Bringing the Salmon Home
“It takes a river of people to bring the salmon home”
30 min. documentary film
The mighty Columbia River was once the source of the world’s greatest salmon runs. But massive dams have blocked salmon from returning to the vast headwaters of the upper Columbia River in Canada for over 80 years. The new short film Bringing the Salmon Home tells the story of the Syilx Okanagan, Secwépemc, and Ktunaxa Nations who uphold their sacred responsibility to reintroduce the salmon, working with the BC and Canadian governments, US Tribal relations and allies along the river. First person stories combine with vivid landscape and underwater footage, and archival film, to tell the long-hidden story of these Salmon People. The losses have been immense. Nation members recount how they were given tins of Spam while starving from the lack of salmon, at the same time as their children were wrenched from their homes through a genocidal Indian residential school system. Today the three Nations are working to bring the salmon home for the benefit of all.
