Wild Salmon & Steelhead News

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Wild Salmon & Steelhead News is published monthly by the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition. Read on to learn about the Columbia-Snake River Basin’s endangered wild salmon and steelhead, the many benefits they deliver to people and ecosystems, and the extinction crisis they face today - unless we act! Find out how SOS is helping lead efforts to restore health, connectivity, and resilience to the rivers and streams these fish depend upon in the Columbia-Snake Basin and how you can get involved to help restore healthy, abundant, and harvestable populations and sustain more just and prosperous communities. To learn more and/or get involved, contact Martha Campos.

Table of Contents

1. Speak up for salmon: Urge your member of Congress to fund Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead restoration
2. Join these upcoming events - virtual and in-person!
3. Introducing NextGen Salmon Collective: Empowering Youth Advocacy for Columbia-Snake River Basin Restoration.
4. Art makes advocacy stronger - more memorable. Enter NWAAE / SOS' 2024 poster competition!
5. SOS supports Upper Columbia River Tribes’ leadership to reintroduce salmon in blocked areas.
6. Get that GIVING feeling - to restore salmon and their rivers!
7. Salmon media round-up.

1. Speak up for salmon: Urge your member of Congress to fund Columbia Basin salmon and steelhead restoration.

TAKE ACTION: Call on Northwest members of Congress to secure funding to rebuild healthy, abundant salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia River Basin, including funding for critical projects in the Mid-Columbia River.

The Columbia River Basin Restoration Agreement was announced in December 2023 by the Biden Administration and the 'Six Sovereigns' (Four Tribes – the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation, and Nez Perce Tribe – and two states, Oregon and Washington). In addition to creating the path to restore the lower Snake River and replace its dams’ services, this historic Agreement identifies a set of high-impact, high-priority projects to advance salmon recovery and protect and restore their habitats in the Snake and Columbia rivers and their tributaries in the Mid-Columbia River region.

Implementation of the U.S. Government's commitments in the Agreement will bring more than $1 billion in new federal investments to the Northwest over the next ten years to support salmon restoration, expand clean energy production, and modernize other critical services—including transportation, recreation, and irrigation—that are important to the region. These investments provide an opportunity to significantly advance salmon recovery in a manner that moves everyone forward together. These are an important first steps. Additional funding and new policy will be needed in the coming years to better meet the needs of salmon and rebuild healthy, abundant and fishable populations.

Right now, we have a window of opportunity to secure additional investments to help advance this historic Agreement.

TAKE ACTION TODAY!

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2. Join these upcoming events - virtual and in-person!

Thanks to everyone who has attended various events to build awareness and momentum to rebuild salmon and steelhead abundance in the Columbia-Snake Basin. Read on for reflections from recent events and to learn about upcoming events that you can attend virtually or in-person!

A) An Evening of Music inspired by the poetry anthology of 'I Sing the Salmon Home'

Last month, Bushwick Book Club Seattle and Empty Bowl Press hosted an evening of original music inspired by the poetry anthology - I Sing The Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State (Empty Bowl Press, 2023), edited by Rena Priest.

Save Our wild Salmon was honored to attend and host a table at the event. The evening was filled with amazing music that moved the audience to tears and laughter and spurred everyone to reflect on the special gift that salmon are and our connection to them. Great thanks to all the musicians who sang and played beautifully: Leah Walters, Shaun Crawford, Mark Ippolito, Alexis, Mägi Ensemble, LaVon Hardison, High Turnover, Christine Gunn, Jess Pillay, and Shelby Natasha. You can watch a recording of this special evening here:

Watch the event recording

B) 'Snake River Dinner Hour' - March and April:

SOS and Snake River Dinner Hour partners thank you for participating in our recent webinars! We hope you will join us again on the May 14 Snake River Dinner Hour webinar: Salmon & Grain: How to keep our plates full, responsibly. RSVP here.

In the March Snake River Dinner Hour: Culture + Recreation + Ecology = benefits of a restored lower Snake River, we were honored to have the following guests share their thoughts and advice about plans now underway to restore the lower Snake River, including honoring and protecting Tribal cultural sites and relationships in their traditional lands, as well as investing in new outdoor recreational opportunities, ecosystem and habitat improvements in a manner that can deliver significant economic benefits locally and across the Northwest region.

Nakia Williamson, Cultural Resources Director of the Nez Perce Tribe
Kayeloni Scott, NW Communications Director, American Rivers
Lauren McCullough, Operations Manager at OARS Dories
Libby Tobey, Grand Salmon Expedition Member and Legislative Fellow at Idaho Conservation League
Trey Carskadon, Public Relations Director for O'Loughlin Trade Shows and President of NSIA.

Watch the March Webinar recording!

This month, we were grateful to hear from the following guests in the Snake River Dinner Hour: Clean energy + a restored lower Snake River = a more vibrant Northwest, about the ways we can effectively replace the four dams’ energy services in a manner that prioritizes tribal-led clean energy programs, improves the region's power system resilience and reliability, provides stability for communities, and recovers salmon and steelhead.

Alyssa Macy, CEO of Washington Conservation Action and Citizen of the Warm Springs Tribe, Oregon
Robert E. Morris, Power System Consultant, Lance Energy Chair at Montana Technological University, and technical advisor for the Nez Perce Tribe
Chantel Greene, Founder & CEO of Xexus Greene Energy, LLC., and Nez Perce Tribal member
Senator Rebecca Saldaña, Washington State Senate Deputy Majority Leader representing the 37th Legislative District

Watch the April Webinar recording!

We're incredibly thankful to our Snake River Dinner Hour guest speakers for their leadership and for informing us about actions and urgent next steps to restore a free-flowing lower Snake River.

Washington and Oregon Residents Action Alert - Contact your governor today! In association with the Dinner Hour, we're encouraging Washington and Oregon residents to contact Governors Inslee (WA) and Kotek (OR) to continue their strong leadership to rebuild salmon abundance, restore a free-flowing lower Snake River, and invest in reliable, affordable and fish-friendly energy in the region.

Join the next Snake River Dinner Hour webinar: Salmon & Grain: How to keep our plates full, responsibly on May 14 at 6:00-7:00 pm PT via Zoom!

'Snake River Dinner Hour' is brought to you by American Rivers, Washington Conservation Action, Idaho Conservation League, Sierra Club, and the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition.

C) COMING APRIL 24: Voices for the West: At the Intersection of Art and Activism (Virtual)

Creativity bears a unique power, capable of rendering our world in terms that can inspire movement. Today, in the face of twin climate and biodiversity crises, and ever-increasing threats to humans from environmental degradation, artists wield a powerful tool to bring about change by raising new awareness, engaging people at a deeper level, and inspiring action.

Join the Voices for the West: At the Intersection of Art and Activism webinar by Advocates for the West on April 24 to discuss the intersection of the arts and environmental activism with panelists:

Rachel Teannalach, landscape painter and Northwest Artist Against Extinction collaborative artist
Miguel Almeida, illustrator and muralist
M Acuff, artist and a Professor of Art at Whitman College
Britt Freda, artist and Creative Director at Northwest Artists Against Extinction

D) COMING MAY 7: NW Energy Coalition’s 'Clean & Affordable Energy Conference' (Boise, ID)

Don’t miss the Clean & Affordable Energy Conference, hosted by the NW Energy Coalition on May 7 in Boise, Idaho! Network with peers in the clean energy community and hear from experts on the pressing energy issues in our region. The conference’s panel discussions will cover a range of Northwest energy topics:

Affordable, reliable energy services and Columbia Basin salmon recovery
Ensuring new electricity markets and transmission upgrades benefit Northwest communities
Protecting customers and communities as the region decarbonizes

E) COMING JUNE: Book Release - 'Big River: Resilience and Renewal in the Columbia Basin'

Join us in celebrating the latest project from our partners at Braided River Publishing – Big River: Resilience and Renewal in the Columbia Basin! This breathtaking book includes work by photographer David Moskowitz and writer Eileen Delehanty Pearkes. This book release and public event series in the Northwest will kick off in early June.

The Columbia River Basin spans 1,200 miles through seven states and one Canadian province, and includes the ancestral lands of many Indigenous Nations. Big River: Resilience and Renewal in the Columbia Basin explores the challenges and opportunities today around people, water, salmon, agriculture, energy, and climate demands with the need for a sustainable and living river.

SOS is thrilled to be a supporter of this upcoming book that deeply illuminates the natural history, hydrogeology, beauty, and human relationships in the Columbia River watershed, while also highlighting the challenges facing the region and the people working on sustainable solutions.

The book release of Big River is June 1, 2024! In the meantime, we hope you join us in perusing the Big River website to learn more about the book, view stunning photos from the book, save the dates for upcoming events, and more:

Big River: Resilience and Renewal in the Columbia Basin website

Book Supporters: Port Gamble Sklallam Tribe, Squaxin Island Tribe, Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, Tulalip Tribe, Wildsight, Save Our wild Salmon Coalition, Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative, ArtsFund, The Pendleton and Elisabeth Carey Miller Charitable Foundation, and The Hugh and Jane Ferguson Foundation

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3. Introducing NextGen Salmon Collective: Empowering Youth Advocacy for Columbia-Snake River Basin Restoration.

NextGen Salmon Collective’s new logo was designed by NWAAE artist Jillian Kelly.

Are you a young person eager to advocate for a healthier, more resilient and sustainable Columbia-Snake River Basin? Or perhaps you know a student who is passionate about environmental justice? Please share this opportunity with them!

Save Our wild Salmon is launching a youth-centered leadership network called the NextGen Salmon Collective. We're building on our commitment to support and empower a vibrant community of young advocates based in the Northwest to help defend and protect our region's endangered salmon and orcas. Our mission is to foster meaningful connections, provide educational resources, facilitate mentorship, and offer logistical support for youth-led initiatives.

The next generation of environmental stewards is already here, and we want to work with you to help safeguard the future of Columbia River Basin salmon and all the species that depend on them.

To kick off the NextGen Salmon Collective, Save Our wild Salmon is looking for up to three youth organizing interns to begin organizing this summer. This team-based, structured internship will support passionate and creative students to educate, inspire and mobilize peers to protect and restore healthy habitat and resilient rivers in the Columbia-Snake Basin.

APPLY HERE BY MAY 17

Contact Abby at abby@wildsalmon.org with questions!

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4. Art makes advocacy stronger - more memorable. Enter NWAAE / SOS' 2024 poster competition!

In a recent meeting of Northwest Artists Against Extinction (NWAAE), we talked about the “why” of 'artful advocacy'. Art can offer an alternative approach – a deeper invitation into the intersections of science, history, policy, and culture through the use of aesthetic and creative visuals and narratives. Through NWAAE, art is helping us to reach, in new and profound ways, the people and policymakers who are making important decisions affecting the health of our communities, land, waters - and our future.

In the past several years, exhibits and events we organized with, for example, University of Puget Sound and Patagonia Seattle, inspired a different kind of conversation between educators, scientists, students, tribal members, and others who were especially drawn in because of powerful art and inspiring visual artists and writers. More than a few times, while listening to poetry and/or immersed in an exhibit, people have been visibly moved to tears. These kinds of deep emotional experiences and learning can become anchored in one’s memory and body. These kinds of connections can inspire change and shift trajectories.

We all recognize that change can be hard. At the very least, change requires learning, energy, and effort. All too often in our world today, talk of change comes with messages of fear. At NWAAE, we believe in heartful connections centered on hope, respect, honor, and beauty, with the aim of inspiring individual transformation and a community-based movement toward a healthier, more equitable and sustainable future.

The collaborative, supportive, and coordinated work of SOS, NWAAE, and many individuals, organizations, and Nations are making a difference today. With Tribes in the lead, Pacific Northwest people and the Biden Administration are making historic progress today. Powerful decision-makers are leaning in unprecedented ways today to recover endangered salmon, right historic wrongs, and uphold our nation's promises to Northwest Tribes. Working together, we’re taking big steps forward – though we have a lot of hard work still ahead. Time is short and there is so much at stake.

Join us! If you are an artist or know a creative advocate and would like to be a part of the NWAAE collective to defend Northwest salmon and orca and restore the gifts they bring to our communities, there are still a few days left to submit poster artwork for the 2024 poster competition. Deadline is Earth Day, April 22nd.

Submit Your Artwork!

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5. SOS supports Upper Columbia River Tribes’ leadership to reintroduce salmon in blocked areas.

On March 18, Save Our wild Salmon sent a letter co-signed by 18 allied NGOs to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation expressing our strong collective support for the ‘Phase Two Implementation Plan’ (P2IP) – the Tribal led initiative to restore passage and reintroduce salmon into upper reaches of the Columbia River watershed.

