At the Ancient Fishing Grounds The Dalles Chronicle March 11, 2007 page A10 Editor's note: Kathy Gray, The Dalles Chronicle's managing editor wrote this piece some years ago as a script for the Celilo Falls mural at Second and Federal streets. The Dalles Mural Society has graciously consented to its publication here. The story is told from the perspective of a fictitious Wy'am woman. ----- Salmon are at the center of the Native American culture in the Mid-Columbia and at the center of that salmon culture was Wy'am - the Celilo Falls. The river turned on its side here, forcing itself through narrow, rocky channels that caused it to foam and roar, rushing to make room for the water that pushed from above. The salmon, in their spawning migration, would fight their way up these falls to reach the place of their birth, leaping and fanning their tails to help their progress. My family had a fishing station on the rocks nearby. The men would stand on a wooden fishing platform they built out over the river and use dipnets - and sometimes spears - to take the salmon. Our distant kin - relations by marriage - came in season to visit us and fish from our family station. That was how it worked all along this part of the Columbia. Families grew in networks that spread out long distances. We visited them to share in their harvests and they came to us to share in the salmon. In good fishing, a man could catch a ton of fish a day. We fished for many kinds of fish: spring, summer and fall Chinook, bluebacks, coho and steelhead. The fishing was dangerous and hard work. The fishermen hauled in fish weighing as much as 60 pounds and the scaffolds were slippery. The chiefs regulated the fishing. No fishing was allowed before the First Salmon Festival, and none was allowed at night. The women packed the heavy fish from the shore to the village - huge packs on their backs. The heat and dryness of our area made it perfect for drying the salmon. We cut small fir poles in the mountains, built a scaffold and made a flat roof to dry the salmon in the shade. The women cut reeds and wove mats that went over the salmon as they dried. And we had big dry-houses at the villages. We split and air-dried the salmon for eating here, or we pounded and treated it for trading. The trade specialty in our area was "Itkilak," dried and pounded salmon known today as sugar salmon. My ancestors traded it for buffalo hides, oyster shells, pipestone and whatever else the other tribes brought to the trade fairs. Incoming and Outgoing messages protected by Trend Micro PC-cillin program