribes work with the state of Washington to sustain and restore salmon runs. They struggle against environmental change, loss of salmon habitat and competition with seals and sea lions, but press on to save salmon and practice their treaty rights.
“There’s more to it than just reserving the right to fish. It’s about preservation of our identity as a people,” says Scott Schuyler, a policy representative for the Upper Skagit Indian Tribe. He slides thick cuts of salmon onto wooden stakes for roasting over an open fire, and recalls how his ancestors gave up almost everything except for their hunting, gathering and fishing rights — critical elements to sustaining their culture.
“The fact that we have a seat at the table, it basically will ensure that these fish will survive,” he says. “And in a sense, we will, too.”
Watch the full film “A voice for the salmon: Fifty years after the Boldt decision” above.
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