Last September, three Upper Columbia River Tribes – Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, Coeur d’Alene Tribe, and Spokane Tribe of Indians – announced an historic agreement with the Biden Administration to restore passage and reintroduce salmon into ancestral habitats from which they have been excluded/extirpated since the construction of dams on the Columbia and Spokane Rivers in north-central Washington State.

When the Nine Mile, Little Falls, and Long Lake dams were completed in the early 1900's, they blocked salmon from returning up the Spokane River. Over the coming decades, the Grand Coulee and Chief Joseph dams downstream on the mainstem Columbia River further entrenched barriers, severing an ancient migratory corridor and access to several thousand miles of highly productive river and stream habitat. This included the legendary “June Hogs” – huge chinook salmon that spawned in the uppermost reaches of this watershed. Building upon several decades of work by these Tribes, the September 2023 settlement agreement secured $200 million from the Bonneville Power Administration to be paid over 20 years to implement Phase 2 of a four-phase plan to restore salmon in the Upper Columbia Basin. For years, these Tribes have been assiduously working to bring back these fish that have been central to their cultures, diets, and economy since time immemorial.

We encourage you to watch this moving 10-minute film, Reconnecting Fish, Water, and People, produced recently by the Upper Columbia United Tribes (UCUT)—sharing how “they are restoring habitat and hope. The hope for a future where salmon, bull trout, and sturgeon, along with all the other native species that historically occupied the upper Columbia, return to healthy and harvestable levels.”

WATCH THE FILM

The Upper Columbia United Tribes (UCUT) takes a proactive, collaborative, and science-based approach to promoting fish, water, wildlife, diverse habitat, and Indian culture in the Northwest. UCUT provides a common voice for the region through the collaboration of five area tribes: the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Kalispel Tribe of Indians, the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho, and the Spokane Tribe of Indians.

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6. Get that GIVING feeling - to restore salmon and their rivers!

Early giving for GiveBIG 2024 is now open!

Save Our wild Salmon is participating in GiveBIG, Washington State's annual nonprofit giving campaign, which is running now through Wednesday, May 8! GiveBIG is an opportunity to participate with others in a movement of generosity, where people of good will come together to invest in our communities. By donating to SOS, you will help advance our work to protect and restore abundant, healthy, and harvestable salmon and steelhead populations to their rivers, streams, and marine waters in the Pacific Northwest.

Your generous support today will help us seize a critical moment of opportunity in 2024 - and leverage the very real momentum today that we've helped create - to advance our program work supporting the leadership of Northwest Tribes; educating, inspiring, and mobilizing citizens; collaborating with stakeholders; and engaging–and pushing on–key policymakers to develop and secure effective, durable solutions for salmon and steelhead, Southern Resident orcas, and our communities.

Thank you, as ever, for your advocacy and generosity in defense of Northwest salmon and the many gifts they offer.

'GIVEBIG' TO SOS HERE!

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7. Salmon media round-up.

Here are a couple of recent stories about the urgency and opportunity today for salmon recovery and river restoration:

Seattle Times: Extinction risk to southern residents orcas accelerating as researchers raise alarm (April 2, 2024)
Seattle Times Op-ed: Reliable energy, healthy salmon runs: The challenges of having it all (March 29, 2024)

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Table of Contents
1. Celebrating the path forward: Ceremonial signing for historic Columbia River Basin Agreement.
2. Good news from the Washington State Legislature for salmon and Snake River restoration!
3. Join these upcoming salmon events (virtual and in-person )!
4. Columbia River paintings by Erik Sandgren at Maryhill Museum of Art, WA
5. Inspire change through art! Enter NWAAE / SOS' 2024 poster competition.
6. SOS staff retreat in Seattle WA!
7. 'Spawning Season' - a poem by Tina Blade.
8. Salmon media round-up.

1. Celebrating the path forward: Ceremonial signing for historic Columbia River Basin Agreement.

On February 23, White House officials celebrated the signing of the Columbia-Snake River Basin Restoration Agreement announced in December with the ‘Six Sovereigns’ (the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation, and Nez Perce Tribe, and states of Washington and Oregon).

This landmark restoration agreement, along with a multi-year stay in Snake River litigation was announced on Dec. 14, 2023, and approved by Judge Michael Simon on Feb. 8, 2024. The agreement includes U.S. Government Commitments based on a comprehensive restoration plan developed by the four lower Columbia River Treaty Tribes with Washington and Oregon. It will direct hundreds of millions of dollars to modernize infrastructure and protect and restore native fish and their habitats in the Snake and Columbia rivers and their tributaries. Planning is now underway to replace the energy, irrigation and transportation services currently provided by the lower Snake River dams as quickly as possible.

Speakers at the ceremonial signing included White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Brenda Mallory; Nez Perce Tribal Chairman Shannon Wheeler; Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation Tribal Council Chair Gerald Lewis; Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation Chair Jonathan W. Smith, Sr.; Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation Board of Trustees Member, Fish and Wildlife Commission Chair, and Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission Chair Corinne Sams; Washington Governor Jay Inslee; Oregon Governor Tina Kotek; and Senior Advisor to the President for Clean Energy Innovation and Implementation John Podesta.

Watch the White House Ceremony

December’s agreement was preceded by a Presidential Memorandum unveiled in September. It established Columbia Basin salmon recovery as a federal priority and directed federal agencies to use all their authorities to protect and restore healthy and abundant wild salmon and steelhead populations across the Columbia-Snake River Basin and to review and update any policies not aligned with that goal.

This celebration in Washington, D.C. was possible thanks to the unwavering leadership of Northwest Tribes who have long advocated for a comprehensive solution to protect salmon from extinction while investing in Northwest communities.

We applaud the Biden administration and the 'Six Sovereigns' for their leadership and partnership to restore Columbia-Snake River Basin salmon and reaching an agreement that will invest in the future for all people of the Pacific Northwest. This agreement is a critical, urgently-needed step forward. It is vital that together, we begin to envision and build a Northwest with a restored, resilient, freely flowing lower Snake River, healthy fish populations, and thriving communities.

Recent media coverage:

Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission: Landmark Agreement Prioritizing the Restoration of Healthy and Abundant Columbia Basin Salmon Populations Formalized by Biden Administration
The Spokesman-Review: A bold blueprint for salmon restoration in the Columbia River Basin puts region on the right course by Emily Washines, board president of Columbia Riverkeeper and Bill Arthur Sierra Club’s Snake/Columbia River Salmon campaign director
POLITICO E&E News: White House celebrates $1B deal to save Columbia River Basin salmon
AP News: White House, tribal leaders hail ‘historic’ deal to restore salmon runs in Pacific Northwest
Seattle Times: PNW tribal nations, states sign historic Columbia Basin agreement with U.S.

Find additional media coverage and more information about the Columbia-Snake River Basin Restoration Agreement here.

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2. Good news from the Washington State Legislature for salmon and Snake River restoration!

© Josh Udesen, Return, 2021, acrylic painting on birch panel, 30" x 60"

On March 6, Save Our wild Salmon Coalition and allied NGOs secured critical funding for a new analysis necessary for advancing salmon recovery in the Snake River. Washington State Legislators approved a 2024-2025 Supplemental Operating Budget including $600,000 to identify and study recreational and conservation opportunities on the lower Snake River region to prepare for a future federal decision to authorize breaching of the four lower Snake River dams, restore the river, uphold our nation’s promises to Tribes, and recover salmon abundance.

Save Our wild Salmon Coalition applauds Governor Inslee for including this proviso in his proposed budget, and the Legislature for ensuring the investment was approved in this year’s final state budget.

This important budget item builds on three similar analyses funded by the Legislature last year to urgently develop plans for replacing the energy, transportation and irrigation services provided today by the lower Snake River dams. Developing this recreation analysis will help inform policymakers and the public on the cultural, recreation, and ecosystem values, improvements and opportunities of a restored lower Snake River.

Funding for this analysis builds new momentum for replacing the services of these four dams and will allow the state to leverage federal cost-share funds from the U.S. Army Corps. This cost-share provision is just one part of the historic December 2023 Columbia Basin Restoration Agreement between the Biden administration and the 'Six Sovereigns' (see story above).

“We know we can replace and modernize the transportation, energy, and irrigation services of the four lower Snake River dams, and we're grateful Washington State began those important planning processes in 2023,” said Tanya Riordan, Policy and Advocacy Director with Save Our wild Salmon Coalition. “This additional recreational analysis will help to identify the cultural, recreation, and ecosystem improvements of a restored lower Snake River, significantly benefiting salmon, people, and communities across the region.”

These four analyses funded in the last two years by the Washington State Legislature, combined with the December USG Agreement, are key steps toward restoring a resilient, freely flowing lower Snake River, healthy fish populations and vibrant communities.

Learn more here:

Press Release: Washington State Legislature Funds Recreational Study Connected to Columbia Basin Restoration

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3. Join these upcoming salmon events (virtual and in-person)!

This year is off to a great start with lots of events and activities to educate, advocate, inspire, and build momentum for restoring the Snake River and endangered salmon and steelhead. Read on for a few reflections from recent events - and join us in upcoming events (in-person and virtual)!

A) Sacred Salmon Town Hall, Seattle WA

Save Our wild Salmon Coalition was honored to participate in the ’Sacred Salmon’ youth workshop and town hall last month that was organized by the Intercommunity Peace & Justice Center (IPJC) based in Washington State. This three-day event was held on the Seattle University campus Feb. 22-24. SOS’ Joseph Bogaard gave a policy presentation to more than 100 attendees - mainly high school students from Catholic high schools in Washington and Oregon. Other speakers and participating NGOs included Julian Matthews, co-founder/director of Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment, and the Reverend A.C. Churchill, executive director of Earth Ministry / Washington Interfaith Power and Light.

Two days of workshops culminated in a public town hall that included staff from the offices of Reps. Pramila Jayapal (WA-7) and Kim Schrier (WA-8). In-district staffer Santos Moreno read a statement on behalf of Congresswoman Jayapal strongly supporting restoring salmon and orca, upholding our nation’s promises to Tribes, and moving forward to implement the Columbia Basin Restoration Agreement and U.S. Government commitments that were announced last December (see stories above).

Read more about the 'Sacred Salmon' workshop/town hall here.
This Earthbeat article highlights the growing engagement and leadership of the Catholic Church in creation care, Indigenous rights and Snake River salmon recovery.

B) 'Snake River Dinner Hour' Webinar Series (Virtual!)

In February, SOS and Snake River Dinner Hour partners launched its first 2024 webinar: Federal actions and commitments to restore Snake River salmon focused on the historic 'USG Commitments Agreement' announced in December 2023. Our guest speakers included: Nez Perce Tribal Council Chairman Shannon Wheeler; Amanda Goodin, supervising senior attorney with Earthjustice’s Northwest office; Ed Bowles, Fish Division Administrator for Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife from 2000 - 2020; Liz Hamilton, executive director for the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association (NSIA) with 'dinner hour' host: Kayeloni Scott, Communications Director at American Rivers, and Spokane Tribal member and Nez Perce descendant

We're thankful to our guest speakers for their leadership and for informing us about the many concrete actions and commitments included in the Agreement and the ways we can support urgently needed next steps. Watch the recording of the first webinar!

Keep an eye out in your inbox for more information and a recording of the March 12th ‘dinner hour’ webinar: Culture + Recreation + Ecology = benefits of a restored lower Snake River.

Join us for the next installments of Snake River Dinner Hour on April 9th and May 14th at 6:00-7:00 pm PT via Zoom!

April 9: Clean energy + a restored lower Snake River = a more vibrant Northwest | Register Here
May 14: Getting grain to ocean ports by rail | Register Here

Click here for more information on the 'Snake River Dinner Hour' webinar series.

'Snake River Dinner Hour' is brought to you by American Rivers, Washington Conservation Action, Idaho Conservation League, Sierra Club, and the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition.

C) March 16, 2024 - An Evening of Music Inspired by I Sing the Salmon Home by Rena Priest (Seattle, WA)

If you happen to be in the greater Seattle area, please join us on Saturday, March 16 at 7:30 pm at Town Hall Seattle (or you can join virtually) for an evening of original music inspired by the poetry anthology published last year - I Sing The Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State (Empty Bowl Press, 2023) by Rena Priest. This event is presented by Bushwick Book Club Seattle and Empty Bowl Press.

Reserve your tickets for March 16 today!

To cap off her storied term as Washington’s sixth State Poet Laureate, Lummi tribal member Rena Priest gathered poems from more than 150 Washington poets—ranging from first graders to Tribal Elders—to celebrate the Northwest’s cherished fish in this singular anthology. Save Our wild Salmon Coalition was honored to be a partner for I Sing the Salmon Home with Ms. Priest and the good people of Empty Bowl Press.

SOS will be in attendance on Saturday and host a table with information about our program work. We hope you will join us for an inspirational gathering centered around art, song, and story—and the diverse ways in which we cherish salmon and orcas.

