Thursday, July 25, 2013

Day 10 Wednesday

Again we woke up and had some eggs. It was nice to have something different than cereal. Today our plans are full of fun. We sat down with the Spokane tribal members and spoke with the people in control of Forest Management. They told us some stories about how the Yakamas have always been like family to the Spokane Indians. Yakama's relation to the spokane Indians go back to wars of the late 1800s with chief kamiakin and the spokane chief. On the spokane reservation indian land own is up to 92 percent. Some of the problems that they are dealing with is that the remains of the elders that were buried by the rivers are now coming out of the ground floating in the river. Natives believed that the bodies still posses powers because they were buried with the love of their loved ones. Also many ancient artifacts are being moved too. The priceless artifacts are being lifted out of the ground and floating down the river. Some of the tools that were found dated back to as early as 8,500 BCE. This is a serious problem that the Spokane Indians are facing. They also fear that the graves will be lost. Most of the spokane tribes are river tribes. This means that all year around they lived on the river. After the dams were put it it raised the water level and covered up the old long houses and to be forever under water. After the introduction, we left for Tshimikain river where we collected fish. The way we did that was we used an electrical thing that stunned the fish and we used nets to catch the fish. It was fun until I got all wet from the water. They made us hamburgers for lunch and they hit the spot. Also there I learned that salmon are changing white in the river instead of pink. This is caused by the change of what they eat. Land lock fish are fish that never make it out to the ocean. And ocean salmon are pink from the shrimp that they eat. Also the taste of the salmon are very different too. most salmon that come through the Tshimiksin river become land lock because the streams are to difficult for the salmon to swim up. This can be because of the rivers drying out or just no way to get to the top of the river. Overall today was a good day of learning and I cannot wait for more. 

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