This
project focuses on developing an enhanced understanding of
the utilization of the Columbia Valley in the past by First
Nations peoples. The
Salmon Beds were one of three major salmon fishing stations
in the upper Columbia Valley utilized by the Ktunaxa and Kinbasket
peoples. The
Ktunaxa, as they prefer to be called today, are also known
as the Kutenai or Kootenay.
They speak the Ktunaxa language which is recognized
as a linguistic isolate.
Ethnographic accounts of the Ktunaxa have been written
by Turney-High (1941), Schaeffer (1940) and Smith (1984).
The Kinbasket or Shuswap Band is a group of Shuswap
speaking peoples derived from the North Thompson Division
of the Shuswap, but closely aligned with the Ktunaxa.
Their arrival in the Columbia Trench is documented
in the nineteenth century but Shuswap peoples may have utilized
this area during earlier times (see below).
Claude
Schaeffer (n.d.) recorded "The Tobacco Plains Kutenai controlled
and utilized the Rocky Mountain Trench as far north as Golden,
B.C. Families,
who spent part of the year at Tobacco Plains for gathering
vegetable products, planting tobacco, etc, utilized certain
food resources, such as the salmon run at Columbia Lakes,
or grazing facilities at St. Mary's River area" (Schaeffer
n.d. M1100/3). He
also recorded a Ktunaxa name for the Salmon Beds "Koalanuk"
"where the lake empties into the river".
"A fishing site at the present town of Athalmer, B.C.,
Salmon spawned here in the shallow waters of the Columbia
River, where the last catch of the season was made in October."(Schaeffer
n.d., M1100/3) Schaeffer also notes that there were two separate groups of
Kutenai who had their main campsites in the vicinity of Columbia
Lakes. These
two groups occupied the area successively.
a)
Katamukinik,
the earlier people, named from
their campsite katamu, located on the Columbia immediately
south of the mouth of Toby Creek.
They were a small group of Upper Kutenai, whose economic
activities were carried out along the north-south axis of
the Kootenai-Columbia valley, with east-west excursions across
the Rockies to the bison range.
They subsisted more upon fish than game. They are said to have spoken Tunaxa.
b)
Akiskenekinik,
"people of the two lakes," the successor group, which had
its main camp near Fairmont [Hot] Springs between Columbia
and Windermere Lakes.
(Schaeffer n.d. M1100/3)
Schaeffer
provided additional data on the utilization of the Salmon
runs:
The
fish began to arrive in this region in August and the run
or runs continued until September or October.
Often a few families would reach the upper Columbia
at the beginning of the migration season and send word to
Tobacco Plains on the size of the run.
If there were prospects of an abundant catch, other
groups would then hasten north to take part in the activity.
The
fishing parties made their first camp near modern Briscoe
in August, and after taking salmon there for a time, moved
up the Columbia to the fishing site near Fairmont Hot Springs.
During August and September the run was usually of
some size and good quality but by October, the fish began
to decline both in condition and numbers.
The season was closed with a small catch made at the
site of present Athalmer.
During
the period of the run salmon were taken by means of the detachable
point spear. Men
would wade out into the shallow waters of the spawning beds
after the fish or else spear them from the shore.
At Athalmer a weir was built for the salmon to enter
and after the entrance was closed, they were easily secured
inside. Mention
was also made of the practice of stretching a net across a
shallow place to confine salmon but further details were unavailable
(Schaeffer n.d. M1100/8)
Schaeffer
(n.d. 1100/8) describes two types of fishing spears used by
the Kutenai.
The
detachable, single-prong fish spear (akn na) was employed
by the Kutenai in taking the larger varieties of fish.In use
the single-prong spear, .was thrown so as to impale the fish.
In its struggles, the fish soon dislodged the barbed
head from the shaft, the latter then serving as a drag to
tire the fish.
The
spear was made from mountain goat horn.
After holding the horn near the fire to soften it,
two slits were cut vertically in the base and latter spread
apart to form two projecting barbs.