D) Grab new stickers and posters at SOS' in-person events!

At SOS, in collaboration with Northwest Artists Against Extinction (NWAAE), we're gearing up with new and beautiful materials to share with you this year. Here's a sneak peek of our new SOS and NWAAE stickers with Alyssa Eckert's Salmon Run artwork (also seen here, Run to Extinction, in our most recent poster)! We are so grateful for Alyssa's generosity to share her artwork. The creativity of NWAAE artists helps spread awareness and inspiration to restore a free-flowing Snake River and protect salmon, steelhead, and Southern Resident orcas.

We hope you can attend our in-person events to grab new posters and stickers for yourself and for your friends and family! If you are not in the region, please check out Alyssa Eckert's shop to purchase her artwork and shop at SOS and NWAAE's official Bonfire storefront to purchase t-shirts, sweaters, mugs (and more) featuring artwork from NWAAE collaborative artists.

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4. Columbia River paintings by Erik Sandgren at MaryHill Museum of Art, Washington.

Erik Sandgren is a Northwest Artists Against Extinction collaborating artist whose work has made a big impact on Pacific Northwest visual arts culture. The mountains, skies, water, trees, and the people of the region have provided inspiration for his works which resonate with themes of location, memory, and myth.

Britt Freda, creative director of Northwest Artists Against Extinction, a project of SOS, recently interviewed Erik Sandgren on his upcoming exhibitions: The Columbia River: Wallula to the Sea and King Salmon: Contemporary Relief Prints.

© Erik Sandgren, woodcut Britt Freda: Erik, congratulations on your upcoming exhibitions at Maryhill Museum of Art in Goldendale, WA. The title of the show is The Columbia River: Wallula to the Sea with a companion exhibit King Salmon: Contemporary Relief Prints. Will you explain more about the origins of the exhibits, and how they came to fruition?

Erik Sandgren: This exhibit represents the cultural dynamic and physical realities of the Columbia River from Wallula to the Sea. I’m honored to have been selected to produce work for the show. I have seventeen pieces of the seventy final selections, additional works were commissioned by contemporary artists, and quite a few pieces borrowed from collectors and institutions, as well as from Maryhill’s permanent collection. The diversity makes for an engaging exhibit. It touches on so very many frames of reference.

The companion show comprises contemporary prints representing King Salmon. I’m pleased to be in this one also, with black and white woodcut prints. Together they are the brainchild of Maryhill’s Curator of Art, Steve Grafe. Manifesting his vision over the last decade, these shows respectfully ground the museum collections, exhibits, and programming in the Columbia River Plateau.

The Friday night opening is an RSVP $50 event for non-members. The exhibitions are open all day on Friday until 5:00 and on Saturday until 5:00 too.

BF: You mentioned painting along the Columbia River over a two year period for this exhibit. That sounds like an incredible way to gather source material and inspiration! Say more about that journey and what that creative experience meant for you as an artist, an environmental advocate, and as a human being.

ES: Well, part of the inspiration was in the confidence of the curator to commission work based on his evaluation of my track record as a painter and then NOT stipulate what needed to be painted. I plunged in by visiting places I hadn’t been previously, revisiting some favorite locations. I plagued Astoria historian and songwriter Hobe Ktyr for historical information and we poured over maps and place names as he expanded my acquaintance and corrected my misinformation about the River. Hobe sent me digital versions of Cleveland Rockwell’s gorgeous 19th-century charts with topographical additions, and I began to get a better idea about the lower reaches of the River and all the changes that beavering industry has made to its margins in the last century or so. This was all on top of a couple of decades of painting the Columbia here and there from my perch in Aberdeen, Washington, while delving into Native American cultures and accounts of early [European] settlers.

BF: The exhibit is on view from March 15 - November 15, 2024. Beyond visiting the Maryhill Museum of Art, and spending some contemplative time near the Columbia River, are there other “must-sees” or “must-dos” you recommend people don’t miss while in the area?

ES: Walking about the Klickitat River gorge a couple of miles up from Lyle is always an inspiration for me personally. I also like the trails at Catherine Creek a few miles downriver from Lyle - especially when Camas is in bloom during April. In fact, leaving the River for a few miles inland, by car or foot is always a revelation. Big as it seems, the Columbia River is dwarfed by its drainage. Always a shock to appreciate from up high–the rugged landscapes it traverses. You get an awesome sense of the enormity of the Shield lava flows and the Missoula Flood cataclysms that shaped the landscape we are familiar with in this little spot of time. There’s something for every visitor, from art to wine to sailboarding and many worthwhile historical markers for clues to our collective history. The Gorge Discovery Center and Museum near the Dalles and the Columbia Gorge Interpretive Center near Stevenson provide good context.

Read the full interview on Northwest Artist Against Extinction website

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5. Inspire change through art! Enter NWAAE / SOS' 2024 poster competition.

Inspire change through art! Enter Northwest Artists Against Extinction and Save Our Wild Salmon Coalition’s 2024 Poster Competition. Create something stunning and get it to us before Earth Day (April 22), 2024!

Top designs will be used in NWAAE and SOS promotional materials and posters (similar to our Alyssa Eckert poster seen here). NWAAE and SOS may incorporate poster language that calls for support to restore healthy and abundant salmon, steelhead, and Southern Resident orca populations, including phrases similar, but not limited to: Stop Salmon Extinction, Save the Orca, Protect the Sacred, Honor Treaties, Honor People and Salmon. NWAAE and SOS plan to print a collection of posters to encourage people to 'VOTE in 2024' with consideration for the health of the planet and all the people and species that depend on sustainable ecosystems.

For more details, check us out at nwaae.org/poster2024 and on Instagram @nwartistsagainstextinction. Share the opportunity widely.

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6. SOS staff retreat in Seattle, WA!

Photo 1: The SOS team (Joseph Bogaard, Britt Freda, LeeAnne Beres, Tanya Riordan, Abby Dalke, Marc Sullivan, and Martha Campos) standing behind SOS's new banner. Photo 2: The SOS team enjoys a happy hour with our good friends and coalition members, Abbie Abramovich (Idaho Conservation League), Matt Joyce (NW Energy Coalition), Jacqueline Koch (National Wildlife Federation), and Rein Attemann (Washington Conservation Action).

Gloomy, rainy, and snowy weather couldn’t keep SOS staff from attending a well-needed staff retreat! With SOS staff located around Washington State, Oregon, and California, so we were especially grateful to see each other in person earlier this month. With much enthusiasm, we launched into discussion and planning for our goals for 2024 and beyond, with the ultimate goal of uplifting recent developments to protect and restore the Northwest’s native fish and making new progress toward restoring the lower Snake River and upholding our nation’s promises to the region’s Tribes.

Our two-day retreat started with a celebration of entering a historic and critical new phase in the campaign to support full and timely implementation of the USG Commitments Agreement (see article 1 and article 2) while also making further progress to build public and political support for additional urgent actions needed to rebuild salmon abundance across the Pacific Northwest. We are grateful for your support, active participation, and continuous engagement in moving our elected officials to realize a Pacific Northwest with resilient rivers, abundant fish and wildlife populations, and healthy communities.

The SOS team left the retreat inspired and energized, reflecting on your support, the new ahead, and seeing our good friends and SOS coalition members, Idaho Conservation League, NW Energy Coalition, National Wildlife Federation, and Washington Conservation Action, during a happy hour.

We have critical work ahead of us and time is short. We’re so thankful for your support and advocacy to move our important, collective work forward! Stay tuned for several ways you can be involved this year and reach out for any reason.

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7. Spawning Season, a poem by Tina Blade.

© Sarah Koten, Flow, 2022, oil on canvas 9" x 12"You are built for this
swim up river, over rock
that turns you ugly.
Home is the question
now striking your body's
ancient gong, a beginning
you don’t remember
but can smell in the waters
you move through.

Your answer is pure
effort: a breach, a thrash,
a dog-toothed grin, a bright
slash bent on closing
the distance, your purpose
pressed tight as scales
to tarnished skin.

When you finally arrive, what you are
pours from you—soft, pink beads
roll on the river bottom. Each one
a memory, a mirror, a stopwatch—
the track of every place you’ve been,
the map of where to go
from here.

Tina Blade’s Spawning Season first appeared in Bracken magazine. Blade currently lives in Duvall, Washington, east of Seattle in the Snoqualmie River Valley. Her work has appeared in Apple Valley Review, The Moth, Sweet Tree Review, Pontoon Poetry, Still Point Arts Quarterly, Calyx, Mid-American Review, Menacing Hedge, and elsewhere. A nominee for a 2022 Pushcart Prize, she is currently working on her chapbook, Broken Blue Egg. A special thank you to Tina for sharing her poem with us all!

Do you have a salmon, river, and orca poem or story and would like to have it featured in an upcoming next newsletter? Send it to martha@wildsalmon.org; we'll do our best to include it.

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8. Salmon media roundup.

Here are some recent stories about the urgency and opportunity today for salmon recovery and river restoration:

News:

Seattle Times: PNW tribal nations, states sign historic Columbia Basin agreement with U.S. (February 23, 2024)
E&E News: White House celebrates $1B deal to save Columbia River Basin salmon (February 23, 2024)
AP News: White House, tribal leaders hail ‘historic’ deal to restore salmon runs in Pacific Northwest (February 23, 2024)
Northwest News: Tribes, governments sign historic agreement that's a 'path forward' for salmon, dams (February 23, 2024)

Opinion:

The Spokesman-Review: A bold blueprint for salmon restoration in the Columbia River Basin puts region on the right course by Emily Washines, board president of Columbia Riverkeeper and Bill Arthur Sierra Club’s Snake/Columbia River Salmon campaign director (March 9, 2024)
Everett Herald: Columbia Basin pact will aid salmon, tribes, clean energy by Jacqueline Koch National Wildlife Federation
Idaho Capital Sun: Rewilding the Lower Snake: How cultural values of a free flowing river exceed those of a reservoir by Bert Bowler (February 26, 2024)
Capital Press: Commentary: Let's plan for a transition by Don Schwerin (February 21, 2024)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Endangered Southern Resident calf J60 is missing.
2. Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Boldt Decision.
3. YOU’RE INVITED! Upcoming events near you!
4. 'Building Relationships–that run as deep as a river', an interview with Kate Crump, NWAAE artist.
5. Inspire change through art! Enter NWAAE and SOS' 2024 poster competition.
6. Announcing new Lower Snake River myth busting resources.
7. Snake River and salmon media roundup.

1. Endangered Southern Resident calf J60 is missing.

J60 swims with his orca pod in the Salish Sea after being born in December 2023. (Courtesy of Maya Sears / NMFS Permit #27052)

J60 was first observed as the newest calf born to the endangered Southern Resident orcas in Puget Sound at the end of December 2023. The mother was difficult to determine as he was seen swimming closely with multiple females, but it is believed his probable mother was J42 (Echo), a first-time mom. Since this initial spotting, J60 has been missing from scientists’ recent encounters with other pod members. Given his young age, it is extremely unlikely that J60 was off on his own and orca scientists now believe that J60 is likely deceased.

The mortality rate for young calves, especially those born to first time mothers, is very high for the Southern Residents. Scientists believe this is due to (1) the generally poor nutritional status of Southern Residents and (2) the transfer of high concentrations of toxins from mother to calf during gestation and lactation. The survival and reproduction of the Southern Residents depends heavily upon abundant numbers of large Chinook salmon.

Regardless of whether you have followed the Southern Resident killer whales for many years or are just learning about this incredible and fragile population, learning about the death of a young calf is heart-breaking. The hope and light that a new life brings to people who care and advocate for the whales is difficult to describe.

HERE'S HOW YOU CAN HELP: Contact your member of Congress today and encourage them to support lower Snake River restoration to recover endangered salmon and the communities, wildlife and ecosystems that depend on them.

And here's some scientific resources with further information on the health and reproductive challenges facing the Southern Resident orcas today:

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2. Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Boldt Decision.

"Billy Frank Jr., left, a Nisqually Tribal Elder who was arrested dozens of times while trying to assert his Native fishing rights during the Fish Wars of the 1960s and ’70s, poses for a photo Monday, Jan. 13, 2014, with Ed Johnstone, of the Quinault tribe, at Frank’s Landing on the Nisqually River in Nisqually, Wash. They are holding a photo from the late 1960s of Frank and Don McCloud fishing on the river." (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

February 12th marked the 50th anniversary of the Boldt Decision of 1974, an historic ruling that affirmed Tribal Nations’ fishing rights that were promised in treaties throughout Washington State, recognized Tribes as sovereign nations, and made tribes equal partners with the state to manage salmon and ecosystem resources.

