The Upper Skagit Indian Tribe calls on Seattle to remove the Gorge Dam
The tribe is pushing to protect their way of life.
This article is one of a pair of stories about the Skagit River and the federal process to relicense three major hydroelectric dams along its length. Read the companion story here.
Raindrops fell through gusts of fresh April air as clouds and mist draped the ridges above the Skagit River near Hamilton, Washington, a few dozen miles upriver from Puget Sound. Lifelong fisherman Scott Schuyler, an Upper Skagit Tribal elder and a policy representative for the tribe, was dressed for the weather in green rubber boots beneath an orange and yellow rain slicker. His 20-year-old daughter, Janelle Schuyler, in similar gear, hopped on board her father’s boat as he shoved off from shore in search of salmon.
“We hope to have a good day out here on the river,” Scott Schuyler said. He wanted not only to catch some fish, but also to use the trip as a learning opportunity for his daughter. “One of the things I like to instill in our young people, and my daughter in particular, is make a difference, effect change, while you can.”
Scott Schuyler’s family left their Skagit Valley homeland before he was born, in search of economic opportunity. The state of Washington had said it was illegal for them to fish in the Skagit. The tribe’s treaty-protected fishing rights had yet to be adjudicated, and state law forbade the practice.
Following the “Fish Wars” of the early 1970s, when Indigenous activists successfully fought for their fishing rights, the 1974 federal Boldt Decision affirmed the tribes’ treaty rights to 50% of the harvest in their “usual and accustomed grounds.” Schuyler’s family returned to the valley, and he reconnected with his culture and became a fisherman. “I knew immediately that this is who we’re supposed to be, who I am, and who I will always be,” Schuyler said.
Read the rest of the story at https://www.hcn.org/issues/53.8/indigenous-affairs-dams-the-upper-skagit-indian-tribe-calls-on-seattle-to-remove-the-gorge-dam.
