The Nez Perce are an Indigenous people of the Plateau who still live on a fraction of the lands on the southeastern Columbia River Plateau in the Pacific Northwest. This region has been occupied for at least 11,500 years.
The Yakama are a Native American tribe with nearly 10,851 members, based primarily in eastern Washington state.
The Deschutes River in central Oregon is a major tributary of the Columbia River. The river provides much of the drainage on the eastern side of the Cascade Range in Oregon, gathering many of the tributaries that descend from the drier, eastern flank of the mountains. The Deschutes provided an important route to and from the Columbia for Native Americans for thousands of years, and then in the 19th century for pioneers on the Oregon Trail. The river flows mostly through rugged and arid country, and its valley provides a cultural heart for central Oregon. Today the river supplies water for irrigation and is popular in the summer for whitewater rafting and fishing.
The Warm Springs Indian Reservation consists of 1,019 square miles (2,640 km2) in north-central Oregon, in the United States, and is governed by the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.
The Klamath River flows 257 miles (414 km) through Oregon and northern California in the United States, emptying into the Pacific Ocean. By average discharge, the Klamath is the second largest river in California after the Sacramento River. Its nearly 16,000-square-mile (41,000 km2) watershed stretches from the high desert of south-central Oregon to the temperate rainforest of the North Coast. Unlike most rivers, the Klamath begins in a desert region and flows through the rugged Cascade Range and Klamath Mountains before reaching the ocean; National Geographic magazine has called the Klamath "a river upside down".
Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss irideus) or Columbia River redband trout. Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and North America. Like other sea-run (anadromous) trout and salmon, steelhead spawn in freshwater, smolts migrate to the ocean to forage for several years and adults return to their natal streams to spawn. Steelhead are iteroparous, although survival is approximately 10–20%.
The Willamette Falls is a natural waterfall on the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon, in the United States. It is the largest waterfall in the Northwestern United States by volume, and the seventeenth widest in the world. Horseshoe in shape, it is 1,500 feet (460 m) wide and 40 feet (12 m) high with a flow of 30,849 cu ft/s, located 26 miles (42 km) upriver from the Willamette's mouth. Willamette Falls is a culturally significant site for many tribal communities in the region.
Gillnetting is a fishing method that uses gillnets: vertical panels of netting that hang from a line with regularly spaced floaters that hold the line on the surface of the water. The floats are sometimes called "corks" and the line with corks is generally referred to as a "cork line." The line along the bottom of the panels is generally weighted. Traditionally this line has been weighted with lead and may be referred to as "lead line." A gillnet is normally set in a straight line. Gillnets can be characterized by mesh size, as well as colour and type of filament from which they are made. Fish may be caught by gillnets in three ways:
- Wedged – held by the mesh around the body.
- Gilled – held by mesh slipping behind the opercula.
- Tangled – held by teeth, spines, maxillaries, or other protrusions without the body penetrating the mesh.
The Clackamas Indians are a band of Chinook of Native Americans who historically lived along the Clackamas River in the Willamette Valley, Oregon.
United States v. Washington, 384 F. Supp. 312, aff'd, 520 F.2d 676, commonly known as the Boldt Decision, was a legal case in 1974 heard in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The case re-affirmed the rights of American Indian tribes in the state of Washington to co-manage and continue to harvest salmon and other fish under the terms of various treaties with the U.S. government. The tribes ceded their land to the United States but reserved the right to fish as they always had. This included their traditional locations off the designated reservations.
Celilo Falls was a tribal fishing area on the Columbia River, just east of the Cascade Mountains, on what is today the border between the U.S. states of Oregon and Washington. The name refers to a series of cascades and waterfalls on the river, as well as to the native settlements and trading villages that existed there in various configurations for 15,000 years. Celilo was the oldest continuously inhabited community on the North American continent until 1957, when the falls and nearby settlements were submerged by the construction of The Dalles Dam. In 2019, there were calls by tribal leaders to restore the falls.
Celilo Village, Oregon is an unincorporated Native American community on the Columbia River in northeastern Wasco County in the U.S. state of Oregon. It is near Lake Celilo, the former site of Celilo Falls; it is just south of the community of Wishram, Washington, across the Columbia River.
The Metolius River is a tributary of the Deschutes River in Central Oregon, United States, near the city of Sisters. The river flows north from springs near Black Butte, then turns sharply east, descending through a series of gorges before ending in the western end of the lake. The unincorporated community of Camp Sherman lies astride the southern end of the river. The name of the river comes from the Warm Springs or Sahaptin word mitula, meaning white salmon and referring to a light colored Chinook salmon and not a whitefish.
Wasco-Wishram are two closely related Chinook Indian tribes from the Columbia River in Oregon. Today the tribes are part of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs living in the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in Oregon and Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation living in the Yakama Indian Reservation in Washington.
A fish wheel, also known as a salmon wheel, is a device situated in rivers to catch fish which looks and operates like a watermill. However, in addition to paddles, a fish wheel is outfitted with wire baskets designed to catch and carry fish from the water and into a nearby holding tank. The current of the river presses against the submerged paddles and rotates the wheel, passing the baskets through the water where they intercept fish that are swimming or drifting. Naturally, a strong current is most effective in spinning the wheel, so fish wheels are typically situated in shallow rivers with brisk currents, close to rapids, or waterfalls. The baskets are built at an outward-facing slant with an open end so the fish slide out of the opening and into the holding tank where they await collection. Yield is increased if fish swimming upstream are channeled toward the wheel by weirs.
The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs is a recognized Native American tribe made of three tribes who put together a confederation. They live on and govern the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of Oregon.
The Cove Palisades State Park is a state park in eastern Jefferson County, Oregon, near Culver and Madras in the central part of the state, and is administered by the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. It is located on the waters and surrounding lands of Lake Billy Chinook, an impoundment of the Crooked, Deschutes, and Metolius rivers.
A hand net, also called a scoop net, is a handheld fishing net or meshed basket used to capture and retrieve objects from water, somewhat in the manner of a sieve. It is distinguished from other fishing nets in that the net or mesh is supported by a rigid circular or polygonal frame, which may or may not be mounted to the end of a handle.
The Tenino people, commonly known today as the Warm Springs bands, are several Sahaptin Native American subtribes which historically occupied territory located in the North-Central portion of the American state of Oregon. The Tenino people included four localized subtribes — the Tygh or "Upper Deschutes" divided in Tayxɫáma, Tiɫxniɫáma and Mliɫáma, the Wyam (Wayámɫáma) (Wayámpam) or "Lower Deschutes", also known as "Celilo Indians", the Dalles Tenino or "Tinainu (Tinaynuɫáma)", also known as "Tenino proper"; and the Dock-Spus (Tukspush) (Takspasɫáma) or "John Day."
Joseph Sherar was a 19th-century wagon road builder who, with his wife, Jane, owned and operated a Deschutes River toll bridge and a nearby stagecoach station and hotel in Wasco County in the U.S. state of Oregon. The bridge and buildings were slightly downstream of Sherars Falls, the river's lowermost waterfall, and a traditional fishing spot for the native inhabitants of the region.
