Fishing at Celilo Falls, 1930-1950

Indians used platforms to position themselves over the falls. Most fished with dipnets. They occasionally used spears and traps as well. Courtesy of the Army Corps of Engineers.

In the 1920s, Indians from the Yakama, Warm Springs, and Umatilla reservations joined with unenrolled year-round residents at Celilo Village to form the Celilo Fish Committee. This group regulated the fishery and resolved disputes between Indian fishers. Chief Tommy Thompson, who was the chief at Celilo Village, decided when people could go out to the river to fish and called them in when they were done for the day.

After Chief Thommy Thompson Cuny became the chief, he had a strict ruling in fishing, he had strict conservation. When fish came he, as a chief, went down to the river where other men were on the shore waiting for [him]. This is what they had meetings about – conservation. So, they waited for him to come down. When he signaled, well, they just rowed across with canoes to the islands. . . 12:00 and he'd signal. They had ropes and they strung [them] through the [fish] heads and dragged the fish over with a canoe. They brought it to shore and it was quite steep climbing up from the shore up on the top. The women had to pack all that heavy fish to the village right across here.

I: They carried it on their backs?

FT: Very big, several hundred pounds. The women were real strong in them days. That's before my coming. Well, the chief carried on. Right after dinner about 1:00 they'd all be waiting down there. He'd signal and they'd all go across. He used a watch, a pocket watch in them days. 6:00 and he'd signal and they'd all come home and each one had to lock his canoe.
-- Flora Cushinway Thompson, wife of Chief Tommy Thompson, date unknown. Courtesy of the Oregon Historical Society.

KB: What was [Tommy Thompson] like?

BM: When I knew him he said he was a hundred years old and he probably was. He was quite dignified but a very tiny man and very quiet. His spokesman was Flora and Flora wanted everybody to treat him with respect. She looked after him very carefully. Before that and even to that time – which I think is remarkable looking back – he was the one who designated the rocks where you would fish. Now, some were better than others but that rock belonged to you and you [fished] that one but you didn't [fish] anyone else's. And he controlled the Indians to keep that and they looked to him as the chief there even though they came in from other tribes. They had great respect for him in many ways because there could have been a lot of fighting.… They respected him. That part of it was very well controlled.
-- Barbara MacKenzie, interviewed by Katy Barber, 30 September 1999. MacKenzie oversaw the Celilo Relocation Project.

There were approximately 480 fishing stations in and around Celilo Falls. Fishers built wooden scaffolds out over the roaring falls and used dipnets to catch salmon returning upriver to their natal streams. It was dangerous, hard work with salmon weighing up to sixty pounds. Fishers needed incredible strength to pull netted salmon to the scaffolds which were often slippery with river water and fish scales. The men secured themselves to their scaffolds with ropes that they tied around their waists in the event that they were pulled into the river.

During the Great Depression, whites began fishing at Celilo Falls. Indians successfully protected their treaty-reserved stations from white encroachment during this period. Soon a bigger threat appeared when Congress appropriated funding for The Dalles Dam, a project that would inundate Celilo Falls and part of Celilo Village. The Celilo Fish Committee, along with the Yakama, Umatilla, Warm Springs, and Nez Perce tribal councils protested the dam in formal resolutions and in testimony before Congress.

Letter from Chief Tommy Thompson to Jasper Elliott

Memo from William Brophy, Bureau of Indian Affairs Commissioner

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