Fishing Rights

By Jeffrey Paolano

Randolph Running Trap carefully bends the weir with a bowline and then casts the fish trap into the Columbia River.

As a member of the First Nations Kathlamet, he’s been granted, under treaty, cultural fishing rights in the river.

The preservation of such rights requires continual wrestle with the Indian Bureau.

The weir captures the salmon struggling upstream as well as flotsam.

“We must cleanse the basin to maintain the salmon run,” Randolph argues at every opportunity, for he fears the threat of the garbage more than the temporary white men.

The Indian Bureau, culturally ignorant, perceives the issue is fish.