Major Events and Their Impact on the Okanagan River System Timeline offers a wealth of information about Okanagan People and the Sockeye Salmon from Pre 1800s to Today.
This is an interesting location as the trail follows the Okanagan River where the Sockeye journey up the river to spawn. The best time to see the salmon is early fall: September to October.
Pre 1800s: Before Contact and Settlement
Okanagan Nation and other Aboriginal groups depended on sockeye and other species of fish for food and trading. Fish Stocks sustained for thousands of years.
From the beginning of time the Okanagan people fished, hunted and gathered plant foods throughout this valley and other parts of the territory. Okanagan legends tell us that in the beginning, Coyote brought the sockeye salmon up the Columbia River. First, he offered the salmon, in exchange for a wife, to the Okanagan people who live on the Similkameen River. They refused, and, no salmon swam into their river. Because the Okanagan people who live along the Okanagan River did give Coyote a wife, the sockeye salmon have been swimming up the Okanagan River ever since.
The Historical Okanagan Fishery
The sockeye salmon was a primary food source for the Okanagan people. Beginning in late summer, as the fish returned to spawn in Okanagan River, large fishing camps were set up at Okanagan Falls and at the mouth of the Okanagan-River. The Okanagan people marked the beginning of the fishing season with the first Salmon Ceremony.
Led by the Salmon Chief, they honored the sockeye and gave thanks for its abundance. The Salmon Chief distributed to all members of the community and only enough fish were caught to last until the following year. Fish were eaten fresh and dried for winter storage. When plentiful, the sockeye was a valuable trading item.
Everyone in the community had a job to do. While the men and boys fished with weirs, single and three pronged spears, seine nets, dip nets, gaff hooks and traps, the women and girls gutted, split and hung the sockeye to dry on huge racks. They also gathered and preserved plant foods that grew beside the river.
Early To Mid – 1800s
Forts and trading posts built along US side of Okanagan River where fish were harvested. Fish dried in large quantities and sent to Fort Colville.
Fish were main food source for traders and families, which added to competition for salmon and other fish resources.
In the mid-1800's, the sockeye fishery began, to change dramatically with the arrival of European traders and ranchers. Settlement along the river, the building of dams, channelization, commercial fishing, irrigation and domestic water use damaged salmon habitat, interrupted migration routes, reduced stocks entering the rivers to spawn, increased competition for the resource and destroyed traditional fishing sites.
Late 1800s
Lower Columbia River canneries processed thousands of millions of pounds of sockeye per year. Introduction of several non-native species of fish – continued to 1950.
This marked the beginning of significant decreases in numbers of sockeye returning to spawn in Okanagan River. Increased number of species added to competition for food, habitat and predation.
1915 to 1965
Series of dams built on the Okanagan and Columbia rivers. Water diverted for irrigation purposes.
The health of fish was affected by fluctuation in water temperature and levels. Migration to and from rearing and spawning habitats was interfered with. Smolts were caught in turbines on the way down the Columbia River to Pacific Ocean.
1954
Okanagan River channelized.
Natural river habitat reduced by 91% - including streamside vegetation (Riparian Zone), which provides shade and protection and prevents erosion of soil into river bottom.
1939 – 1958
Grand Coulee project transplants 4.7 million sockeye into Okanagan system. The results was competition and genetic interference.
1971 – Present
European Milfoil spread thought system: 1970 – 1980. Climate change warms lakes, rivers and oceans: 1970 to present.
Mysis relicta shrimp from Okanagan Lake invade Osoyoos Lake: 1998.
Survival rate of eggs and fry reduced by further reduction in habitat, increased competition for food and temperate changes.
Okanagan Salmon Today
Sockeye, chinook, Coho and steelhead are the only remaining anadromous salmonid populations in the Okanagan River system. Sockeye now spawn primarily in an unchanneled or natural portion of Okanagan River, just south of McIntyre Bluff. Sport and food fishing of sockeye are greatly reduced and although the traditional sockeye fishery is no longer active, Okanagan people still celebrate the First Salmon Feast. This feast, held at the site of the fishing camp at Okanagan Falls honors the salmon and raises awareness of its importance and of efforts being made to increase the numbers of sockeye in the Okanagan River.