I can remember my dad talking about salmon fishing on the Selway River when he was just a boy. He talked about how numerous the salmon were and how his grandparents would harvest the salmon on horseback. The salmon were so thick in the streams that they could gallop their horse across the stream and and stun the salmon with the horse’s hooves. Others would then pick up the stunned fish as they floated downriver.
Wilfred Scott, Nez Perce, 1999, as quoted in Salmon and his People
The expansive territory of the Nez Perce people was rich in rivers and streams abundant in fish life. Bands fished from the Snake, Salmon, Clearwater, Grand Ronde, Selway, Rapid and many other rivers. As with other tribes, the Nez perce did not limit their fishing to salmon (though salmon species were among the most important fish utilized) but also fished for trout, suckers, sturgeon and eels. Anthropologist Deward Walker, Jr. estimated that each Nez Perce consumed over 500 pounds of fish each year.
Nez Perce related both to the Plains cultures of the east and the Sahaptin cultures of the west. After the introduction of the horse in the 1870s, they became renowned horse handlers. They are also remembered for the Nez Perce War of 1877 when Chiefs Looking Glass and Joseph led their people to Canada to escape placement on a reservation away from the Wallowa Valley.
Today, the Nez Perce are members of the four “treaty tribes” of the Columbia River (the others are the confederated tribes of the Umatilla, Yakama, and Warm Spring). They are members of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, an organization dedicated to the protection of treaty fishing rights and fish habitat. The Nez Perce support proposals to draw down Lower Monumental, Little Goose, Lower Granite, and Ice Harbor dams on the lower Snake River to protect Snake River salmon runs, the very runs which have long sustained them.
I will always remember the first salmon I caught on my own. I was a youth at Rapid River and I dipnetted over twenty salmon after I caught my first one. It’s hard to describe the feeling of being in the river and catching those great fish. . . . I can still remember the words of my father and my friends and the good natured bantering that has become a part of that total experience.
Aaron Miles, Nez Perce, 1999, as quoted in Salmon and his People
