Native Fishing Equipment, Cont.

The various tribes of the Columbia River Basin employed a variety of adaptable fishing techniques. For example, Indians used wood or stone fences on smaller rivers that directed the water flow into traps in which salmon were kept until fishermen speared or netted them. Indians built stone fish walls into the river at an angle from the shore. These walls slowed the current providing places at which salmon would rest. Fishermen used the walls as platforms from which to spear or net the fish. Indians organized cooperative drives to capture fish in slow-moving shallow waters. According to anthropologist Deward Walker, a salmon chief would organize as many as one thousand people to herd salmon toward awaiting fishermen. Indians also used poisons to immobilize salmon and blinds to camouflage spear fishers.

Model of a Kootenai fish trap by Deward Walker. Courtesy of the Idaho Research Foundation, University of Idaho

The natives construct a barrier across the Little Spokane, placing it at an oblique angle so that the current would not wash it away. After the traps filled with salmon, the Indians would spear them. David Douglas describing practices on the Little Spokane River, 1826.

One of these streams is wide, shallow, and swift; here the Indians annually construct a fence which reaches across the stream and guides the fish into a weir or rack, where they are caught in great numbers.
Isaac Stevens describing a Pend d'Oreille weir on Clark's River, 1854.

Just below the falls, where a bar divided the channel, the Indians had constructed wing walls of loose rocks across one arm, leaving a race between their extremities, in which, by means of nets, they caught salmon in passing. A long trestle work was also built on the bank upon which their captives were laid to dry. Lieutenant Grover, member of Gov. Stevens railroad survey team, 1854.

An open fish trap. Courtesy of the Idaho State Historical Society.

The trap consisted on the two barriers across the stream about 100 yards apart. The lower barrier had an opening near the center to allow the salmon to enter. This opening was closed when it was desired to prevent the escape of the salmon. The upper barrier had no opening. The opening in the lower barrier was closed when the fish were to be taken out.
Claire Hunt, 1937.

The whole breadth of the stream is obstructed by stakes and open work of willow and other branches, with holes at intervals leading into wicker compartments, which the fish enter. Once in they cannot get out, as the holes are formed with wicker work inside shaped something like a funnel or a wire mouse-trap.
Paul Kane, 1845.

One of the most famous dipnet fisheries on the Columbia River was Celilo Falls which was inundated in 1957 by The Dalles Dam. Courtesy of the Oregon Department of Transportation.

They throw it [the dipnet] into the foam as far up the stream as they can reach, and it being then quickly carried down, the fish who are running up in a contrary direction are caught. Sometimes twenty large fish are taken by a single person in an hour.
Captain Charles Wilkes, Willamette Falls, 1841.

Little bridges are thrown out over the rocks, on which the Indians post themselves, with nets and hoops, to which long handles are attached. With these they scoop up the fish and throw them on the shore.
Lawrence Kipp, 1855.

Holes were made in the river bed at some distance from the shore to receive the posts on which the staging was to be supported. When the water has reached the proper level during the summer, a strong man familiar with the task was chosen to set the posts. A fir sapling, pushed out from the bank, was sat on by others to hold it firm while he walked out on it. He fastened a rope around his waist, the other end of which was tied above, to keep him from being carried away should he slip off. Carrying a staging-pole, he watched until the swirling water brought the hole to light, quickly inserting it in place, and immediately tied it to the fir sapling on which he stood. Those on shore at once piled rocks on their ends. A second post was similarly set and cross-bars tied between the sapling with hazel ropes. When the water reached its proper level at another station the staging was similarly set.
Ethnologists Spier and Sapir, 1930.