After this the distal end was ground upon a stone to
a very sharp point.
The head was then fitted to the end of a wooden shaft
about sixteen or eighteen feet long. One end of a braided horsehair line [was] then secured to a
hole in the base of the spearhead, and the other fastened
to the wooden shaft.
The
three-pronged fish spear or leister (a kla ka) was
used largely in spearing smaller fish from a canoe by torchlight
at night. In
May suckers and ling were taken by this method by Tobacco
Plains Kutenai at the mouth of Gold Creek.
The fore shaft consisted of three prongs, a central
pointed prong and two, barbed side prongs projecting a slight
angle from the center prong.
The central prong, about six inches in length, was
made of the bone from the lower leg of a deer; the two side
prongs, each about eight inches in length, were made of service
berry wood. To
the end of each side prong, a sharpened bone barb was lashed
so as to project inward at an angle towards the central prong.
The fore shaft was fastened to a wooden shaft about
ten feet long, by inserting it in a cleft in the end, after
which sinew was wrapped tightly about the junction. (Schaeffer
n.d. M1100/8)
Schaeffer
also records that hook and line fishing was also conducted.
In summer, a night set was used for ling and char.
In winter, ice fishing was carried out on frozen lakes.
Whenever
fish were secured in sufficient numbers by the Kutenai, a
quantity was prepared and stored for future use. Fish intended for use five or six months hence were dried in
the sun: The
fall catch of salmon at Columbia Lakes and the summer catch
along the middle river were prepared in this way...The women
of each family set to work at once preparing the fish as soon
as they had been brought in from the traps.
The fish was split lengthwise with a knife by one woman,
who also removed the intestines.
She made a transverse cut below the head through to
the spine, so that the former remained attached only by the
skin. Another
woman then ran several wooden skewers laterally through the
fish, under the skin, in order to keep the halves spread apart,
and placed them one on top of the other in a pile.
A third then strung the fish, spaced four or five inches
apart, on a wooden pole, the pointed end of which was thrust
through their heads. A number of these poles, strung with fish, were arranged upon
the drying racks, with the flesh side towards the sun. To dry thoroughly they were kept there for a week or longer.
A
quantity of fish intestines with small particles of fat adhering
to them, had accumulated during the course of this activity.
The more industrious women always removed this fat
and rendered it into oil. A quantity was placed in a basket of water and boiled, the
oil skimmed off with a ladle, and poured into a receptacle
made of a deer's bladder.
Some women also boiled the fish heads to obtain oil.
By the end of the fishing season a quantity of such
oil had been set aside.
.At Columbia Lakes a quantity
of salmon was always prepared and cached for subsequent use.
The method of preparing salmon did not differ from
that described above.
The [d]ried fish, however, were packed in flat envelopes
(aku lum) made of salmon skins sewn together and folded
towards the center, like a parfleche, over the contents.
Later on in winter the salmon-skin receptacles were
boiled and eaten.A number of such food packets were then laid
in bark boxes and the latter stored on tree platforms or in
log structures. On
the return of these Kutenai families from the fall bison hunt,
the food stores were taken down and transported to the wintering
site at Tobacco Plains. There a portion of the dried salmon was traded for other kind
of food. (Schaeffer
n.d. M1100/8)
In
1807, fur trader David Thompson traversed the Rocky Mountains
by way of Howse Pass and went up the Columbia River.
He constructed a fur trade post called Kootenae House
that summer. Food
was scarce for his 17 people.
He sent many of his men off hunting and fishing but
their returns were limited to a few fish and some small deer.
Most the native people he encountered were "Kootenae" but
many of these were noted to be "pitching off to a great distance".
On August 9, 1807 he records "4 Tents of Kootenaes
have arrived, who have passed the greater part of the Summer
in the Mountains among the Buffalo.
They traded only wherewith to give us a scanty day's
provisions-indeed they put a very high Value on all their
Provisions, especially when dried." (Thompson 1994:59).