Despite the establishment of treaties between Northwest Tribes and the United States more than 150 years ago, the Treaties' explicitly reserved right of Tribal people to 'fish at usual and accustomed places' was routinely violated by settlers who weren't interested in sharing the fisheries. Tribes were often restricted or altogether prevented from fishing. State agencies would stop tribal members from exercising their fishing rights often by harassing, assaulting and incarcerating them. However, hundreds of tribal members, like Nisqually fishing rights activists Billy Frank Jr. and Janet and Don McCloud protested this injustice and continued fishing despite the violence they faced, prompting a resistance and the beginning of the Fish Wars.

Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) recently reported on an event commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Boldt Decision hosted by Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission (NWIFC). The two-day event provided a historical context of treaty fishing, pre-Boldt, discussed the Fish Wars, and honored the life of dedicated fishing rights activist Billy Frank, Jr. Attendees heard first-hand from Elders, who experienced the Fish Wars. Wilbur Slockish, Jr., a commissioner of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Commission (CRITFC) representing the Yakama Nation, recounted the “three-year federal prison sentence he served after being arrested for ‘illegal’ fishing on the Columbia River before the Boldt decision and the horrors of the federal system.”

“They asked me if I fished illegally. I told them I am only doing what my Creator said to do. He placed our foods here for our use and benefit if we take care of them, and that’s what we try to do to the best of our ability,” said Slockish. “I want people to be mindful and be careful so their children don’t face the same harsh prison conditions. But I would do it again, to protect my foods, our foods. Salmon belongs to all the people on the river. Our foods provide us with clothes, with food and with shelter. Our people were managing these fish and there were millions of fish. I hope we will unite to stop the decimation of our food,” said Wilbur Slockish, Jr.

We encourage you to read the full article from Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission to learn more about the Boldt Decision and hear from tribal members. Below, we have additional articles, videos, and book recommendations to learn more about this historical ruling and its impact on Northwest Tribal Nations.

Articles:

Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission: 50 years of Boldt: Commemorating the historic treaty fishing right court decision (February 12, 2024)
Puyallup Tribe of Indians: Reflecting on 50 years since the Boldt Decision (January 25, 2024)
The Olympian: 50th anniversary of Boldt Decision is a ‘good time to be alive’ for Nisqually community (November 7, 2023) by Willie Frank lll, chairman of the Nisqually Indian Tribe. (PDF)
Seattle Times: How the Boldt decision 50 years ago remade Pacific Northwest fishing (January 14, 2024)
Crosscut: The Boldt Decision’s impact on Indigenous rights, 50 years later (February 12, 2024)
Al Jazeera: Fifty years on, a case to uphold Indigenous rights resonates in the US (February 12, 2024)

Books:

Message from Frank’s Landing by Charles Wilkinson, a book that explores the broad historical, legal, and social context of Native American fishing rights in the Pacific Northwest, providing an account of the people and issues involved, and a focus on Billy Frank Jr and his father and the river flowing past Frank’s Landing.
Treaty Justice: The Northwest Tribes, the Boldt Decision, and the Recognition of Fishing Rights by Charles Wilkinson, a newly published book tells the story of the Boldt Decision against the backdrop of salmon’s central place in the cultures and economies of the Pacific Northwest and weaves definitive accounts of one of the twentieth century’s most important civil rights cases.

Videos:

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3. YOU’RE INVITED! Upcoming events near you!

We invite you to join these upcoming events (in-person and virtual) as we educate, advocate, inspire - and build momentum for restoring the Snake River and its endangered salmon and steelhead. Check out the details below!

Meaningful Movies: Covenant of the Salmon People film screening (Seattle, WA)
When: Saturday, Feb. 17 at 7 - 9 pm.
Where: 6038 South Pilgrim Street Seattle, in Rainier Beach
What: Meaningful Movies will host a Covenant of the Salmon People film screening on Feb. 17. Covenant of the Salmon People is a 60-minute documentary portrait of the Nez Perce Tribe as they continue to carry out their ancient promise to protect Chinook salmon, cornerstone species and first food their people have subsisted on for tens of thousands of years.

Nakia Williamson, the Nez Perce Tribe's Director of Cultural Resources will be featured as a special guest. SOS' executive director Joseph Bogaard will also attend to answer questions about the campaign to restore the river and current state of play.

Questions? Email meaningfulmoviesrainierbeach@gmail.com

'Sacred Salmon Town Hall' At Seattle University (in-person)
When: Saturday, Feb. 24 at 10-11:30 am
Where: Seattle U. Student Center 160, LeRoux Conference Room
What: Stand in solidarity with our community as we raise our collective voices to elected officials to advocate for the respect and upholding or tribal treaties, the preservation and restoration of salmon and our common home, and for the removal of the four lower Snake River dams!

This event is free and open to the public; it is organized by the Inter-community Peace and Justice Council (IPJC). Register here!

'Snake River Dinner Hour' Webinar Series (Virtual!)
When: February, March, April, May 2024, 6:00-7:00 pm PST on the second Tuesday of each month
Where: Virtual via Zoom
What: The 'Snake River Dinner Hour' provides a space for folks to learn more about saving salmon, honoring treaty obligations, and creating solutions for a prosperous Northwest. Join us to participate in civil dialogue as we each bring different opinions and perspectives to the table:

March 12: How to restore a river Register here!
April 9: Clean energy + a restored lower Snake River = a more vibrant Northwest
May 14: Getting grain to ocean ports by rail

Click here for more information on the 'Snake River Dinner Hour' webinar series.

'Snake River Dinner Hour' is brought to you by American Rivers, Washington Conservation Action, Idaho Conservation League, Sierra Club, and the Save Our wild Salmon Coalition.

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4. 'Building relationships that run as deep as a river', an interview with Kate Crump, NWAAE artist.

In addition to being a Northwest Artists Against Extinction collaborative artist, Kate Crump is a fishing guide and lodge owner in Alaska and Oregon. In her continuous fight to protect wild places and wild species, Kate serves on the board of Pacific Rivers and is a member of the North Coast Citizens for Watershed Protection, promoting and protecting healthy watersheds. Her writing has been featured in the Fly Fish Journal, Trout Magazine, Patagonia Fly Fishing catalog, and the Salmon Steelhead Journal.

Britt Freda, creative director of Northwest Artists Against Extinction, a project of SOS, recently interviewed Kate Crump. They had a conversation about her devotion to building deep relationships, not only with rivers and people, but also with the fish and other beings that rely on those healthy ecosystems.

© Kate Crump, From Dream to Hand to Memory, 2023, Acrylic, 18" x 36"

BRITT FREDA: Kate Crump, I wish you and I were wading in Alaska waters, fly rods in hand, and you were giving me tips on my cast. That would be my preferred way to talk through an interview with you! Though the fly fishing version isn’t in the cards today, let's dive into a conversation about your profession, passions and art.

Can we start with profession, passion, and art? Will you tell us about your work, your ongoing relationship with salmon, and how that informs your art practice?

KATE CRUMP: I have been a fly fishing guide in Alaska since 2008 and have been guiding winter steelhead on the north coast of Oregon for many years as well. My husband and I started a small lodge business in Oregon in 2010 based upon wanting to truly share the wildness of the north coast with the guests we fished with in Alaska. We host four guests at a time and have a private chef artfully creating meals from locally purchased ingredients. This has created an extremely fulfilling experience for us and our guests, building relationships that run as deep as a river. In 2021, we bought a lodge in Alaska at our dream location and proceeded to completely remodel all the guest cabins and build a very hip main lodge. We opened The Lodge at 58* North in June 2022 and are getting geared up for our third season this summer. Our chef travels with us to Alaska and helped us build a greenhouse there to provide the freshest ingredients in a harsh climate.

I first came to fishing through Salmon. It was my experience on an Olympic National Park stream watching coho salmon return to their homewaters that lit something inside me. I instinctively knew I wanted to spend the rest of my life pursuing them, being where they are, seeing them up close and personal. At that time, I didn't know that I would ultimately find my life dedicated to helping others with their pursuit of salmon and steelhead.

Kate Crump fishing in Alaska's Bristol Bay. © Jeremy Koreski

I recently read about "eco-anxiety" and kind of eye-rolled at the drama of the term. But after fishing the other day I realized that every day I go out as an angler, I see first hand the trouble our freshwater ecosystems are experiencing and the effects of those troubles upon salmon and steelhead who influence my life like a tide. And so every day I think about how I can affect positive change and all the possibilities to make significant improvements. I often feel discouraged by the lack of connection people have to salmon these days and the lack of action from our legislators.

I really reconnected with art through a friend Peggy Ludington, who specializes in oil painting animals. She encouraged me to paint and using her technique felt very attainable. Of course, the first thing I painted was a fish. And then I kept painting fish. I started to dabble in birds as they are so interconnected with my daily experience on the water and while that has been challenging, it has also very inspiring. It's easy to forget how affected birds are by watershed health.

Most Northwest people are so disconnected from salmon these days they don't even realize how big they are or what they look like or that they change physically after entering their natal stream. These days, pursuing salmon requires a lot of faith and optimism. Reaching into the water and pulling a creature fresh from the ocean whether to eat or just to know it is there is a spiritual endeavor whether one acknowledges that or not. So creating art of salmon and steelhead is such a beautiful way for me to merge the conscious with the spiritual.

Read the full interview on Northwest Artists Against Extinction website

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5. Inspire change through art! Enter NWAAE and SOS' 2024 poster competition.

Inspire change through art! Northwest Artists Against Extinction and Save Our wild Salmon Coalition are thrilled to announce the opening of our 2024 Poster Competition. Open to all artists and all mediums (digital image submission).

Create something stunning and get it to us before Earth Day (April 22), 2024!

For more details, check us out at nwaae.org/poster2024 and on Instagram @nwartistsagainstextinction. Share the opportunity widely.

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6. Announcing new lower Snake River myth busting resources.

Have you heard the flurry of misinformation and disinformation about the Snake River recently? Our team has been working behind the scenes to develop resources to debunk misinformation and myths associated with restoring the lower Snake River, removing its four dams and replacing their services.

We tracked down credible information and statements from experts to help us set the record straight. If you are curious about energy, transportation, and irrigation services provided by the lower Snake River dams (LSRDs), greenhouse gas emissions produced by the reservoirs, the big picture of Snake River Basin salmon returns (not cherry-picked data!), flood control (or the lack thereof), check out our myth busting resources here.

Please share these factsheets broadly, including with your elected officials!

And be on the lookout for social media to share with your network and help us combat misinformation spread by defenders of the failing status quo in the Columbia-Snake River Basin.

Questions? Reach out to Abby Dalke at abby@wildsalmon.org.

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7. Snake River and salmon media roundup.

Here are some recent stories about the urgency and opportunity today for salmon recovery and river restoration:

Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission: 50 years of Boldt: Commemorating the historic treaty fishing right court decision (February 12, 2024)

Earthjustice: Oregon’s U.S. District Court Approves Long-Term Pause of Snake River Litigation, Allowing Columbia River Restoration to Move Forward (February 8, 2024)

Bellingham Alive!: Since Time Immemorial | Cyaltsa April Finkbonner (February 1, 2024)
By Julie Trimingham, an interview with Cyaltsa April Finkbonner is a member of the Lummi Nation, a multimedia artist, journeyman ironworker, and NWAAE collaborative artist.

Lewiston Morning Tribune: Dam deal’s in eye of beholder (January 31, 2024)

Idaho Capital Sun: Let the Sockeye swim: How a program of the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes aims to help save Idaho salmon (January 29, 2024) by guest columnist Pat Ford.

Yakima Herald Guest Commentary: Columbia-Snake agreement charts the course to a clean-energy future by Nancy Hirsh, executive director of the NW Energy Coalition.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Happy New Year – and thank you for your generous year-end support!
2. Historic agreement creates path to rebuild Columbia Basin salmon, honor our nation's promises to Tribes, and prepare for Snake River dam removal.
3. Welcome J60 – newborn J Pod orca calf!
4. Not Mars! Patagonia hosts inspiring speakers in Seattle, WA.
5. A Photographer's Journey with 'All Our Relations'
6. Snake River and salmon media roundup.

1. Happy New Year – and thank you for your generous year-end support!

Happy New Year! We're starting this issue off with a very joyful and energetic 'THANK YOU' for your generous year-end support and advocacy to protect and restore the Northwest’s native fish and the irreplaceable benefits they bring to our region and nation.

With the generosity of many of you, we more than met our year-end $15,000 match challenge! Save Our wild Salmon's collaborative work with you and many others in the past year has been critical to demonstrate public demand and to engage state and federal officials in the Northwest and in Washington D.C. to make truly historic progress on behalf of endangered salmon and orcas and their Pacific Northwest lands and waters.

As we enter 2024, our work with you will be critical for ensuring the actions and commitments of the recent federal-tribal-state Agreement stay on track and on time. We'll need your help to hold accountable policymakers to rebuild abundant salmon and steelhead populations, restore the Columbia Basin, honor our nation's promises to Tribes, and invest in more just and prosperous communities.

