The Dalles Chronicle March 11, 2007 page A10 Itkilak was made by placing clear salmon strips in the hot sun for a day. The next morning, when the flesh was soft, women squeezed it through their hands into shreds and put it in large dishes, or in a pit lined with grass or matting, and mixed it with the roe - the eggs - taken from the fish. The mixture was worked over with our hands, then spread on a mat to dry for two days, then pounded fine with a mortar and pestle. It was rammed into baskets of split cattails lined with fish skins. Each package weighed 100 to 150 pounds and was made from about 100 salmon. When Lewis & Clark came through, they said one village had some 10,000 pounds of this kind of salmon placed in pits for safety. Our most important celebration each year is the First Foods celebration, where we honor arrival of the spring salmon runs. Tradition required that pieces of the first fish caught be fed to the village children to ensure a good harvest. We learn a lot from the salmon. We learn about the need to do things by the seasons and that we must fulfill the circle of life, as they do. And we learn to protect the things of the land and water. Without the fish, game, roots and berries, we will not be around long. ------ The backwaters of the hydroelectric giant, The Dalles Dam, rose within hours of the Columbia River's final blockage, burying the wild Celilo Falls under placid Lake Celilo, submerging the historic Celilo Village and wiping out 480 or so traditional fishing platforms used by the local Native Americans and their extended kin many miles distant. The handful of protected fishing sites that dot the banks of the river today were given to the Native fishermen in compensation for the loss of much larger holdings eliminated through federal government actions. Incoming and Outgoing messages protected by Trend Micro PC-cillin program