Stop8

Jenny Klemp at the lighhouse, 1920'sAlthough deer, bear, and other land animals were abundant in the past, it was the resources of the sea that dominated the food supply then, and that remain exceptionally important today. Whales, Orcas, seals, sea lions, and other large aquatic animals capture the popular imagination, but it is the salmon that is the true icon of the Pacific Northwest. The salmon’s “circle of life” has intrigued human beings for centuries. Born in freshwater, the fish migrate into the ocean for their adult lives. This hazardous journey is fraught with predators, harsh conditions, and severe competition for food. If they survive their epic journey, the salmon grow in the ocean for several years before returning to spawn (lay eggs) and then die in the same river from whence they came. These journeys may cover thousands of miles in all, during which the salmon provide food for humans, bears, eagles, Orcas, and others. Those who do manage to return to reproduce and to die, provide nutrients from the ocean to enrich the water and soil that enables the cycle to begin all over again.

The salmon runs up and down the Snohomish and Stillaguamish Rivers have provided a bountiful harvest for Native Americans for centuries. The runs were almost certainly richer in the past because catches were limited by the small number of fishermen, the limited technology available, and the deep traditions of conservation practiced by the Lushootseed peoples. Salmon was central to survival: what was not eaten right away was smoked and dried for consumption during the long rainy winters. Salmon continues to be celebrated among the Lushootseed in songs, stories, art, and ceremonies. Every year the nearby Tulalip Tribes hold an elaborate Salmon Ceremony to pay homage to the continuing importance of the iconic fish within their culture.

Years ago the supply of salmon and other natural resources seemed endless. This may explain the willingness of the federal government in the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855 to accept that the Native Americans possessed the right to continue to hunt and fish at the “usual and accustomed grounds and stations.” Few could foresee how rapidly the situation would begin to change. Less than forty years later, the Washington State Legislature enacted the first law ever to conserve salmon, initially by limiting the fishing season from March through May. Mukilteo was actually in the forefront of these changes because a commercial fishing enterprise was established here in 1867 by Morris Frost and Jacob Fowler, who had founded the settlement just seven years earlier. Within a decade, the business was transformed into the first salmon cannery on Puget Sound. The cannery processed up to 3,000 fish a day, using advanced technology, Chinese laborers, and Native American fishermen.

After the cannery collapsed in a heavy snowfall in 1879, the new owners of the business transferred operations to West Seattle. The direction of change, however, was already unmistakable: non-Indian fishing interests employed increasingly efficient technology and carefully crafted regulations by the State of Washington to slowly but surely minimize the access of the Indians to their traditional aquatic resources. Protests, “fish-ins,” and lawsuits arose in the mid-twentieth century. Finally in 1974, a federal judge, George Boldt, ruled that the Indian tribes were, indeed, entitled to half of the overall fishing catch each season, a ruling eventually upheld by the United States Supreme Court. The complicated competition continues with regard to fishing rights and regulations, but everyone agrees on the iconic status of the salmon in the Pacific Northwest.