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The Oregonian, Portland, OR., April 17, 1977, Northwest Magazine, page 8
Includes photographs

CELILO FALLS: END OF A SHRINE
What about the promise the Celilo would survive as long as Mount Adams stood and the Columbia continued to flow? What about all the concessions the Indians had made….?
By Sue Vernon

THE CONFLICT over Indian fishing rights has produced a heated battle in the Northwest. The questions that arise concern existing waterways. But what would happen if these fishing grounds disappeared, perhaps washed away in a flood of progress? That is not such an outrageous premise, as history provides us with many instances where that is exactly what happened.
A case in point is the legendary Celilo Falls on the Columbia River.
The story of Celilo Falls spans hundreds of years -- long before the white man migrated to the great Pacific Northwest and, realizing its almost unlimited potential for development and exploitation, began surging upon the land, displacing its native inhabitants and taking from them their most treasured possession, their land.
For hundreds of years, the Columbia River and its tributaries had been the home of myriad Indian tribes from all over the region of the Cascade Range. To them, the Land and waterways were sacred, and modern-day ethics of ecology and preservation of nature were taken for granted by these great people, Celilo was a unique place. It was called "Tumwater" or the "great chute" by early travelers, for this was where the waters of the Columbia merged upon one small crack in the crag of basalt cliffs -- a crack only 150 feet wide. The force of the currents was unbelievable, and the water churned and boiled like a fierce cauldron. The lip of the falls formed an almost perfect horseshoe divided by two large rocks. At this juncture in the river, the waters surged forth and the river dropped 80 feet in the span of a few miles.
This section of the Columbia was inhabited in large measure by four nations -- the Umatilla, Warm Springs, Nez Perce and 14 different tribes of the Yakima. Proud and simple peoples, they used Celilo as their central meeting ground. It was a food emporium and trading center. Indians gathered from all points to barter their wares with other tribes, including the Klickitats, Palouse and Wenatchees.
Washington Irving, in his book Astoria, commented that the tribes from the Pacific brought seafood, wapato (Indian potato) and roots and berries from the interior along the land of the Snake and Columbia rivers. Natives drove in with wild horses, and rowed downstream in canoes laden with goods. When they met, it was a time for celebration.
Celilo was, therefore much more than just another place for the Indians to fish. In many respects, and by modern standards, it was a cultural center. Arts and crafts of all kinds were in evidence and used in trading between the tribes.
William Clark of the Lewis and Clark expedition first sighted Celilo on October 22, 1805. He commented about the magnificence of the great falls and noted there were 17 lodges on the banks opposite the falls. These lodges were no doubt a small part of a much larger settlement of permanent dwellings set up near-by.
Salmon fishing was at the heart of a whole way of life for the Indians. It incorporated their need for food and recreation, and was a commodity of trade between tribes. It represented work for the whole family. And there were many religious beliefs connected to the salmon.
The salmon of Celilo were the great Chinook. They were the largest salmon, often called King, tyee, spring or quinnat. The Columbia River was their great breeding ground. Maturing at four to five years, the Chinook's tremendous homing instinct would call it back to the Columbia, returning to its birthplace to spawn and then die. The eggs were often deposited in almost the exact place (usually gravely areas of small streams) of each salmon's own beginnings. Commercially, the Chinook was to become a valuable market commodity, and it was one of at least two species of salmon garnered by the sport fisheries.
Salmon fishing at Celilo Falls was a unique experience. The design of the fails made any easy access to the Chinook impossible. The sides of the knife-edged cliffs fell 20 feet into the boiling water. The Indians therefore fashioned frail scaffoldings of wood and clung to the sides of the cliffs on ropes. They used large dip nets and javelin-like spears to catch the fish from these "stages" hanging precariously over the lip of the precipice.
Each fisherman had his own station at the falls. Access to these prime waters was so coveted that they were passed on from father to son. Some places along the falls had been used by the same family for hundreds of years.
