At 2,000 kilometers in length and with tributaries – including BC's own Okanagan River -- spanning a couple of provinces and several states, the Columbia River is the fourth largest in North America in terms of flow.
It also produced one of the largest salmon runs on the planet. At least until the Europeans showed up. Prior to that, estimates range from an incredible ten to 16 million fish annually.
But all of that changed, beginning in the late 19th century, with overfishing, hydroelectric dam-building and channelization. Within decades, the great Columbia River salmon run had been decimated.
Fortunately, not all the damage was permanent. Regulations were enacted to help deal with overfishing. Passageways were instituted and/or improved (like the fish ladder at Penticton Dam, reopened in 2019) and some waterways re-naturalized (like the section of the Okanagan River flowing through Penticton) to help spawning salmon reach their destinations.
And today, there are indications that numbers are on the rebound. Indeed, 2024 has, by many credible accounts, been a record year for returning salmon.
But more can be done. Not just for the fish, but for the regional people who for thousands of years coexisted symbiotically with the salmon and their waterways.
And this past weekend, during the three-day Okanagan Nation Alliance Salmon Feast at Okanagan Falls Provincial Park -- one of the ONA's key annual gatherings -- a group of mostly Indigenous motorcycle riders hit the road to do their part.
Their goal? A journey to Long Beach, Washington, to the mouth of the Columbia River. Here, the river and its salmon meet the Pacific.
There'd be plenty of stops and gatherings on route for the ten riders and three support vehicles taking part. And it would be completed in just three days.
It would be called the Okanagan Columbia River 2024 Salmon Motorcycle Run.
Along for the ride were folks like prominent Indigenous leader and Osoyoos Indian Band Chief Clarence Louie, former Penticton Indian Band Chief Chad Eneas and from Saskatchewan Lucky Man Cree Nation Chief Crystal Okemow.
Non-Indigenous participants included people like Kamloops-based constitutional lawyer (and for the past couple years General Counsel to the Premier of BC) Craig Jones and Associate Deputy Minister with the BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure Kevin Richter
The former was so psyched to be involved that he bought himself a new bike.
"This ride is a brainchild of community support," said happy event spokesperson and co-organizer Eneas as the pack returned to a boisterous welcome Saturday evening.
"We've been going on rides all over the country – to the Wounded Knee memorial for example to commemorate that massacre and to talk to the descendents. To see how they’ve been able to come together in tragedy.
"We've been to the Navajo, where they honour people lost in the service. We've been to Wisconsin, Green Bay, Indigenous communities throughout North America. It's all about trying to create awareness and build community through common values and interests."
According to Eneas, the rides are both earnest and sustaining.
"It's sober motorcycle riding all the way," he said. "No drugs, no alcohol. It's not a gangster thing, it’s not a motorcycle club thing. It's a community thing."
The 2024 Salmon Run, he maintained, served several purposes.
"We wanted to create awareness about what the salmon need," he said. "It's a global problem. Our salmon go around Hawaii, go up to Alaksa and come back to spawn in our Columbia River. And all the people along the Columbia have relied on the bounty.
"So one of our intentions right now was to meet and build relationships along the river with people we know are involved in fishing and the restoration of fishing."
It was also, of course, about saving the fish itself.
"There's forty years of salmon restoration with the Okanagan Nation Alliance to bring it back into the Okanagan River," he said. "We're also working across the eastern territory in the Kootenay River system all the way up to its headwaters.
"There are lots of people interested in salmon restoration. But it won't happen overnight. So we hoped to help raise awareness for the importance of saving it."
For Chief Crystal Okemow, who came all the way from her band's territory on the prairies to take part, the 2024 Salmon Run was a special time.
"My husband comes from a riding family," she said. "So I told him about this ride. And Clarence was kind enough to lend us his bikes to ride.
"Plus, these are our nearest west coast relatives, so when they're doing something like this, we have to support."
Okemow equated the plight of the salmon to that of the bison, an animal with which her Nation is far more familiar.
It was all but wiped off the continent by settlers in the late 1800s.
"The way Clarence explained it, the salmon is to the people of the Okanagan what the bison is to us on the prairies," she said.
"You know, with the Indians, everything in the bison was used. Nothing was wasted. But the slaughter was horrific.
"The good news is that they've recently started reintegrating the bison back into the Nations."
Okemow was stunned by all she learned on the ride.
"We had no idea how much the Columbia River is dammed and how bad the conditions have been," she said. "And you don’t realize what the salmon have had to go through.
"But when you go on a ride like this, you begin to understand how powerful they are. Their perseverance. And then we were told this is the most salmon they've seen in years."
Seasoned litigator Jones, meanwhile, a guy who teaches constitutional law at Thompson Rivers University when he's not practicing it, waxed poetic about the whole experience.
"I became enraptured with the constitutional history of the interior First Nations," he said. "And in the course of that, I was introduced to Clarence. We got together a couple of times and toured around some of the ancient pre-contact sites around Oroville (Washington).
"And he found out I’d ridden motorcycles most of my life. And he said I should come on this salmon ride because they'd be going to many of the places I’d been writing about."
So Jones immediately went out and bought his new bike.
"I couldn’t turn down the offer to join," he laughed. "What an honour to be asked. It’s a pretty extraordinary group.
"And it was amazing. We stopped at many historic fishing sites. Well pre-contact. Most of them are gone today because of the dams.
"Bringing back the salmon is very important."
