Eileen Delehanty Pearkes Interview – Salmon

Eileen Delehanty Pearkes, author of A River Captured, discusses the events that led to the loss of the salmon in the region.

Title Screen: Circular logo on a black backdrop. Logo is an image of four waves turning into wheat on the left end. The title “Stories Beneath the Surface” is circled around the image in capital letters.

Interview with Eileen Pearkes. Eileen Pearkes is a white woman with white hair. She is wearing white glasses, a silver necklace, and a pink shirt. She is standing in front of a body of water.

Revelstoke Museum and Archives logo in the bottom right hand corner.

Transcript of Narration:

In terms of displacement, um, between the extinction and displacement of the Indigenous people and the, uh, displacement of the settler culture for the Columbia River Treaty, um, in between that time period, [moves hands side to side] right around the time of World War II, there was another displacement that occurred, and that was the displacement of the Indigenous salmon that once swam up the Columbia River as far as its headwaters.

With those three species of fish coming up, uh, the Indigenous people had a level of recurring food source right up as far as Revelstoke that they could access.

There’s a lot of science and a lot of history that we now understand that the salmon are what are known as a trophic species.

They’re a keystone species that sit near the top. [moves hands up and points fingers at fingers to make a line]

[holds hands in front to make a circular motion]. And what that means is that a lot of species benefit from the presence of salmon and the salmon in the system, uh, even just spawning and dying create nutrients both in the water and then as animals carry them up out of the water, they create nutrients into the forest system. [moves hands around in circular motion]

So the loss of the salmon was directly related to the losses that were to come.

It was not a Columbia River Treaty loss, it had already taken place, but it was another in that sequence of losses and it’s very important to recognize also historically that that loss was endorsed by the federal government of Canada.

When the U.S. approached Canada about the possibility of creating fish ladders at Grand Coulee Dam, which was the primary obstruction at that time, the U.S. asked Canada do we need to put fish ladders? Do you have an interest in those fish?

And Canada resoundingly and flatly said no, we have no interest in those fish.

And those earlier decisions, right up to the Columbia River Treaty being signed, were made with blinders on. [moves hands beside her head and moves them forwards, repeats motion]

There were, there were unique purposes.

The salmon were nothing but a commercial resource.

The water was nothing but a hydroelectric resource or a flood storage resource.

And the people were nothing but people in the way.

[Video fades to black]