Members of the Pacific Lamprey Conservation Initiative (PLCI) planning committee hold a Pacific lamprey cloth replica provided by the Oregon Metro as a display and example of interactive tools for outreach. The Yakama Nation holds annual Lamprey Celebrations in Oregon City every June to educate local residents about the First Food and endangered fish where Metro displays this replica each year.
PORTLAND, Ore. — Tribal leaders, fisheries biologists, and conservation experts convened in Portland last week for the ninth annual Pacific Lamprey Conservation Initiative (PLCI) Information Exchange, bringing together decades of research and traditional ecological knowledge to address the future of the culturally significant and ancient fish.
Commissioner Brandon Treloar (CTUIR), right, opened Wednesday’s morning with a prayer and stories of his experience working for the CTUIR lamprey program. Aaron Jackson (CTUIR), left, attended the conference along with fellow tribal members and colleagues. Jackson is the Lamprey Project Manager for CTUIR.
The three-day conference, held Dec. 9-11, featured presentations on lamprey passage behavior, monitoring techniques, and restoration efforts throughout the range of Pacific Lamprey, including presentations on efforts in the Columbia River Basin and Alaska.
CRITFC’s Lamprey Project Lead, and PLCI Tribal Co-Chair, Laurie Porter (Lac Courte Oreilles, Ojibwe), said of the Pacific Lamprey Conservation Initiative (PLCI), “This was the 9th annual event and each year the interest in and participation in the event has increased exponentially. This is important for increasing awareness of Pacific lamprey and restoration needs throughout their range and converting the awareness into on the ground actions to support restoration.”
Brandon Treloar, a Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) Fish & Wildlife commissioner and Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) commissioner, offered an invocation to open the event. He reflected on progress of the CTUIR, one of CRITFC’s four member tribes, has had since they began making headway with their lamprey program in the early 2000s.
Treloar said working with lamprey was his favorite position and expressed satisfaction at seeing the species return to ceremonial harvestable numbers on his homelands. He noted he wished he had seen the current level of investment in lamprey survival and revival back when the tribe first started gaining traction on the issue.
Displaced Fish and People
Following a midday field trip to Willamette Falls on Tuesday, presenters Jeremy FiveCrows (Nez Perce), CRITFC’s Communication Director, and Gabe Sheoships (CTUIR), Friends of Tryon Creek’s Executive Director, discussed the cultural significance of the falls. FiveCrows spoke about historical contrasts, noting the different fates of the three great waterfalls of the United States: Celilo Falls, Niagara Falls, and Willamette Falls. He noted Celilo Falls being drowned behind a dam, Willamette Falls being crowded out and hidden by industry, and Niagara Falls, preserved due to its tourism draw.
FiveCrows’ observations about the preservation of waterfalls carried particular weight given the dramatic differences in scale between the sites. Willamette Falls is the second largest waterfall by volume in the country after Niagara Falls, with an average of two million cubic feet per minute cascading over it. Prior to its inundation in 1957, though, both Willamette and Niagara were dwarfed by the volume of water passing over Celilo Falls. During the spring runoff, an average of 26 million cubic feet of water roared over the rocks.
Jeremy Fivecrows (Nez Perce) shares the cultural significance and history of the Willamette Falls after attending a tour of the falls with conference attendees. Fivecrows gave historical context to the preservation and development of industrial land around Willamette Falls in contrast with Celilo Falls which was inundated in 1957.
During his presentation, Fivecrows also noted the inundation and displacement of historical fishing villages from Celilo as a similar story to the industrialization at Willamette Falls, with residents being pushed out to make room for commerce on a large scale. While one natural wonder was
preserved in the creation of hydropower systems and the other was not, both places created a division between residents and the land.
Both Sheoships and FiveCrows believe healing the land is only possible if people take time to reconnect and learn from Indigenous peoples.
“Unless people care, they won’t put efforts into restoring,” FiveCrows said, adding that residents have an obligation in Portland to “open our hearts and spirits on a broader level and undo centuries of effort to disconnect us all from this place.”
Reconnection to place part of repairing ecosystems
Sheoships and FiveCrows spoke at the newly constructed Tryon Creek Education Pavilion, which opened in September and is inspired by the design of traditional Chinook plank houses. The venue is located at Tryon Creek State Natural Area, Oregon’s only state park within a major metropolitan area. The 658-acre natural area, situated about 15 minutes from downtown Portland, features second-growth forests, eight miles of hiking trails and the meandering Tryon Creek, which supports runs of coho salmon and steelhead trout.
Friends of Tryon Creek staff and volunteers gather in the freshly built pavilion, designed to coincide with traditional plank houses, before Gabe Sheoships (CTUIR) and Jeremy Fivecrows (Nez Perce) delivered presentations to PLCI conference attendees.
Friends of Tryon Creek, established in 1970 as the first Friends group in state park history, partners with Oregon State Parks to inspire and nurture relationships with nature in the urban forest. The nonprofit organization offers educational and stewardship programs, creates volunteer opportunities and operates school field trips at the park. In his presentation at the new pavilion, Sheoships discussed how Indigenous values emphasize that people and the natural world thrive because of, not despite, each other. He stressed that all people, regardless of background, can connect to the land and their relatives wherever they live by adopting practices of care and reciprocity.