Thank you for all that you do for SOS and the Northwest's salmon, orcas, and rivers! We look forward to leveraging our accomplishments in 2023 to make new, big strides for wild salmon and steelhead and their rivers and streams in the new year!

We wish you and yours a happy, healthy, hopeful, and fulfilling 2024!

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2. Historic agreement creates path to rebuild Columbia Basin salmon, honor our nation's promises to Tribes, and prepare for Snake River dam removal.

On December 14, 2023, new federal commitments and investments were announced by the White House, States of Oregon and Washington, and four Columbia Basin Tribes - marking an important step toward a comprehensive solution to restore healthy and abundant salmon populations, and essential to honoring Tribal Treaty obligations.

The December Agreement provides a multi-year pause in litigation to allow for the implementation of commitments, actions, and federal investments advancing the recovery of salmon, steelhead and other Native fish populations throughout the Columbia River Basin, including more than half a billion dollars in NEW federal funding to the region and additional resources for habitat restoration and fish passage infrastructure. Importantly, it sets the Pacific Northwest on a path to breach the four lower Snake River dams and replace and modernize the services currently provided by the dams.

The Agreement "lays out a pathway to breaching," said Nez Perce Tribe Chairman Shannon Wheeler to AP News. "When these [services] are replaced, and the Pacific Northwest is transforming into a stronger, more resilient, better place, then there’s a responsibility ... to make the decisions that are necessary to make sure these treaty promises are kept."

The federal commitments, actions, and investments included in the Agreement respond directly to The Columbia Basin Restoration Initiative (CBRI), a groundbreaking and visionary joint proposal from the "Six Sovereigns" (the states of Washington and Oregon and the Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation, the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation, and the Nez Perce Tribe). The Biden Administration is supporting the bold new blueprint with specific federal commitments, funding and deadlines, and a Presidential Memorandum of Understanding (announced in Sept. 2023) pledging the federal goverment to work closely with Northwest sovereigns and constituencies on critical next steps.

Jointly developed by the Six Sovereigns, the CBRI establishes for the first time a comprehensive, regionally-supported roadmap to rebuild imperiled native fish populations, honor Tribal treaty rights, and restore healthy ecosystems while supporting a robust Pacific Northwest economy. The CBRI explicitly calls for the services of the lower Snake River dams to be replaced and then the dams breached within two fish generations (approximately 8 years) to avoid extinction and begin rebuilding salmon populations to healthy and harvestable levels. The CBRI also protects and enhances other key service sectors by modernizing and investing in clean energy, agriculture, and transportation, helping restore vital ecosystem functions and services essential for local and regional resilience and adaptation to climate change.

It’s important to know that the multi-year pause in litigation allows the federal government to continue working with the Six Sovereigns and conservation plaintiffs to recover salmon in the Columbia Basin. However, if the government fails to honor its commitment within this Agreement or implement key elements of the CBRI in the coming years, then the plaintiffs and Six Sovereigns are able to return to court.

Warm Springs Tribal Council Chairman Jonathan W. Smith stated to Underscore News, "The overarching goal when we approached this [Agreement] is, as long as we can fulfill the obligations we have when it comes to the big law — the unwritten law that says we have to take care of our food and it takes care of us — as long as we can make sure this Agreement does that, we’d like to see it continue."

Save Our wild Salmon Coalition is deeply grateful for Tribal, State, Federal, and NGO partners' leadership to secure this Agreement, and the important investments necessary to begin to recover imperiled fish populations throughout the Columbia/Snake River Basin. We are not at the finish line, but we're closer to a free-flowing Snake River, abundant salmon and steelhead, and a healthy ecosystem than ever before.

Urgent action, committed leadership, and strong support from policymakers across the Northwest will be essential to seize this historic opportunity, end the harmful status quo, and move forward a comprehensive plan and investments — and benefit the entire region and future generations.

Please join us in thanking the administration for these important steps forward, and urge your members of Congress to pledge their strong support and leadership to ensure we implement the actions necessary to recover Northwest salmon.

Take Action

Resources:

Read more on Earthjustice’s factsheet and SOS' blog post with additional resources from coalition partners, agreement documents, and news coverage.

News Coverage:

AP News: Conservationists, tribes say deal with Biden administration is a road map to breach Snake River dams (Dec. 14, 2023)
High Country News: Lower Snake River dams closer to coming down with new agreement (Dec. 15, 2023)
Northwest Public Broadcasting: Historic agreement seen as a harbinger to Snake River dam removal (Dec. 15, 2023)
The Oregonian: Efforts of tribes pay off in historic agreement on Snake River dam removals (Dec. 27, 2023)
The Spokesman-Review Op-Ed: Dan McDonald: Significant progress in the race against extinction (Dec. 21, 2023)
Yakima Herald-Republic Guest Commentary: "Columbia-Snake agreement charts the course to a clean-energy future" by Nancy Hirsh, NW Energy Coalition (Jan 7, 2023)

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3. Welcome J60 – newborn J Pod orca calf!

Newborn orca J60 next to orca J40. Sticker artwork by Rosemary Connelli, Northwest Artist Against Extinction.

What better way to start 2024 than with hope - with the arrival of a new orca calf in the J Pod!

On December 26, a new calf was spotted with the Southern Resident orcas' J Pod! Researchers were able to confirm that J60 is male. He has been spotted with several adult orcas (including J16 and J40) making it difficult to determine who his mother orca is.

Since 2019, there have been 10 new calves, although the mortality rate of calves remains high. Our friends at Whale Scout said it best, “Every new life in this endangered population is precious!”

The three Southern Resident orca pods, known as J, K, and L pods, historically traveled, foraged, and socialized throughout the inland waters of the Salish Sea from late spring through late summer feeding on once-abundant Chinook salmon. As Chinook numbers have dwindled, changes in pod structure, pod movement, and seasonal usage of the Salish Sea have become increasingly apparent.

J60 brings the Southern Resident population to 75 orcas. Yet, in some years, we see almost twice as many deaths as births. Orcas and salmon, alike, remain on the edge of extinction.

It is with cautious optimism that we share the good news of J60’s birth. Together, let’s ensure he has all the food he needs in the years ahead - and for all the Southern Resident orcas!

Learn more about the new J pod calf:

KUOW: 'They're our relatives.' Samish Indian Nation prepares to welcome new orca calf to Puget Sound (Jan. 3, 2024)
Seattle Times: Newborn southern resident orca spotted in Puget Sound (Dec. 27, 2024)
Stay up to date on the Southern Residents by following the Center for Whale Research who regularly share encounters and developments within the J, K, and L pods!

Northwest Artist Against Extinction collaborative artist Rosemary Connelli created new stickers (featured at the top image) celebrating and welcoming J60! 10% of the proceeds will be donated to Southern Resident orca conservation and research. Get your sticker here!

Learn more about Rosemary Connelli on Instagram and her website ConnelliDesigns.com.

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4. Not Mars! Patagonia hosts inspiring speakers in Seattle, WA.

On December 8, Patagonia hosted a special evening of speakers at Town Hall Seattle: Not Mars - Tools to Save Our Home Planet.

SOS’ executive director Joseph Bogaard was featured as a speaker, along with an amazing host – award-winning journalist Yessenia Funes – and set of inspiring thought-leading change-agents.

Not Mars - Tools to Save Our Home Planet was a one-night event that filled Seattle Town Hall – more than 500 people attended – to be inspired and learn lessons, practical tips, and personal stories to turn climate anxiety into action. Attendees had the opportunity to connect directly with local advocacy groups – including SOS! – and get involved in campaigns to protect clean water and build healthier communities.

Speakers included:

Hilary Franz, Washington State Lands Commissioner (and current candidate for the 6th Congressional District)
Bonnie Tsui, open water swimmer, journalist and author of a wonderful new book – Why We Swim
Greg Long, big wave rider and global ocean advocate
Jamie Henn, founder and director of Fossil Free Media
Nikkita Oliver, Seattle-based community organizer and attorney, and
Amy Bowers Cordalis, attorney, salmon restoring dam-breacher and member of the Yurok Tribe.

The speakers were, without exception, amazing. They shared personal stories, highlighted successes and underscored the importance of an active, informed and engaged citizenry. Nikkita Oliver distinguished herself from other speakers with a powerful poem. Amy Cordalis and Joseph were the evening's final speakers. After Amy zoomed in with a short video recorded earlier in the day from her office in Washington, D.C., Joseph joined Yessenia on stage for a final discussion about the Northwest’s cherished (and endangered) wild salmon, leadership by regional tribes to protect and recover them, and the work of SOS with Indigenous and other communities to restore a resilient, freely flowing lower Snake River in eastern Washington State.

The ‘Not Mars’ Call-to-Action alerts targeted Washington State’s U.S. Senators and House Members generated hundreds of electronic letters in support of restoring the lower Snake River and recovering its endangered salmon and steelhead as urgently as possible!

The event featured informational tables, where SOS had the honor of meeting so many people eager to learn about the plight of wild salmon and steelhead in the Columbia/Snake River Basin and how they can help. Britt Freda, creative director of Northwest Artists Against Extinction, staffed the table and invited Alyssa Eckert, Northwest Artist Against Extinction collaborative artist, to sign and share SOS' newest poster featuring her new artwork, Run To Extinction.

Alyssa Eckert started her Run To Extinction artwork right after the NWAAE Honor: People and Salmon show at the University of Puget Sound last spring. "This piece was inspired by the poetry, [I Sing the Salmon Home, edited by Rena Priest], that was read at the artist reception," stated Alyssa. "I wanted to convey the interconnection of orcas and salmon, how their numbers are dwindling due to the negative impact of humans." At SOS, we are very grateful for Alyssa’s willingness for her artwork to be the centerpiece of an SOS poster (view more of Alyssa's artwork here), and we were ecstatic to see each poster go to new homes and spread awareness to 'Stop Salmon Extinction' and 'Free the Snake River!'

We're incredibly thankful to Patagonia for inviting Joseph to speak at this event and raising funds on behalf of SOS as well as Washington Conservation Action and Wild Orca. The Patagonia crew was amazing (and fun!) to work with. Thank you to all who were able to join us!

SOS deeply appreciates Patagonia’s sustained and committed leadership to remove these four deadly federal dams and restore a healthy, resilient lower Snake River and the imperiled native fishes – wild salmon, steelhead, lamprey eels, sturgeon and others – that have called this watershed home for literally millions of years. Check out SOS' 'Not Mars' photo gallery with photos of this special event by photographer Andrew Burton.

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5. A Photographer's Journey with 'All Our Relations'

From the desk of Megan Mack

Megan Mack is a photographer based in Moscow, ID and a Northwest Artists Against Extinction collaborative artist. This fall, Mack was asked to document the All Our Relations Snake River Journey, the second tribal-led Totem Journey she’s been invited to document. We are excited to share with you her reflections on traveling with the powerful journey that brought awareness to the plight of Snake River salmon and the sacred obligation many Northwest tribes have to the ecological and cultural keystone species.

"A totem journey is no easy feat. This is grassroots traveling activism fighting for the land and the people, and bringing hope to a community. The totem is created to tell a story and bring awareness to an issue. Each hand carved and painted image represents something important to the tribe. When the totem travels it is being blessed along its journey at different designated stops. As an attendee, you are asked to lay hands on the totem, and put your energy into it. Whatever home the totem permanently lands, that space will be blessed by hundreds or thousands of hands that have lain upon it along the way. These journey’s bring political awareness and government action.

I am not native and am acutely aware of the role I have as a white nonnative photographer–doing my best as an ally to document a culture, tradition and space that I’ve been invited into. I do not have ownership over the images I’m making, but I have been given permission on this journey to document a sacred space and to use my images.

There were moments along the journey where someone in the crowd told me I couldn’t take pictures, usually during a smudging ceremony or song. I appreciate this. There seems to be a growing awareness around asking permission before blindly snapping away. Songs especially can be sacred and private; a lot of times these songs cannot be documented or recorded. Songs are gifts to individuals and that individual carries that specific song within them. When we (people with cameras) are not permitted to document a moment, all cameras are turned off to respect what is sacred. Documentary photography struggles with this notion of the sacred. Journalism has crossed boundaries that relied on exploitation to tell a story, without respect or empathy. I’m not a journalist, nor do I have a background in documentary photography. Trying to document the sacred, the phantasmagoria, is not always possible, but when it happens, as if by magic, all the elements of the photograph come together."

Read the full article on the Northwest Artists Against Extinction website

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6. Snake River and salmon media roundup.

