Syilx Okanagan Nation says salmon run at risk after neighbouring nation pulls funds

The Syilx Okanagan Nation is celebrating a record-breaking salmon run in the region this year, but says it fears for the future of the restoration work after a neighbouring nation pulled funding from the project, amid a conflict between the two.

According to the Okanagan Nation Alliance, the governing body for the Syilx Okanagan Nation, upwards of 300,000 salmon have made it up the Columbia River to the Okanagan Basin to spawn this fall.

It's a major success story for the fish species, which was nearing extinction in the area in the 1990s.

Tyson Marsel, a biologist at the kł cp̓əlk̓ stim̓ Hatchery, said the achievement is thanks to more than two decades of hard work harvesting eggs, releasing roe and restoring the region's salmon habitat and migration routes.

For the past 15 years, the Okanagan Nation Alliance (ONA) says it has been partnering on the project with a Washington state-based Indigenous group known as the Colville Confederated Tribes (CCT). But tensions over regional rights have risen between the two in recent years and, in August, the CCT announced it was pulling approximately $400,000 in annual funding from the salmon restoration efforts. 

The ONA says the move has caused significant disruption to their ongoing work. 

WATCH | Record-breaking salmon run in the Okanagan: 

Indigenous-led restoration program sees record return of migrating sockeye salmon

1 month ago

Duration 3:58

Just a few decades ago, a South Okanagan salmon run was on the brink of collapse, but an Indigenous-led effort to remove barriers and restore habitat is paying off. This year, local First Nations communities are celebrating a record return of migrating sockeye salmon to the region.

Chief Robert Louie of the Westbank First Nation, which is part of the ONA, said the decision was made with just 15 days notice and left the program scrambling for money to keep operating.

"Fish know no boundaries," he said. "Eighty per cent of all the sockeye that goes into Columbia River … they originate here in the Okanagan, north of the 49th parallel."

Sinixt territory

The two Indigenous groups' conflict is rooted in a disagreement over which one of them represents Sinixt people in Canada, whose traditional territory exists in both B.C. and Washington state. Following colonization, some Sinixt people headed south to form the Colville Confederated Tribe, while others joined different bands in Canada, including the Syilx Okanagan Nation.

The Sinixt Nation had been erroneously declared extinct in Canada until the CCT brought a case to the Supreme Court of Canada. The court ruled in the CCT's favour and also recognized that Sinixt Nation members living in the modern-day United States — who are part of the Colville Confederated Tribes — hold certain rights as Indigenous people in Canada.

Chief Louie of the Westbank First Nation said he thinks the CCT is trying to gain power by pulling the funding on their salmon restoration partnership.

"In retrospect, the cancellation [of the funding] ... appears to be a direct play for full control of Upper Columbia fish passage, salmon reintroduction and research — work that we have successfully led in all parts of our territory."

Asked about this comment, CCT Chief Jarred Erickson said "In all honesty, we should be."

"That's our territory … that's the Sinixt territory."

Erickson confirmed that the Colville Confederated Tribes has withdrawn the funding from the joint salmon work but said that it is continuing to work on salmon habitat restoration in other ways, including in the U.S. and through funding the work of its own Canadian staff in Nelson, B.C. – where one of their member nations recently opened an office. 

Erickson said he's frustrated that the nations are in disagreement, and that the Okanagan Nation Alliance has publicly aired its grievances about the conflict and funding decision.

"Unfortunately, we're fighting the same colonial concepts that we had to fight to get our extinction declaration reversed, right?"

"We had to fight the provincial and the federal government of Canada. Now, here we are fighting tribes which you think [would] be welcoming us back."

Despite the conflict around funding, ONA members are still celebrating the record-breaking salmon run.

When Marsel, the kł cp̓əlk̓ stim̓ Hatchery biologist, spoke with CBC News in late October, he and a team of volunteers had just finished an "egg take" at a river channel in Oliver, B.C.

"Every single October the river is filled with salmon and that's our time to collect all our eggs for the year," he said.

Festive field work

The team waded through shallow river water, and used a large net to capture dozens of fish at once. They then sorted through the live fish and identified the mature females, retrieving eggs from them to transport to the hatchery for fertilization.

After the eggs hatch, the salmon roe will be strategically released back into nearby waterways. Marsel said their goal is to release five million roe in the coming year, of which anywhere from two to 10 per cent will return to spawn.
 
Capturing salmon in the river is a festive process, and people "hoot and holler" when they succeed, said Corinna Gabriel, who takes vacation time from her day job every year to come and work with the team.

"I'm doing really important work with the fish," she said. "I love praying for the fish and doing the offerings every morning."

Marsel said he's hopeful that one day, their work won't be necessary.

"We'll just keep putting fish back into the system and in hopes that … I'll work myself out of the job and [we will] have a wild, sustainable run of sockeye salmon and chinook salmon in the river," he said.