As the settlers began moving west, the inevitable encroachment of the white man was to take its toll on the Indians of this area. Activity mounted around 1853-57 when Isaac Ingalls Stevens came west and was named Governor of Washington Territory and Superintendent of Indian Affairs. He acted with great zeal to extinguish the Indians' ownership of prime landholdings. In less than a year, he had treaties with 17,000 Indians and had garnered Indian title to more than 64 million acres of land in Washington, Idaho and Montana territories. His initial treaties were signed with the Indians of the Puget Sound area, but after those were finalized, he sent envoys east of the Cascades to negotiate with the Yakima, Nez Perce and Umatilla, Those negotiations began on May 29, 1855.
It was the aim of the commissioners to concentrate the Spokans, Cayuses; Walla-wallas, Umatillas and Nez Perce tribes together in the Nez Perce coun-try, and to put all the tribes and bands along the Columbia River from The Dallas on the south to the Okanogan and Colville valleys on the north on a single Yakima reservation. The purpose was to get the Indians off land the settlers and developers needed to establish railroad lines.
In 1855, 16,920 square miles of land was ceded by the Yakimas to the United States. The territory ran from north of Lake Chelan to the Columbia River, and from the summit of the Cascade Mountains to the Palouse country near the Idaho border.
For giving up this land at 5 cents an acre, the Yakima nation got to keep 12 million acres and Celilo Falls as their Columbia River fishing ground.
One stipulation to that treaty was that the Yakimas secured the right to take fish not only on their reservation, but at usual and accustomed places off the reservation. According to the wording of the treaty, this agreement was to be in effect as long as Mt. Adams stood and the Columbia River continued to flow. Thus to the Indians' way of thinking, and in trust to the word of the white man, Celilo Fails would be protected forever.
Through various congressional maneuvers over the years, however, other Indians lost almost 91 million acres of land similarly granted. The Yakimas held on to all but 79,000 acres.
But the treaties of 1855 did not spell the end of the trials of Indian vs. white man, rather Just the beginning of a struggle that would eventually take Celilo Falls not only from the Indians but from everyone.
Increased traffic down the Columbia soon began to cause problems. Prior to 1863, the link between boats operating on the upper river above Celilo and those at The Dallas was on an old wagon portage road. This was soon outmoded. Locks were completed at Celilo by the federal government in 1892 and The Dalles-Celilo Canal was completed in 1915.
The Corps of Engineers finally had a foothold in the area, and it would never give it up.
Definitive policies by federal and state officials regarding the rights of Indian fisheries were not easily formulated. The fisheries had never been looked upon as genuinely legal in the strictest sense.
Through the first third of the 20th Century the activities of the Indians were tolerated as a necessary evil of the treaties of 1855. Governor Stevens had envisioned a cultural assimilation between the Indians and the white community but the Indians preferred to hold firm to their sense of identity and courageous heritage. They tried as best they could to lead their lives separate from others. No aid or encouragement were forthcoming from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. No attempts were made to integrate Indian fisheries as a separately defined category into an overall fisheries program.
During the late 1930s and early '40s, Celilo Falls became an interesting attraction. The beauty of the area and the obvious lure or the picturesque Indians made Celilo a prime example of how the customs of the virgin Pacific wilderness were continually renewed in the daily activities of these people.
Then the progressive tragedy gained momentum. Increased river traffic was indisputable. The Columbia was the great waterway of the Pacific. The area around Celilo was a serious snag in an otherwise fairly navigable system. The Corps of Engineers again moved in and plans were designed for the construction of The Dalles Dam below the falls. This would increase the utility of the Columbia River waterways to the Inland Empire. Construction was to begin April 21, 1952. The announcement of plans to build the dam dealt a shocking blow to the tribes along the falls. What about the treaty of 1855? What about the promise that Celilo would survive as long as Mt. Adams stood and the Columbia continued to flow? What about all the concessions the Indians had made over the past 100 years aimed at only one thing -- preserving their most precious fishing ground? What had become of these promises?