Here are some recent stories about the urgency and opportunity today for salmon recovery and river restoration:

News:

The Oregonian: Efforts of tribes pay off in historic agreement on Snake River dam removals (Dec. 27, 2023)
High Country News: Lower Snake River dams closer to coming down with new agreement (Dec. 18, 2023)
Northwest Public Broadcasting: Historic agreement seen as a harbinger to Snake River dam removal (Dec. 15, 2023)
NPR: Tribes celebrate historic deal with White House that could save Pacific Northwest salmon (Dec. 14, 2023)
AP News: Conservationists, tribes say deal with Biden administration is a road map to breach Snake River dams (Dec. 14, 2023)
E&E News: White House pledges $1B to restore Pacific Northwest salmon, steelhead (Dec. 14, 2023)
Seattle Times: Biden administration promises $1 billion more for salmon, clean energy — but punts on Lower Snake River dam removal in major agreement (Dec. 14, 2023)
Spokesman-Review: Biden administration puts off dam breach talks, partners with tribes to restore salmon habitats (Dec. 14, 2023)
NPR: No turning back: The largest dam removal in U.S. history begins (Jan. 13, 2023)

Op-eds:

Yakima Herald: Guest Commentary: Columbia-Snake agreement charts the course to a clean-energy future by Nancy Hirsh, executive director of the NW Energy Coalition (Jan 7, 2023)
Spokesman-Review: Significant progress in the race against extinction by Dan McDonald, president and board chairman of Yakima Bait Co. (Dec. 21, 2023)
Seattle Times: Take out dams and keep the Snake River salmon’s last, best place by Chris Wood, president and CEO of Trout Unlimited (Dec. 8, 2023)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Columbia-Snake River salmon litigants announce short-term extension for continued talks and "conferral."
2. Toxic algal bloom brings new risks to the lower Snake River.
3. Upcoming SOS Events - Join us!
4. 'Rise Up Northwest in Unity Convening' gathering to protect and preserve Northwest waters, orca, and salmon.
5. "We Are All Prayer Warriors": A Conversation with Lummi Artist A. Cyaltsa Finkbonner.
6. Honoring Native American Heritage Month.
7. Giving Tuesday— Nov. 28 —will kick off SOS' year-end fundraising campaign.
8. 'We Are Salmon People' by Eileyah Ahmad, First Grader, a poem from 'I Sing The Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State.'
9. Snake River and salmon media roundup.

1. Columbia-Snake River salmon litigants announce short-term extension for continued talks and "conferral."

SOS Flotilla ©Mike Beiser/AP

On Oct. 31, the parties (Nez Perce Tribe, State of Oregon, conservation and fishing NGOs led by Earthjustice, and the Biden Administration) to the long-running lawsuit over salmon and dams in the Columbia-Snake River Basin announced a new short extension of the ongoing litigation pause as part of their efforts to develop a lawful, long-term plan to protect and recover imperiled salmon and steelhead populations. As you may recall, the court challenge to the federal government’s most recent Columbia Basin salmon plan (Biological Opinion) – produced in 2020 by the Trump Administration – was put on pause a little more than two years ago to allow time for settlement discussions and, we hope, the urgent development of a comprehensive regional plan that will protect Columbia-Snake River Basin fish from extinction and invest in Northwest communities and critical infrastructure.

The additional 45 days will allow the parties in the litigation listed above along with the State of Washington, Yakama Nation, and Umatilla and Warm Springs Tribes to present a proposed package of actions and commitments to other regional sovereigns and parties involved in the litigation and work toward final review and approval. For more information on the litigation stay, you can read the Earthjustice press release here and an article in the Seattle Times here.

SOS supports the Biden Administration’s ongoing commitment to work with regional sovereigns and the other plaintiffs and involved parties to create a comprehensive plan of actions and commitments to restore healthy and abundant salmon and steelhead in the Columbia-Snake River Basin—and in doing so, uphold our nation’s promises to Northwest Tribes, and modernize our energy, transportation, and irrigation infrastructure. At the same time, it is also critically important that everyone stay tightly focused on the urgent need for real and meaningful action. Many salmon and steelhead populations in the Snake and Columbia rivers today face extinction in the years ahead – unless we act quickly!

ACT NOW: Contact your elected officials today. Ask them to pledge their support to restore healthy and abundant salmon populations, to uphold our nation's promises to Northwest Tribes and to ensure that federal agencies act quickly to recover salmon throughout the Columbia-Snake River Basin.

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2. Toxic algal bloom brings new risks to the lower Snake River.

Toxic Algal Bloom photos provided by LightHawk’s pilot Dr. Judy Parrish

Harmful blue-green algal toxins found in the lower Snake River prompted the Whitman County Health Department (WCHD) in early October to issue a health alert warning people and their pets to stay away from the river. WCHD stated in a KUOW article that it has not seen a harmful algal bloom like this on the Snake before.

Water samples taken from Wawawai Landing near Lower Granite Dam and Central Ferry in Whitman County near Little Goose Dam tested well above the state health guidelines for microcystin on October 2, 2023. According to the Washington State Department of Ecology’s Freshwater Algae Bloom Monitoring Program, microcystins are a group of toxins that affect the liver. Since microcystins are the most commonly-found cyanobacterial toxins in water, they are the toxins most responsible for human and animal poisonings. In addition, when algae and bacteria in an algal bloom die, the decomposition process consumes the surrounding oxygen, causing other aquatic species (fish, amphibians, etc) in an affected water body to suffocate and die or be forced to relocate to survive. Under certain conditions (e.g. high nutrient levels and high water temperatures) dangerous algal blooms can occur in stagnant bodies of water such as lakes and reservoirs, and frequently occur near dams or natural blockades that disrupt the water current.

Alex Fremier, an environmental science professor at Washington State University, said in a Spokesman-Review article the bloom on the Lower Snake is "unusually large" for a river. "The Snake River at that section has a bunch of dams on it." Dammed waters and blooms are "certainly" connected, Fremier said and noted, these "blooms are going to happen, and they’re going to happen with increased frequency. That’s the bigger concern. We have to have the systems in place to protect ourselves and protect the public."

Toxic Algal Bloom photos provided by LightHawk’s pilot Dr. Judy Parrish

After reading the report of the toxic algal bloom on the lower Snake River, SOS and LightHawk—SOS coalition member—discussed the importance of better understanding the dimension of this event and its impact on communities, the river, salmon and steelhead, and other aquatic and wildlife species. LightHawk’s Volunteer Pilot Dr. Judy Parrish (Professor Emerita, University of Idaho), conducted an overflight on Saturday, October 21, and found large areas of remnant algae in different sections of the river.

From the flight, she mentioned, "I examined the entire stretch between Lower Goose Dam and Lower Granite Dam. Assuming it’s the same organisms, the bloom is still going between Lower Goose Dam and the grain depot 13 [miles] upriver. I recorded the air miles flying upriver, which correspond loosely to the river miles (it’s not a straight river). The bloom goes from about 2 miles upriver from the dam to about 6 miles upriver, with the largest concentration in the last (going upriver) 4.6 miles."

According to the latest water samples taken from the Wawawai Landing and Central Ferry on Nov. 9, microcystin levels still exceed state recreation guidelines.

To view current toxic algal bloom data, visit Whitman County Public Health and the Washington State Department of Ecology.
If you see an algal bloom, you can notify the Washington State Department of Ecology here.
If you see a fish die-off, you can report them to the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife here.

Read more about the toxic algal infestations here:

Spokesman-Review: ‘Unusually large’ toxic algal bloom covers 30-mile stretch of the Lower Snake River (Oct. 16, 2023)
KUOW: Large Snake River toxic algal bloom hasn’t happened before (Oct. 10, 2023)

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3. Upcoming SOS Events - Join us!

We invite you to upcoming events across the region as we educate, advocate, inspire - and build momentum to restore the Snake River and its salmon and steelhead. Check out details below to find an event near you!

Covenant of the Salmon People Film Screenings:

This award-winning film explores the intertwined fate of the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce), salmon, and the landscape from which both evolved. Today the Tribe is facing the extirpation of their most prized salmon species despite decades of recovery efforts and billions of dollars in spending. The widespread construction of dams across Nimiipuu's Traditional Lands have created tremendous challenges to successful salmon recovery.

Restoring a free-flowing lower Snake River is the Tribe's very best option today to uphold their ancient agreement with salmon and to save the species from extinction. Learn more about this powerful film here and look for an upcoming screening near you. Don’t see a screening near you? Learn how to bring the film to your community here.

NW Energy Coalition's Clean & Affordable Energy Conference
December 6, 2023, Portland, OR:

Hear from and mingle with expert panelists and keynote speakers, network with peers in the clean energy community, and attend the Clean Energy Awards reception.

Panelists will discuss how utility planning should change to deliver equitable and affordable outcomes, the role of energy efficiency and distributed energy resources for vulnerable populations, and how the Bonneville Power Administration needs to modernize and lead to drive forward the clean energy transition. Register and learn more here.

Not Mars: Tools for Saving Our Home Planet
December 8, 2023, Town Hall Seattle, WA:

Save the date for an inspiring multi-speaker event, hosted by Patagonia, that brings together Patagonia's activist heroes to share lessons learned, practical tips, and personal stories to turn your climate anxiety into climate action. You’ll also have the opportunity to connect directly with local grassroots groups that can provide a clear pathway to help protect local waters and build healthier communities.

Save Our wild Salmon is honored to be part of the event and executive director, Joseph Bogaard will be speaking on collaborative solutions to restore healthy salmon populations, create jobs, invest in clean energy, and ensure a more just and prosperous future for all people of the Northwest. Learn more about the event and purchase your tickets here.

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4. 'Rise Up Northwest in Unity Convening' gathering to protect and preserve Northwest waters, orca, and salmon.

R.U.N. in Unity Convening ©Ken Lambert, Seattle Times
"The salmon can’t get out of the river to march the halls of Congress. They can’t get out of the river to go to court. We have to be their voice and their advocates and champions." — Fawn Sharp (Quinault), president of the National Congress of American Indians, quoting the late Nisqually salmon champion Billy Frank Jr.

Save Our wild Salmon was honored to support and attend Rise Up Northwest in Unity Convening in early November. The fifth annual salmon and orca convening was organized by the Nez Perce Tribe and hosted by the Tulalip Tribe. The two-day summit brought together more than a dozen tribes from Washington State, Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada, and at least 20 allied NGOs at the Tulalip Resort in western Washington State. Tribal protocols and presentations, song and ceremony, and panel discussions filled both days.

The Convening was deeply honest, heartbreaking and inspiring as people shared stories of loss as well as progress, opportunity and hope. In addition to hearing from representatives of each tribe present, we heard from legislative salmon champions, national NGO leaders, and experts on the Snake River dams' energy, irrigation, and transportation infrastructure and transition priorities. SOS' policy and advocacy director, Tanya Riordan, presented on the status of Washington State's lower Snake River dams' service replacement planning processes. SOS' high school organizer, Maanit Goel, participated in the Youth Panel - inspiring the audience to think about lower Snake River restoration in the context of climate justice and how the work we do today will impact today's youth and future generations.

Despite the deep pain as a result of the steep declines - and in many cases the disappearance of - cherished salmon and orca, Indigenous leaders and communities in the Northwest are insistent and unwavering champions for protecting and restoring abundant salmon populations and healthy habitat. The SOS team is deeply moved and appreciative for the sharing of wisdom and strength that took place at the convening, and the opportunity to listen and learn about traditional ecological and cultural knowledge of the region. We strongly encourage you to listen to, or revisit, the thoughtful discussions that took place at R.U.N in Unity Convening.

Please visit SOS' Blog post for the recording of 'R.U.N in Unity Convening' with an event agenda and photos.

Left photo: Youth Panel at R.U.N. in Unity featuring youth leaders from Lummi Nation, Nez Perce, as well as youth organizers from Youth Salmon Protectors and Washington Youth Ocean & River Conservation Alliance (WYORCA). Right photo: Members of the SOS team with 'R.U.N. in Unity Convening' organizer, Kayeloni Scott.

'R.U.N in Unity Convening' in the media:

Northwest News: Tribal members gather to demand the federal government uphold treaty obligations, protect salmon
Seattle Times: Northwest tribes build momentum in large gathering for dam removal, salmon restoration
King5: Tribal nations join together to demand action for salmon, orcas and water quality

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5. “We Are All Prayer Warriors”: A Conversation with Lummi Artist A. Cyaltsa Finkbonner

All Our Relations, Courtesy of Se'Si'Le and photography by Megan Mack 2023

A. Cyaltsa Finkbonner is a member of the Lummi Nation, or Lhaq’temish (people of the sea). She is a metal worker and self-described “traditionally untraditional artist.” This past year she collaborated with master carver Jewell James of the Lummi House of Tears Carvers to create a beautiful 8’ wide x 4.5’ high, All Our Relations steel sculpture, designed and welded by Cyaltsa. This stunning art piece was central to the Indigenous-led All Our Relations Journey, that stopped in six cities across the Pacific Northwest at the end of September and in early October, 2023. These inspiring events were attended by several thousand people.

