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Library exhibit honors Spokane River salmon and the Spokane Tribe’s fishing heritage
A Spokane Public Library exhibit by Spokane Tribe artist George Hill, running through Nov. 30, traces the river’s salmon history and looks ahead to the fish’s return.
By Harper Haase | FāVS News Reporter
A new exhibit at the Spokane Public Library pairs artwork by George Hill, a member of the Spokane Tribe of Indians, with the history of the Spokane River’s once-abundant salmon runs.
“Spokane River Salmon: Past. Present. Future” runs through Nov. 30 on the third floor of Central Library. It features Hill’s watercolors, pen-and-ink drawings, dioramas and replica fishing tools, along with historical texts and photos from the library’s Inland Northwest Special Collections. The exhibit also explores what it might take to bring salmon back to the river.
For the Spokane people, salmon have been more than a food source. The fish shaped the tribe’s cultural and spiritual practices and its ties to the land and water, according to the library.
The salmon’s decline began downstream in the 1870s, when commercial fish wheels on the lower Columbia River took enormous catches, according to the library. In 1907, Washington Water Power’s Little Falls Dam cut salmon off from the upper Spokane River after its wooden fish ladder failed. The 1942 completion of Grand Coulee Dam, built without a fish ladder, ended the great runs altogether.
The exhibit was curated by Jack and Claire Nisbet, a married couple who have spent years organizing exhibits on Native American history in the Northwest.
“I’m always trying to work with tribes,” Jack Nisbet said.
Connecting with Hill
Jack Nisbet was familiar with Hill’s work as a comic book illustrator and saw that it could bring the river’s salmon history to life.
“None of the white photographers or artists really showed how a fishery worked, and George had the cultural knowledge to draw pictures of it,” Jack Nisbet said. “George said he would sculpt objects to accompany the paintings, like a salmon club or a fish knife, and it just took off from there.”
Hill’s watercolors depict rarely seen parts of traditional fisheries, such as the work women did and the technology used at different sites, Jack Nisbet said.
One painting shows a Spokane man spearing salmon on horseback. Hill told the library the image grew out of a story he heard growing up.
“I heard a story about how one young man spearing in the river was surrounded by so many fish that they knocked him down. He went under and almost drowned, so from then on he fished from horseback,” Hill said in a library blog post about the exhibit.
“George and I spent a lot of time at traditional Spokane fisheries thinking about how it worked. He had been doing that all his life, and had learned from his grandparents and tribal elders,” Jack Nisbet said.
Returning native fish to tribal waters
The exhibit’s final section explains the science behind the tribe’s efforts to bring salmon back to the river.
Megan Warren, outreach and education specialist for the Spokane Tribe of Indians’ Anadromous Program, worked with Alina Murcar, marketing and communications manager for the Spokane Public Library, to gather photos from the Spokane Tribal Fisheries Anadromous Program. The program works to return native fish to tribal waters. Anadromous fish, such as salmon, hatch in fresh water, migrate to the ocean and return upstream to spawn.
Since 2022, the Spokane Tribe and partner tribes, including the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, have released about 10,000 adult summer Chinook salmon and hundreds of thousands of juveniles above the Chief Joseph, Grand Coulee and Spokane River dams, according to the library.
Warren said the exhibit aims “to let people know our program is growing” and to show the public how hard the program is working to bring salmon back to the tribe.
Students from reservation schools plan to visit the exhibit this month to learn about salmon through an artistic and visual lens, Warren said. She said she is excited for the tribal students to visit.
“It will be really important to them since salmon is an important part of their culture and way of life,” she said.
Upcoming event
Jack Nisbet will present “A River Full of Fish: Early Visions of the Spokane Watershed,” a look at historical journals and artwork depicting the river’s salmon, at 11 a.m. Oct. 15 in the library’s Events A room.
“Salmon are a totem for the Columbia Basin and the entire Northwest,” Jack Nisbet said in the library blog post. “Their story reaches back thousands of years, which is what gives their continued presence — and their decline — so much weight.”
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