Sheoships, who is featured in Freshwaters Illustrated’s short film “PLACE — People, Lamprey, and Cultural Ecology” harvesting lamprey at Willamette Falls, called lamprey “our oldest relatives who we’re all working to protect and preserve,” noting the species are key to human survival and resilience. The plank house setting, he explained, represents a space where Indigenous art, culture and environmental education converge to tell accurate stories of Native people while making Indigenous values visible to all visitors.
Cultural Significance Highlighted
Jill-Marie Gavin, CRITFC’s public information officer (CTUIR), delivered the tribal keynote address during Wednesday’s meeting. The tribal journalist, who grew up in Portland, detailed her journey from disconnection to reconnection with her people through her mother’s work at CRITFC and guidance from her grandfather, former CRITFC commissioner Atway Jay Minthorn (CTUIR).
Jill-Marie Gavin (CTUIR) shared her personal journey from living disconnected from her culture and tribe growing up in Portland and how CRITFC and Tamanwit shaped her work as a journalist for the organization. ‘Remembering Our Covenant’ is one of Gavin’s slides depicting her and her youngest daughter out digging for Latit Latit, or Indian Celery, on the Umatilla Indian Reservation.
“All things indigenous lead back to First Foods,” Gavin said, explaining how tribal celebrations and traditions center on foods while trauma has resulted from being removed from the land and resources.
CRITFC’s Communications department expanded from a one-person staff to three when Public Affairs Specialist Andrea Tulee (Yakama) and Gavin joined the organization in February of 2023. Gavin shared how CRITFC’s news and social media reach has grown since the department’s expansion. While coverage remains focused on Salmon Culture, tribal fishers, and CRITFC’s scientific and conservation work, the increased capacity has enabled the team to cover significant issues and events throughout Columbia River Plateau tribal country.
Gavin explained how each facet of tribal culture connects back to First Foods and the land. She discussed how Indigenous fashion is rooted in tribal culture and addressed the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives crisis and its influence on CRITFC programming. She emphasized that every positive experience and trauma for Native populations connects directly to removal from and reconnection with culture.
Like Fivecrows and Sheoships, Gavin spoke about Tamanwit, explaining how living by that law and covenant creates a close bond with the land and animal relatives, sustains healthy lifestyles, and helps tribal communities heal themselves and the land around them simultaneously.
Scientific Research Presented and Policy Discussions
Day two of the symposium featured presentations on lamprey passage behavior and survival in the Lower Columbia and Lower Snake rivers by Kate Deters of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, and migration behavior at Lower Columbia River dams by Daniel Deng, also of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.
The Alaska Regional Management Unit session included presentations on lamprey research, tracking efforts integrating traditional knowledge and field surveys, and reproductive biology studies. Speakers included Nate Cathcart of Alaska Department of Fish and Game, (recently elected as the new PLCI State Co-Chair); Meghan Montagne of Knik Tribe, and Amber Perk of University of Alaska Fairbanks.
Looking back at their first conference, PLCI Tribal Engagement and Relations Coordination Intern Christina Kaltsukis (Yakama), said, “I’ve valued learning about the research effort and tribal collaboration from California to Alaska as well as seeing how each region approaches this work. Hearing how these efforts guide others has really deepened my understanding and respect.”
After spending the week of hearing from presenters and attendees Kaltsukis shared her hopes for applied learning from the conference.
Inter-tribal lamprey biologists, outreach specialists, educators and technicians attended the annual conference to learn and share their own outreach and conservation techniques as well as teach non-tribal organizations about the cultural ties tribes have to the ancient fish. From left are CRITFC staff member Christina Kaltsukis (Yakama), Nez Perce Lamprey Project lead Ray Ellenwood (Nez Perce), Yakama Nation Lamprey Project staff Ralph Lampman, Tyler Beals, and CRITFC staff member Vernon Smartlowit (Yakama).
“The connections I’ve made and the knowledge I’m bringing back will help others, inside and outside our communities, continue the sacred work the elders began. I recommend this information exchange to anyone committed to restoring our rivers and supporting the fish and ecosystems that depend on them,” she said.
The conference executive session brought together steering committee members, regional management unit leads, and lamprey technical workgroup subgroup leads to discuss the organization’s future and capacity.
PLCI Tribal Co-Chair, Laurie Porter (Lac Courte Oreilles, Ojibwe), left, and PLCI intern Christina Kaltsukis (Yakama) represented CRITFC’s participation in putting on the information exchange conference.
“The PLCI is a collaborative effort of tribes, federal, state, NGO, PUDs, watershed councils, and more with the goals to collaborate and to leverage agencies’ resources and knowledge in order to work together to implement urgent and significant actions to address the threats to Lamprey,” said Porter.
The conference was sponsored by Tualatin-Yamhill, Nez Perce Fisheries, Natural Resources Consultants Inc., Benthos Consulting LLC, National Fish Habitat Partnership and U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, and CRITFC.
Porter expressed gratitude to sponsors, attendees, and tribal partners for their continued commitment to the initiative’s mission: to “restore Pacific Lamprey so they are widely distributed in the CRB and throughout their entire range in healthy, self-sustaining, harvestable numbers that fully provide for tribal traditional, cultural, ceremonial and spiritual uses,” ensuring lamprey “are safe for consumption in large quantities by all members of the community and provide important ecological services to habitats where they reside for the entirety of their lifecycle.”