The days and months of the early 1950s were fraught with the angry objections of the Indian tribes of Celilo. Suits and countersuits were filed in an attempt to stop construction of the dam. The Corps endeavored to negotiate separate treaties with each of the nations for the sale of their rights to the falls. The Indians fought as best they could, but there seemed no turning back the devastating decision-making power of the government.
The Dalles Dam would be built. It would drain an area of 237,000 square miles. For a cost of $350 million, the dam would turn the ancient fishing grounds of the Pacific into a placid lake. The falls would disappear forever under the tons of water that would engulf the area.
The Indians weren't just being raped of their land, But of their cultural heritage. In its place, the government was offering them a monetary settlement. In March, 1953, in a joint agreement with the Corps of Engineers, the Warm Springs (1,078 members) settled for $4,047,000. The Umatillas (1,118 members) would be reimbursed $4,198,000. With this agreement, the Indians were absolving the government of any damages that might be caused by the construction of the dam and reservoir. The Nez Perce tribe soon settled for $2.8 million, and in December, 1954, the Yakima nation (4,500 members) finally settled their claim for $15 million.
So the decisions had all been made. The settlements signed. Celilo Falls would join the great _____ of the Cascades (inundated by Bonneville Dam) and the Umatilla Rapids (engulfed by McNary Dam) as simply a faint remembrance of the past.
An interesting sidelight to this tragedy was the reaction of the scientific community to the flooding of Celilo. Archeologists came from all parts of the country in one last frantic search for Indian relics that could be consumed by the waters. They felt that some of the most ancient and interesting specimens of early Indian art would be lost in the deluge.
Excavations of early Indian cultures were speeded up in an attempt to procure as much knowledge as possible. Ancient petroglyphs -- drawings carved on the rock walls of canyons along the Columbia River in some remote antiquity -- were rapidly uncovered and removed (in part) from the site. They completed as much work as they were permitted by December, 1956. How much of the history, culture and art of the Indians was lost to the dam will, of course, never be accurately measured.
The end came for the Indians on October 1, 1956. That was the day they were ordered to evacuate the area of the falls. It took almost five months thereafter for preparations to be made to flood the area. On March 16, 1957, the intake gates were closed and the water consumed Celilo.
But the story of the Indians and does not end at Celilo. Under agreements signed in 1953-54, the Indians would retain certain rights, among them the right to continue fishing with dip nets on the Columbia River at The Dalles Dam and downstream to the Bridge of the Gods. While other concessions were made, they were so vague that to this day court cases continue to beg the question.
In a conversation with a Washington State Department Fisheries official, one point was made very clear. While the Indians may have lost their site for fishing, they did not lose the right to fish in other areas of the Columbia and its tributaries. That ruling is still debated by many.
Through the end of the 1950s and into the '60s, the controversy continued. So today, 20 years after the displacement of the Indians of Celilo Falls, the courts still echo the outraged cries of tribes seeking to retain treaty rights recognized when their native fishing grounds were obliterated.
A phone call to a state agency answered the question of what happened to the Indians. While many still reside along the Columbia, others have taken to reservations. The Nez Perce to Lapwai, Idaho, and the Yakima tribes to a large reservation at Toppenish, Washington. Establish fishing seasons have been set up so the Indians can utilize their set nets for commercial use. They have a hook and line privileges year-round for subsistence-level fishing. While once they netted a great Chinook that weighed 90 to 100 pounds, now an average catch is 35 pounds or less.
And the Chinook have also been displaced. They still migrate through the area looking for spawning grounds upstream. The spring, summer and fall Chinook all continued to swim instinctively up the Columbia. The fall Chinook spawn east of Blalock Island, and many others spawn at The Dalles pool and at John Day Dam pool. Some spawn elsewhere, and now the area of the Hanford plant is utilized, as well as grounds on the Snake River.
But somehow it isn't the same, nor will it ever be again. Perhaps the words of an old Indian fisherman best express the feeling.
"The falls weren't just a place to catch fish. Celilo was a natural shrine, a sacred place for untold ages, and its loss never can be compensated."