News Report on the Columbia River Indians in Oregon

[Helicopter noise] [Host] Traveling through the Columbia River Gorge, it is perhaps hard to imagine that any one plot of land on the banks of this vast waterway can be more significant than any other. That 42 acres of federal land can mean so much more in an area encompassing over three hundred twenty thousand acres. But it does. And the way those 42 acres are to be used has stirred up what could be up lengthy and costly court Rroom battle between two cultures. One of the present, the other transcends time. For generations the Columbia River Indians roamed freely along these shores, harvesting salmon at favorite fishing sites like Celilo Falls. Salmon is not only part of these people's dietary needs, but spiritual as well. For these Indians, fishing is a necessity. It is their way of life. But today the falls of Celilo are gone, covered up by the backwash of The Dalles dam. Likewise, are the Indians, having left the banks for inland reservations in Yakima, Warm Springs and

Umatilla. [music and chanting in the background] A handful, however, have remained on the waterway that has been a part of their heritage for centuries. These are the last of the Columbia River Indians, a peaceful people who want to fish and live with their river on those forty-two acres. They say they're governed by the laws of a 130-year-old treaty that guaranteed them certain fishing rights for perpetuity. And herein lies the problem. [water sounds] Areas like this one here at Cook's Landing are known as 'in-lieu' sights. There are five such sites scattered up and down the Columbia. They were built by the Army Corps of Engineers in the mid-'30s when the construction of the Bonneville dam flooded traditional Indian fishing sites and villages. But federal officials say these sites were never intended for permanent residences. And while government regulations allow Indians to fish and camp temporarily on these in-lieu sites, David Sohapi, and another Columbia River Indians, have been living on these sites for over 20 years now. And despite evictions from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, they have no intention of leaving.

[David] Told them people to move out, so they moved out and built them a different place to camp. Way off the water where you can't have no facilities to the river. He told me here when they were gonna built this, they'd build me a home way up there somewhere if I moved, I told no. I'm gonna stay by the a river. I don't want to go way up there and I can't fish from up there. Told 'em I'd stay here. [Indian woman] It's not the first time they're doing this it's been happening way back. Corps of Engineer, or whoever's doing this. And, in Maryhill there was a lot of people who lived there and they got moved out. So now we're the only people that's just sittin' here and don't wanna leave. [Host] Why? [Woman] Because we've lived here all our lives, and our people before us, and we don't have no place to really go. Because this is our, well, I could say our land, I guess. Because we didn't come from any place. This is where we originated from, the river.

[Host] Currently the evictions are under appeal and because of this litigation people at the BIA declined to talk to us on camera. A spokesman did say, however, that the regulations are clear that there can be no permanent housing on the in-lieu sites. But attorney for the Indians, Jack Schwartz, says these rules violate Indian Treaty Rights. [Jack] While the regulations were written in the '70s, there is no statutory or constitutional basis for the regulations. There's no treaty basis for the regulations, it's just a political and economic move to rid the Columbia River of Indian people. [Water and outdoor sounds] The Indian people living on the Columbia River have an aboriginal title and a right to the ownership and control of that land on the river. [Host] But those rights rests solely upon how the treaties of 1855 are interpreted. [Jack] The four, treaties two of them say that the Indians can have suitable buildings, two of them them say that they could have non-permanent structures. Now there was no Chinook word or understanding for temporary, so the Indians didn't

know what the whites were pulling on them. Federal law says the treaties are to be interpreted as the Indians signing the treaties understood them to be. And no one would have signed away their right to be on the river. [David] The treaty, when it's interpreted by me in Indian way, there's a lot of different words or meanings to it than what the white man's interpretation of it is. Anything like that is supposed to be interpreted the way the Indians themselves understand what was being said. [Host] You don't think they understood that? [David] I don't think they do, or don't want to understand it, because they wanna turn everything to their way. [Host] BIA people admit regulating river sites has been a sensitive issue ever since they were built. That's one reason why they've been hesitant removing the Indians for so many years. So why evict the Indians now? According to Schwartz it is because of a federal undercover operation run by the National Marine Fisheries Service known as "Salmon Scam." According to

