Day 7: Fisheries, Elmer Crow, and Powwoww

Today we went to the Nez Perce Tribe's fishery. We woke up at 6:30 and Jim Harbeck (Field Officer Super for Nez Perce Fishery). He led us a few miles down the road to Lostine River, near the town of Wallowa, OR, to the Nez Perce Weir at Lostine River. When we arrived at the fishery, Jim gave us some information about the salmon population here in Wallowa.I learned a lot about the conditions salmon prefer to live in. For example, the love  cold, clean water. Jim also told us that the salmon had to cross 8 dams to reach the weir we were at. The weir expanded the entire width of Lostine River in order to capture all of the salmon coming through the river. The salmon we were able to view today were "Spring Chinook". At this specific site, the salmon captured are measured for length, sex, age. They are also checked for internal identification tags, and injected with an antibiotic. Jacks are young (3 year old) male salmon that have, for some reason or another, decided to return to the stream to spawn, even though they are still juviniles. The jacks are tossed into a tank that will eventually be used for the tribe, as well as for research for the fisherie. The older adults are tossed into tanks at random that will be transeferred to neighboring hatcheries. Some of the salmon, chosen at random, are embedded with a tracker that monitors their movement over their entire lives. In 1997 when they began tracking the Spring Chinook, there were only 13 in the entire river.  In 2007 there were over 3000! This increase is due to the work being done by the Nez Perce fisheries and hatcheries.

After the fishery tour, we went to Chief Joseph's grave right on the tip od Wallowa Lake. We got to swim in the day park area and it was amazing! When we were done swimming,  we headed back to the powwow grounds  for a "Friendship Feast". I tried elk and buffalo for the first time and it was actually pretty good. Once the friendship feast was over we headed back to our camp and had a talk from Nez Perce tribal elder, Elmer Crow.  He spoke about his history and how abundant native species such as the lamprey and salmon used to be. He spoke about the cultural and scientific importance of these animals in our world. 

Once Elmer left, we went back to the powwow and enjoyed the rest of our evening there.