Gallery: Feast of the First Salmon

By Thomas Robinson June 27, 2019

People arrive for the Feast of the First Salmon on April 22, 1945. Despite shortages of gasoline and rations in the last half-year of World War 2, almost 400 Indians -- more than expected -- came for the ancient thanksgiving ceremony. The 'comers' included Nez Perce and Bannocks from Idaho, Flatheads from Montana, Yakama and Colvilles from Washington as well as Oregon's Umatilla, Warm Springs and Grand Ronde Indians. The American Flag is flown at half-mast in honor of President Roosevelt, who had died ten days before. Smoke rises from the fire in front of the tent where salmon are being baked.

Crowds outside the longhouse at Celilo during the 1948 Feast of the First Salmon. The land surrounding the Long House is barren after being bulldozed to make room for war-surplus prefabricated houses to be moved from Madras and reassembled in Celilo Village. The entire village below the highway was going to be condemned because The Dalles Dam's backwater would inundate it. Native people objected to almost every aspect of the relocation and vigorously.

Celilo Village longhouse, Feast of the First Salmon dinner. April 18, 1948. Standing in rear, Chief Tommy Thompson and Henry Charlie. The purpose of this annual feast was to give thanks and welcome the first salmon to start the spring run up the Columbia River. With the beginning of each year's new salmon run, Celilo Indians could eat fresh fish instead of the dried salmon they preserved from the year before. Historically this was expected to be the second or third week of April, but the Indians would begin the celebration only after the fish actually appeared. Just the year before, in 1948, Chief Tommy Thompson had gone to the Warm Springs reservation to invite all the Indians to Celilo for the feast on the next weekend when the fish were anticapated, but when the fish didn't run he had to postpone the ceremony for another week. And nine years before, in 1940, the feast was held on the first weekend of April, at the time it was said to be the earliest the feast had ever been held. Attendance had ranged from, according to newspaper reports, 47 Indians in 1938, rising to 600 at this one. The following year, in 1949, the feast was again postponed due to no fish. With the end of Celilo in the forseeable future, crowds continued to grow and finally, in 1956, at the last Feast of the First Salmon before the innundation, unseasonably warm weather in the late winter thawed the ice fields and Celilo falls flooded making fishing impossible. Celilo Indians were forced to buy 400 pounds of salmon on the commercial market in Portland to feed the crowd, which the newspaper reported as being comprised of "More white folks with cameras than Indian fishermen with dipnets." Ever since the falls were covered, the feast has been held at a pre-arranged time.

The last public appearance of Chief Tommy Thompson, photographed here with his wife Flora, as they were arriving in Celilo for the Feast of the First Salmon on Saturday, May 11, 1957. Chief Thompson, age 102, came to "say a few words of farewell" to the salmon and the falls at the annual festival being held just two months after Celilo had been permanently submerged by the backwaters of The Dalles Dam. After the ceremonies and an overnight stay in Celilo village, he returned to his room at the Hanby nursing home in Hood River. According to newspaper accounts, on the night of his return he had nightmares, which caused him to climb over the guardrails of his bed, when he fell and fractured his right hip. He was taken to the Hood River Memorial hospital where surgeons placed a steel pin in his hip. The next year's Salmon Feast was held in Tommy Thompson's honor, but the elderly Chief never again personally attended. He lived two more years and passed away on April 12, 1959.

This gallery features photographs from the Feast of the First Salmon celebrations held in 1939, 1940, 1945, 1948, 1954, 1956, and 1957, before the inundation of Celilo Falls. The Feast of the First Salmon celebrates the return of the salmon every year to the Columbia, typically around the second or third week of April. After a water blessing, salmon is served, marking the opening of fishing season.

Lifestyle, Fishing, Celilo Falls, Celilo Village, Foods, Water