Britt Freda, creative director of Northwest Artists Against Extinction, a project of SOS, was fortunate to have the opportunity to work in support of Cyaltsa’s creative collaboration and sculpture building, and to travel with her piece on the Journey. Through their work and time together, they became good friends. Britt recently sat down for a phone call with Cyaltsa to talk about what she most wants people to gain from her artwork.

Britt Freda: First, I want to start by saying I am THRILLED you are joining the creatives of Northwest Artists Against Extinction! We are truly honored to have the opportunity to work with you.

Secondly, let’s jump right in, I am curious to hear what’s important to you right now? What do you want people to think about or care about when they interact with your artwork? And if there is something else, anything else you want to get out there about the work you are creating, tell me about that. I want to know what’s going on these days when you’re in your creative mind.

Cyaltsa Finkbonner: I thought a lot about this question. I want [people] to be inspired–to be inspired and encouraged to learn more, encouraged to get out more, encouraged to educate themselves more. I want them to be inspired to give themselves more self love.

BF: Mmmmmm. That’s good.

CF: I want [people] to feel like we are relatable. You know, that they can relate to some of the things that I am thinking, saying, projecting out there. Maybe it’s a photograph or maybe it’s a place, maybe seeing a salmon will remind them about what they grew-up doing or maybe what Grandpa used to do, or something like that. Just, you know, relatable. Or maybe it is something totally new to them and it just opens them up to so much more. Maybe they’re not used to storytelling, and pictures can tell stories. [I hope my work] opens up their minds, their [creative] right brain to that.

BF: Storytelling–visual, or on a page, or heard around a fire–it is so true that much of the secret sauce is reminding us that even though we may come from different backgrounds, we share so many experiences of what it is to be alive, and to be human. Our humanity is rooted in recognizing our commonalities, and our relatability.

CF: Also connected! Not just to me but to the piece, to what the piece is talking about. I hope it opens up [people’s] imaginations. I mean, maybe they’ll be able to see a wave in a different light or see a salmon in a different way. I’d like them to feel like they learn something, they become more enlightened.

BF: I feel like each time I interact with your work, I learn from it and from the stories that go along with it.

CF: Believe. I hope, in looking at my art, people are reminded to believe in themselves, believe in others, believe in the kindness of other people, and whatever they need help with in believing. You know that’s one thing that I painted a lot was the word “BELIEVE,” but in my abstract way. Those [pieces] would always sell, like that! Because people need that, you know, just those little reminders.

One small painting I did read “JUST TRUST.” And I created an abstract painting with waves and kinda flowy things and the word that was incorporated in there was “FLOW.” Sometimes you need to go with the flow.

BF: (laughs) Sometimes!... Most of the time, actually, right?

CF: Yeah! Also, healing. Definitely some healing, like “Prayer Warrior.” If somebody is wearing the “Prayer Warrior” t-shirt or has got it up on the wall, that can always help people. You know we’re all prayer warriors.

Photo courtesy of A. Cyaltsa Finkbonner BF: Every time I’ve heard you say to an audience “We Are All Prayer Warriors” it takes my breath away, a little bit. I love imagining all the people, myself included–in the room, or the sanctuary, or town hall–united in our work for the earth and for All Our Relations as PRAYER WARRIORS. It feels like such an honor to hear that from you.

CF: Oh wow, hy’shqe for that. Another of my inspirations is “do your part.” Sometimes people get stuck [in life], you know. You want to do your part. I say, do what you can do, let the rest go–and then turn it into progress. People might call it fate or things happen for a reason. What it boils down to, things happen as it should be.

BF: So true.

CF: And patience. I want to remind people to have patience with themselves, patience with others, be kind to others and be kind to themselves. Mostly, be kind to themselves, you know, once you can do that then how can you not be kind to others?

BF: The world really needs that right now.

CF: When I lived in Seattle, I joined a poetry group and did some writing and one of the things [from that time] that sticks out in my mind, that I will always remember is “drop the shackles of burden and move on.” Do what you love. Make time for you. Sometimes doing nothing, like resting, is the most beneficial, right? You’ve got to rejuvenate–rejuvenate our minds, rejuvenate our spirits, so that we can come back to the table and get back to the drawing board–to do what we love.

BF: That one [doing nothing] is a hard one for me, sometimes. And I so appreciate relearning it, again and again. In the US, culturally, I feel like it is so common to push, push, push and that way of being doesn’t evoke all the things that you’re talking about–the healing, the contemplation, the self love, and even the learning–creating the space to really learn and to be open.

CF: What that brings to my mind is the image of people in NYC packed on a sidewalk rushing, rushing to get to wherever. That urgent rushing doesn’t happen in Indian Country or any Indigenous place. Even though I grew up hearing from my dad K, “if you’re not early, you’re late.” For me, there are times that it is really important, but not rushing all the time. Everything is still going to be there. Time is not real.

BF: We can understand it in our heads, but if we don’t really experience it viscerally–in our hearts and in our souls–then it is just an idea, which is very different. Your work does that, it brings it into the heart, it seeps into your soul. I truly appreciate you, and that re-membering. Your work is beautiful and inspiring. Your message is beautiful and inspiring. Thank you, my friend. Hy’shqe \o/

CF: Hy’shqe. \^/

Hy’shqe is thank you in the native Lummi language, Xwlemi’, and the tradition is to raise your hands up. Cyaltsa taught us this raise-hands-up \o/ symbol and her personal version with a cedar hat \^/. It is with her permission that we share it with you.

All Our Relations is the title of Cyaltsa’s sculpture. It is also the name of the 2023 Indigenous-led Journey and Snake River Campaign to restore healthy and abundant populations of salmon by removing the Snake River dams. But foremost, “it is an Indigenous prayer, an acknowledgement that we are all connected–humans, animals, fish, birds, water, air, Mother Earth– we are all one with Mother Earth” –Cyaltsa.

To learn more about the very cool, creative and wise A. Cyaltsa Finkbonner, visit her website CreativeCuzzin.com, follow her on Instagram and Facebook. Jason Mark from the Sierra Club wrote a fantastic piece about Cyaltsa and the Journey in the fall 2023 issue of the Sierra Magazine. And peruse additional media coverage of the event and a powerful collection of photos from the Journey, courtesy of Se'Si'Le and photography by Megan Mack.

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6. Honoring Native American Heritage Month.

November is recognized as Native American Heritage Month. This month, and every day, we honor Indigenous people and communities, their histories, cultures, traditions, and ancestral knowledge passed down from generations that hold sacred obligations to protect the land, water, air, and people.

Since time immemorial, Tribes have been the original stewards and continuously lead efforts to protect, and restore sacred waters, lands, air, salmon, and orca to ensure each generation has a healthy, prosperous, and just future. As we reflect on the Tribes and Indigenous communities that we have supported and worked closely with in recent years, we would like to express our utmost gratitude for sharing their knowledge with us and leading the way to prevent salmon and steelhead extinction, and restore the natural world and people to balance. At SOS, we are committed to working daily to protect and restore salmon and other ecologically and culturally important species from extinction and do what we can to ensure our nation upholds the promises it made to Northwest Tribes more than 150 years ago.

To celebrate the invaluable and innumerable contributions of Indigenous people and communities, we encourage you to visit this link with resources developed by Children of the Setting Sun (with a few additions from the SOS team) on the several ways to honor and celebrate Native American Heritage Month and every day.

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7. Giving Tuesday— Nov. 28 —will kick off SOS' year-end fundraising campaign

As we head toward year-end, we want to mention that SOS will kick off our year-end fundraising campaign on Giving Tuesday – later this month on November 28. We’re working now to develop some materials that review our accomplishments so far this year – and look ahead to 2024. Our successes at Save Our wild Salmon are truly the result of our coordinated work with coalition partners and allies and the support and the collective advocacy of individual people LIKE YOU who care deeply about the health and future of wild salmon and steelhead, their rivers and streams, and all of the irreplaceable benefits they bring to communities, cultures, and ecosystems.

We cannot realize our mission and advance our program work without your support. We are very grateful for the opportunity to work with you, to help represent your interests and priorities, and for your advocacy and your partnership. We’ll be back in touch soon with more information and ways that you can help build new momentum and progress as we head into the new year.

If you have any questions about our program work and/or supporting SOS, please reach out: Joseph Bogaard (joseph@wildsalmon.org). Thank you!

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8. 'We Are Salmon People' by Eileyah Ahmad, First Grader, a poem from 'I Sing The Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State.'

'We Are Salmon People' by Eileyah Ahmad, First Grader

Bears, Birds, Seals, Bass, Eagles, and People
All eat this create, salmon gives all life
Salmon gives us nutrients, vitamins, and riches
They live in water, fresh, and salt water

A Native story tells us
When you eat salmon, you must return the bones to the water
To respect the Salmon people
What you do in the land, affects the things in the water

Egg, alevin, fry, parr, smolt, adult, and death
Everything in the life of the salmon is a cycle
Baby, child, teenager, adult, old, and death
Everything in the life of human is a cycle
The world is part of a cycle, we are Salmon people

I Sing the Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State, is edited by Rena Priest and published by Empty Bowl Press. The anthology features more than 150 Washington poets ranging from first graders to Tribal Elders, all inspired by the Northwest's beloved, iconic salmon. You can purchase the anthology here.

Eileyah Ahmad is a first grader and resident of Bothell. She likes writing poems inspired from nature, family, and her life. She performed her most recent poem at Northshore Speaks. The poem was about her grandfather who passed away before she was born.

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9. Snake River and salmon media roundup.

Here are some recent stories about the urgency and opportunity today for the Snake River and salmon recovery:

Seattle Times: Northwest Tribes build momentum in large gathering for dam removal, salmon restoration (Nov. 3, 2023)
NWNews: Tribal members gather to demand the federal government uphold treaty obligations, protect salmon (Nov. 3, 2023)
Spokesman-Review: ‘Unusually large’ toxic algal bloom covers 30-mile stretch of the Lower Snake River (Oct. 16, 2023)
KUOW: Large Snake River toxic algal bloom hasn’t happened before (Oct. 10, 2023)
Everett Herald: Comment: Tulalip gathering signals progress for salmon’s future (Nov. 10, 2023)
The Columbian: In Our View: Agreeable solution critical for iconic salmon (Nov. 3, 2023)
The Oregonian: LTE: Give environment a voice in modernized treaty (Oct. 15, 2023)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS:

1. Biden Administration makes historic commitments and progress to recover Columbia Basin salmon
2. Thousands call on BPA to prioritize wild salmon and clean, reliable and affordable energy
3. 'All Our Relations' Snake River Campaign reaches thousands across the Northwest and nation
4. Stand with Tribes to protect salmon and orcas: 'Rise Up Northwest in Unity' - Nov. 1 and 2, 2023
5. 'Covenant of the Salmon People' - Find a film screening near you!
6. 'Salt and Other Spells' by Sarah Stockton, a poem from 'I Sing The Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State'
7. Watch 'Primal Drive,' a captivating short film about salmon by John Gussman
8. Salmon media roundup

1. Biden Administration makes historic commitments and progress to recover Columbia Basin salmon

Olympia Rally 2022 ©Wade YipIn just the past few weeks, the federal government has made several significant announcements to advance salmon recovery in the Columbia Basin.

I. Biden Administration supports Tribally-led salmon reintroduction efforts in the Upper Columbia Basin:
On Sept. 21, the Biden Administration committed more than $200 million to restore passage and reintroduce salmon in the Upper Columbia Basin.

Not long ago, salmon runs in the Upper Columbia River and its tributaries were healthy and abundant - and a mainstay of Tribal cultures and trade. The legendary 'June Hogs' – chinook salmon that weighed more than a hundred pounds and could exceed six feet in length – used to migrate each year into the upper reaches of the watershed. They completely disappeared, however, just a few years after the completion of the Grand Coulee Dam in the early 1940s. The construction of large hydroelectric and flood control dams nearly a century ago — including the Grand Coulee Dam and Chief Joseph Dam — blocked anadromous fish from migrating into and through the ceded and reserved lands of the Colville, Spokane and Coeur d'Alene Tribes.

The Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe, and Spokane Tribe of Indians – all members of the Upper Columbia United Tribes – signed the agreement with federal officials in a ceremony in Washington D.C. These Tribes have worked for decades to reintroduce salmon into the rivers and streams above Grand Coulee Dam. This agreement secures $200 million from the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) to be paid over 20 years to advance a Tribally-led implementation plan to reintroduce and restore salmon and steelhead to these ancestral habitats.

Learn more here: Seattle Times: $200M pledged to return salmon to Upper Columbia Basin in Biden deal with tribes

II. Presidential Memorandum on restoring 'healthy and abundant' Columbia-Snake River salmon:
A few days later on Sept. 27, the Biden Administration announced an historic Presidential Memorandum. For the first time ever, this Memorandum formally commits the federal government to recover 'healthy and abundant' salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia-Snake Basin – and directs all relevant federal agencies to take immediate actions to ensure their authorities and resources are used to help achieve this federal priority.

