ntytyix Chief Salmon
Syilx People are also called Salmon People
ntytyix, Salmon is a primary food of the Syilx People and central to our culture and trade traditions. A myriad of Syilx cultural practices demonstrate snx̌aʔiwləm (honouring the sacredness of the river) while reinforcing strong cultural and spiritual ties between Syilx communities and the salmon.
As one of our Four Food Chiefs, and central to many of our captikʷł, salmon are not only a form of sustenance, they are our relative, and an essential part of the continued resilience of the tmixʷ. As such, these salmon are central to a wide range of connections between generations, communities, humans & non-humans, terrestrial and aquatic species and transboundary watersheds within Canadian and American sovereigns including Indigenous Tribes along the Columbia River systems.
For generations salmon fed our people, yet when European settlers arrived everything changed. Upon contact, and the century that followed, colonization was as tough on our salmon as it was on our people. Overfishing was already an issue by the late-1800s. Logging and farming destroyed the gravel bars and clear streams where salmon lay their eggs. In the early thirties, International Water Agreements launched the building and expanse of hydro-electric developments on the Columbia River, making it impossible for fish passage, devastating the annual salmon runs to near extinction. This also led to agricultural and urban sprawl, while greatly undermining Indigenous food systems.
Unfortunately, the effects of colonization are still influencing our salmon. Colonial threats, such as the development of hydroelectric dams have severely impacted the salmon, bringing them closer to extinction.
The construction of Grand Coulee Dam on Columbia River at Kettle Falls, completed in 1942, stopped all salmon migration for thousands of kilometers of spawning river in Canada.
After years of effort by the Syilx Okanagan Nation to reintroduce salmon back to the region, sc’win (sockeye) and ntytyix (chinook) salmon are now returning and spawning in many of the rivers and creeks throughout the Okanagan.
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