People accuse the Indians of not looking toward the future, of not saving money in the bank or taking out insurance or making retirement plans. But we did plan ahead. The Indian people preserved the earth and her creatures for future generations. Hundreds of years ago our ancestors were planning ahead for you and for me so there would be a world for all of us.
Mike George, Yakama, quoted in Reaching Home: Pacific Salmon, Pacific People
Fourteen groups comprise the confederated tribes of the Yakama Nation of central Washington: the Kal-milt-pah, Klickitat, Klinquit, Kow-was-say-ee, Li-ay-was, Oche-chotes, Palouse, Pisquose, Se-ap-cat, Shyiks, Skinpah, Wenatshpam, Wishram, and Yakama. Like others in the mid-Columbia region, these people relied upon the rich fisheries of the Columbia and its tributaries. They harvested salmon, sturgeon, trout, lamprey eel, and suckers from the Yakima, Naches, Klickitat, White Salmon, and Columbia rivers. Their fishing equipment included spears, harpoons, gaffs, gill nets, dip nets, traps, and weirs.
Second only to the Columbia River was the Yakima River fishery. The Yakima River, the largest tributary of the Columbia in Washington State, hosts other significant fisheries on its tributaries such as the Naches and Tieton. Before white settlement, Indians used traps, weirs, and slip point spears (which had removable barbed points) to catch fish at about one hundred different locations. White settlers created diversion dams for irrigation and drove a change in fishing equipment. Indians fished from dam spillways with dip nets.
Traditional Yakama fisheries have dwindled in the latter half of the twentieth century, due in large part to the development of hydroelectricity in the Pacific Northwest. Dams that affect the fishery include Priest Rapids, Wananpum, The Dalles, John Day, McNary, and Bonneville. The Yakama Nation joined the Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Nez Perce nations as an important participant in the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) which has worked to halt the decline of salmon and other species in the Columbia Basin since 1977.