"Conservation and fishing advocates applaud the historic Memorandum," said Tanya Riordan, Save Our wild Salmon's Policy and Advocacy Director. "With this directive, the President is sending a clear message to the Bonneville Power Administration, Army Corps of Engineers and other relevant agencies and leaders within the federal government that business-as-usual is no longer acceptable, and a 'whole-of-government' approach is required to help meet our nation’s Treaty responsibilities to Northwest Tribes. Protecting and restoring healthy, harvestable and abundant populations of wild salmon and steelhead and other native fish populations in the Columbia and Snake rivers is a national priority."

Restoring abundant, fishable wild salmon and steelhead populations and the irreplaceable benefits they bring to Northwest people, other fish and wildlife species, and ecosystems is critical for maintaining and strengthening our region’s economy, culture and unique way of life.

Salmon advocates appreciate the focus by the Biden Administration to develop lawful plans to restore salmon abundance in the Columbia Basin. Many populations, however, including all stocks remaining in the Snake River Basin, face certain extinction without immediate, science-based recovery actions. Salmon and steelhead – and other fish and wildlife that depend upon them – are simply running out of time.

Now, we urgently need our members of Congress to support the Biden Administration and ensure that federal agencies act quickly to implement this directive, before it's too late.

ACT NOW: Contact your elected officials today. Ask them to support the Biden Administration's directive to help restore healthy and abundant salmon populations and uphold our nation's promises made to Northwest Tribes.

Read more about the Presidential Memorandum here:

Spokesman-Review: ‘This is historic’: Biden orders whole-of-government effort to restore salmon in Columbia, Snake rivers
Seattle Times: President Biden calls for abundant salmon in Columbia, Snake rivers

III. Finally - an update on the ongoing Columbia-Snake salmon/dams litigation pause:
At the time of newsletter publication – the settlement talks continue between the Biden Administration and Northwest Tribes, states of Washington and Oregon, and stakeholders to develop a durable, lawful plan to finally protect and recover healthy wild salmon and steelhead populations currently at risk of extinction - including in the Snake River Basin. As you may recall, the deadline for these discussions was recently extended from August 31 to October 31 - to allow additional time for the parties to craft an agreement. We are keeping a close eye on these proceedings and will keep you posted on any developments. For more information on the settlement talks, here is a link to the lead article from last month’s newsletter.

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2. Thousands call on BPA to prioritize wild salmon and clean, reliable and affordable energy

Monumental I ©Rachel Teannalach, Northwest Artists Against Extinction; 2022, oil on canvas, 48" x 48"The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) sells the power generated by federal dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers to electric utilities in the Northwest based on long-term contracts that will soon be renewed. To guide this renewal process, BPA composed a ‘Draft Provider of Choice Contract Policy’ and recently offered the public an opportunity to provide comment. Within the last week, approximately 20,000 salmon, orca, fishing and clean energy advocates called on BPA to prioritize salmon recovery and clean energy.

In order to protect wild fish from extinction and to adapt to a changing climate, business-as-usual at BPA must end. The agency’s new power sales contracts with utilities must support and incentivize urgently-needed work to diversify our regional energy resources, expand the transmission grid and give back some of the river to the fish before they disappear forever.

BPA’s policies and contracts moving forward must prioritize salmon recovery alongside the long-term reliability of our electric supply. BPA can - and it must - ensure that power generation does not continue to come at the cost of wild salmon, Tribal Treaty rights, our economy and the special way of life in the Northwest.

While the power sold by BPA provides valuable benefits to the region, it has come at an extraordinary cost to salmon and salmon-reliant communities. With responsible planning, we don’t have to continue to choose between clean, reliable electricity and healthy and abundant wild salmon and steelhead.

Unfortunately, responsible planning that incorporates the needs of fish and reliable and clean electricity is woefully absent in BPA’s 'Draft Provider of Choice Policy.'

The policy, for example, fails to plan for changes in dam operations necessary to restore healthy and abundant fish populations. Salmon need more spill, cooler waters, and healthy rivers to survive and restore themselves. Meeting these needs is increasingly urgent and will affect the operations and output of the federal hydrosystem. These impacts won’t be disruptive as long as BPA anticipates changes in the new contracts and plans ahead to finally meet its dual responsibility to (1) provide reliable, clean and affordable energy and (2) support healthy and abundant salmon populations.

In his recent Presidential Memorandum (see story above), President Biden called for “a sustained national effort to restore healthy and abundant native fish populations in the [Columbia] Basin.” Now - in preparation for the new contract period - BPA must prepare for (1) lower output from federal dams and (2) a more diversified regional energy portfolio in order to achieve these critical goals. BPA's final contract policy must lay out this assumption clearly as it summarizes the emerging landscape and plans for future resource acquisition to augment future federal hydroelectric generation.

For more information, here are two letters sent to the BPA as part of its recent public comment period:

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3. 'All Our Relations' Snake River Campaign reaches thousands across the Northwest and nation

2023 All Our Relations photos, courtesy of Se'Si'Le and photography by Megan Mack.The All Our Relations Snake River Campaign took place last month - evoking joy, grief, hope and inspiration to the thousands of Northwest people who participated. Thank you to all who gathered in Olympia, Portland, Pasco, Spokane, Lewiston, and Seattle in September and October to stand with this powerful Indigenous-led journey.

To get a glimpse of the spirit of the journey, view our 'All Our Relations' photo gallery.

Since the beginning of time, Native peoples have honored their deep connection with the Snake River and its salmon. But today the lower Snake River dams threaten these fish with extinction. Through art, music, speech, procession and prayer, each stop of this campaign centered Indigenous voices and reflected strong support for urgent action and comprehensive solutions that will finally protect and restore the gravely imperiled fish populations.

2023 All Our Relations photos, courtesy of Se'Si'Le and photography by Megan Mack.We appreciate all who supported and participated in these events. A special thanks to Master Carver Jewell James for his leadership and conceptual inspiration and to A. Cyaltsa Finkbonner who designed and hand-crafted the beautiful and inspiring steel sculpture that traveled with the Journey.

Restoring a free-flowing Snake River will help to honor the promises our nation made more than 150 years ago to many Northwest Tribes. It will reconnect endangered fish to thousands of miles of high quality, cold water habitat, increase resilience and help fight the effects of climate change, and allow the river to fulfill its role in supporting native fish, orca and the other wildlife who rely on healthy salmon and healthy waters. A freely flowing lower Snake River will benefit all peoples and communities who cherish and depend upon the river and its gifts for fishing, hunting, cultural traditions, renewal, recreation and more.

Read more about the All Our Relations Snake River Campaign:

Lewiston-Tribune: Demonstrators gather for a free-flowing Snake River
Sierra Club: Native Welder Crafts Artwork to Help Free the Snake River Salmon
NWPB: As Biden negotiates future of lower Snake River dams, Northwest tribes push for removal
Watch the Town Hall Seattle livestream here

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4. Stand with Tribes to protect salmon and orca: 'Rise Up Northwest in Unity' - Nov. 1 and 2, 2023

On behalf of the Nez Perce and other Northwest Tribes, we invite you to join SOS in attending the Rise Up Northwest in Unity Convening on Nov. 1 and 2.

The R.U.N. in Unity Convening will bring together partners and allies to connect and unify voices, and develop and implement best practices for the protection and preservation of water, orca, and salmon in the Northwest. This two-day event will prioritize education, cultural awareness, and the exchange of ideas to address the urgent needs of water, orca, and salmon through the formulation of solutions and strategies to build a stronger, smarter, and more resilient Northwest. The R.U.N. in Unity Convening is free, open to the public and will focus on providing clear, precise, and factual information to empower informed decision-making.

Event Details:

Dates: November 1st to November 2nd, 2023
Location: Tulalip Resort, Tulalip, Washington
Register here
This event is free and open to all, including Tribal and Non-Profit Organization voices.

SOS is excited to participate in the R.U.N. in Unity Convening on Nov. 1 and 2 - and we hope you will be able to attend as well. We will share additional information re: speakers, activities, etc, as additional details become available. If you have questions in the meantime, please contact Abby at abby@wildsalmon.org.

Register today: Rise Up Northwest in Unity Convening!

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5. 'Covenant of the Salmon People' - Find a film screening near you!

Covenant of the Salmon People is a moving portrait film of the Nez Perce Tribe as they continue to carry out their ancient promise to protect salmon—a keystone species and the first food their people have subsisted on since time immemorial. Today, the Tribe is facing the extirpation of their most prized salmon species. The widespread construction of dams across their Traditional lands is driving these fish to extinction. Restoring a free-flowing lower Snake River is the Tribe’s very best option today to uphold their ancient agreement with salmon and to save the species from extinction. Learn more about this powerful film here and look for an upcoming screening near you:

October 18, 2023 | 7:00pm PDT
Majestic Bay Theaters, Seattle, WA
Register here!

October 24, 2023 | 6:00 - 7:30 pm PDT
Everett Public Library, Everett, WA
Register here!

October 26, 2023 | 5:30 - 7:00 pm PDT
Dungeness River Nature Center / Rainshadow Hall, Sequim, WA
Register here!

November 2, 2023 | 5:00 - 7:00 pm MDT
University Center Theater, Missoula, MT
Register here!

November 6, 2023 | 6:00 pm PDT
Compton Union Building (CUB) Auditorium, Pullman, WA
Registration is NOT REQUIRED for this event!

November 9, 2023 | 5:30 - 7:30 pm PDT
Dungeness River Nature Center / Rainshadow Hall, Sequim, WA
Register here!

November 14, 2023 | 6:00 pm PDT
University of Oregon, Eugene, OR
Register here!

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6. 'Salt and Other Spells' by Sarah Stockton, a poem from 'I Sing The Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State'

'Salt and Other Spells' by Sarah Stockton

Inspired by the spawning cycle of
salmon in the Dosewallips River

We were water once
cyclical, transforming
salt and sediment into scales
anadromous

moving from sea into sweet water
catadromous
fresh to salt
to spawn, traveling

in deep-sea channels
transitioning
from silvery blue
to darker, going home

as we, floundering at water's edge,
turn in four directions
three visions, seven cycles,
bowing to salmon slipping through water

I Sing the Salmon Home: Poems from Washington State, is edited by Rena Priest and published by Empty Bowl Press. The anthology features more than 150 Washington poets ranging from first graders to Tribal Elders, all inspired by the Northwest's beloved, iconic salmon. You can purchase the anthology here.

Sarah Stockton is the founder/editor of River Mouth Review. She is also the author of no poetry chapbooks: Time's Apprentice (dancing girl press, 2021) and Castaway (Glass Lyre Press, 2022). More published poems can be found at www.sarahstockton.com. Sarah lives in Port Townsend.

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7. Watch 'Primal Drive,' a captivating short film by John Gussman

Watch Primal Drive by John Gussman, a captivating video of a coho salmon leaping through the Salmon Cascades on the Sol Duc River (Olympic Peninsula, WA) on their way home to spawn.

About John Gussman: After getting a degree in photography, John Gussman began working full-time in 1973 as a staff photographer for a newspaper in the Bay Area. Moving to Washington State in 1979 to be closer to wilderness, and with Olympic National Park as his backyard, he began to photograph this new natural playground. In 1982 John began his own business, Doubleclick Productions, and found he had a natural talent for photographing architecture and other commercial location work. Working locally and abroad, John actively seeks projects to help tell the stories of companies, non-profits, and environmental organizations to help tell the story of the planet. Learn more about John Gussman and his work here.

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8. Salmon media roundup

Here are some recent stories about the urgency and opportunity today for the Snake River and salmon recovery:

NWPB: As Biden negotiates future of lower Snake River dams, Northwest tribes push for removal (Oct. 6, 2023)
Lewiston-Tribune: Demonstrators gather for a free-flowing Snake River (Oct. 01, 2023)
Spokesman-Review: 'This is historic': Biden orders whole-of-government effort to restore salmon in Columbia, Snake rivers (Sept. 27, 2023)
Seattle Times: President Biden calls for abundant salmon in Columbia, Snake rivers (Sept. 27, 2023)
Lewiston Tribune: Feds back tribal-led salmon campaign (Sept. 22, 2023)
The Oregonian LTE: Give environment a voice in modernized treaty (Oct. 15, 2023)
KNKX: For first time since dam removal, a fishery opens on the Elwha (Oct. 11, 2023)
Seattle Times: Tribe catches coho salmon on free-flowing Elwha River, a first since dam removals (Oct. 10, 2023)
Vox: How a California tribe won their ancestral land back and saved endangered salmon (Oct 9, 2023)

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