Trade and seasonal food gathering rounds connected the Shuswap of the upper Columbia Basin to the Northwest Coast, the lower Columbia Plateau and to groups east of the Rocky Mountains. Traditionally, chinook salmon were the fish of choice for Shuswap bands but, with declining runs in the early twentieth century, sockeye became more popular. Shuswap fished with nets and harpoons. They used weirs and traps until the Canadian Department of Fisheries cracked down on their use in the early twentieth century. As with other Plateau Indian cultures, the Shuswap shared food with infirm or otherwise needy tribal members.
Grand Coulee Dam (1941) cut off access to over one thousand miles of spawning grounds in Shuswap territory for anadromous fish. Mica and Upper Arrow Lake dams also affected the fisheries of the Shuswap. Since the early 1980s the Shuswap have sued the Canadian federal government and the provincial government of British Columbia to secure hunting and fishing rights as well as to settle land claims.