federal agents, in 1981, about 40,000 falls chinook, half of the estimated run, were unaccounted for between Bonneville and McNary dams. Poaching was suspected as a major cause and prompted a 14-month investigation in the area between those two dams. [Jack] What we found is that we were able to purchase between six and eight thousand illegally, illegally-caught fish. And to put that in some sort of perspective, just right now, off the coast of Oregon and Washington, we're about to close a fishing season for hundreds of fisherman. Their total quota for this season is 27,000 fish. So, 6,000 fish, and that was probably not all the activities on the river, that's extremely significant. I can't begin to suggest how important that was at the time. [Host] But while some blatant and widespread poaching was uncovered, most of it was being done by non-Indians. Of the 50 people convicted in the operation in state and federal courts, only 15 were Indian fisherman. Those

convictions, as well, are now under appeal on various grounds, including entrapment. During the operation, though, in 1982, Wayne Lewis, the Fisheries Service chief regional law enforcement officer wrote this letter to the BIA, asking why the bureau has allowed the Indians to remain living on these in-lieu sites, calling it a complete disregard of the law. BIA replied that this matter was being studied but added that the issue of permanent residences on the in-lieu sites was a sensitive subject. The Bureau reiterated this in another letter a year later in June 1983. [Jack] We found that the Commerce Department in Seattle who started the undercover criminal operation then induced James Watt to ask the Interior Department to counterattack from their losing the cases by evicting people under these regulations that had never been used before. That after $350,000 and two years of prosecutions and 100 cases starting in 1982 the government has been defeated

in these frame-up cases against Indian people in the courts of Oregon, Washington and in the federal government. But BIA people say Schwartz is wrong. That the evictions and the "Salmon Scam" operation are not related in any way. Wayne Lewis was not available for comment. He also wouldn't return our phone calls. But Roland Schmitten says that the undercover operation was in no way intended to force the Indians off the river. [Roland] The Indians have a right to be on the Columbia River. They have a right to be fishing on the Columbia River, as given them in the treaties and I support those rights. And never did I hear, in all the courses that preceded the arrest, any discussion to get the Indians off the river. [Host] And Schmitten added that the salmon runs have been up since the poachers were caught. Poachers like David Sohapi. One of the 15 Indians convicted in the operation. In addition to possibly seeing his family be evicted from their home, Sohapi has been sentenced to

five years in prison. [David] What I was fishing for was our semi-memorial, our first huckleberry feast that we take our fish to. [Host] Now that's, that's legal though right? [David] It's supposed to be for me, but they say it's illegal to do so. They say I gotta have permit to go and catch a fish before I go to our services. [Host] Do you get the permit from the Yakima reservation? [David] That's where they're supposed to get it, but say I don't believe in getting a permit to go to our church. Like you or anybody else. When you go to church you don't have to get a permit to go to church, and that's the way I think about it. [Chinook Woman] In our treaty it says as long as the river flows and as long as the mountain stands. That's the deal that the white man made. That the Indians would have their rights to fish and to hunt as long as the river flows. This river is very important to us because fish is our number one food, and, and the water brings life to everything. If it

wasn't for the river, or the mountains, we wouldn't have anything. We'd be like out in the desert with nothing. [Host] So you couldn't exist living on the reservations and coming down here to fish? [Chinook Woman] No, I don't think so. [Host] But now that's up to the courts to decide. And should the rulings be upheld, it could well mark the end to these Indians' last stand. [Jack] These are people who have decided not to take government hand-outs, welfare, social security, unemployment money. Many of them will not take per-capitas from the tribes, they just want to be left alone, not be a drain on anybody's economy. And just to be left to practice their religions and their culture. [David] Been on the river for most of my life. I tried everything else on the valley, it didn't work out. But I like when I'm fishing. In the time I was working, I'd be $200 in the hole every month. I didn't like that. Since I become a fisherman, I don't have to worry about nothing, I

let the river take care of me.