However, as the Kootenai had done the work of hunting,
processing, drying and transporting the bison meat from the
eastern slopes of the Rockies to an area that had only sporadic
abundant resources it should not be surprising that the Kootenai
valued their provisions so highly.
On
August 13, 1807 the Kootenaes advised the fur trader that
it was time to make a weir which Thompson's men proceeded
to do. The same
day, Thompson records that there had been a battle a few days
earlier between the Peigan and Salish.
This is likely a reference to the Shuswap group that
was also resident in the upper Columbia about this time.
On August 27, 12 Peigan young men and 2 women arrived
at Kootenae House "to see how we are situated" (Thompson 1994:62).
Thompson had been expecting them as the Peigan had
tried to prevent previous attempts of trade with the Kootenay
at Rocky Mountain House.
Also on August 27 Thompson reported seeing several
salmon. On August 29 three men went off to spear salmon at
night and returned with 5 of them, one weighed 26½ pounds.
The Peigan stole 3 horses from the Kootenae and left
September 1, 1807. Thompson
continued to catch salmon throughout September.
Most were considered very poor quality because of the
distance traveled and the spawning but one weighed 34 ½ pounds.
Also in September several Lakes Indians came to visit
and trade at Kootenae House. It is clear however that their territory was further west and
south.
A
letter written in 1940 by C.H. Robinson of the Pacific Biological
Station, Nanaimo B.C. notes that:
According
to the reports of old-timers, there used to be a very heavy
run of springs [ie. Chinooks] to the head-waters of Columbia
River above the Arrow Lakes and it was not uncommon to observe
some fifty teepees of the Indians on the flats of Athalmer,
who took large numbers of salmon off the salmon beds for their
winter food. Apparently
the last "Big smoke" of salmon took place the fall of 1884.
(Schaeffer n.d. M1100/10)
George
Simpson records that Native people utilized the spawning salmon
even when they were not in the best of condition:
.towards
the Fall they become lean exhausted and diseased and are cast
ashore in large quantities or found in nearly an inanimate
state on the surface of the Water; they are even in this putrid
condition acceptable to the Natives who dry them for Winter
stock.(Merk 1931: 40).
The
historic records and ethnographic accounts clearly indicate
that this area was primarily occupied by two groups:
the Ktunaxa or Kootenay and the Secwepemc or Shuswap. The Shuswap group that lived along the west side of the Rockies
was known as the Texqokallt,
or North Thompson Band.
They hunted from the Kinbasket Lake area to the upper
Fraser as well as into the areas of Jasper and Banff (Dempsey1998:65).
This group ranged widely in the Rocky Mountains hunting
and plant collecting in the early part of the nineteenth century.
They were, however, small in numbers and suffered from
the effects of disease.
By the 1850s they had either died out or joined some
of the surrounding groups.
"In the 1850s Paul Ignatius Kinbasket brought a band
of Shuswaps into the Windermere district from Adams Lake,
northeast of Kamloops" (Dempsey 1998:67).
They were allocated a reserve on the west side of the
Columbia River just north of its outlet from Windermere Lake.
An other band of Shuswap once occupied the area of
Jasper National Park, known as the Snares.
"In 1811, fur trader Alexander Henry noted that they
had "retired northward to an uninhabited part of the Rocky
mountains, where they continue to wander, a most wretched
and defenseless people, who never war upon any of their neighbours"
(quoted in Dempsey 1998:68). About 1840, the Snares were lured
to a proposed peace treaty with Stoneys at the mouth of the
Snake Indian River near Jasper.
The Stoneys instead attacked and killed most of the
Snares. A few
managed to escape including a chief named Capote Blanc who
later was painted by Paul Kane in 1846 at Jasper House.
The two met again near Boat Encampment in 1847 and
Capote Blanc was met by James Hector of the Palliser Expedition
in 1859 near Golden. Shuswap groups traditionally lived in
winter pit dwellings and some of these are known from the
upper Columbia Valley, as well as near Banff and along the
upper Red Deer River.
