2018 People Of Big River

July 20 th Today with met with Rob Mallory, Clint Desautel and Lance they all work with Colville Forestry. We visited several logging sites, treatment sites and beautiful Twin Lake on the Colville reservation. Lance discussed how a treatment can take up to 2 months for 35 acres but that it varies also. Clint discussed the importance of fires and how pre-settlement that native peoples were using fire and that it was always apart of the ecosystem here on the Colville Reservation. Clint said something that I thought was profound and he said – ‘You can go as far as you want and long as you’re constantly learning.’ Lance also shared with us that the Colville tribe only allows for tribal members to gather traditional foods and that there are natural resource officers who monitor these locations of gathering and they can issue fines and confiscate berries, roots etc. from trespassers. They also shared that there is 3000+ Elk on the Colville Reservation. Clint and Lance both shared that t

July 19 th Today we met with Lucy an Arcehologist for the Colville Tribe. She took us to view the Omak Stampede Grounds, Okanogan Interpritive Center and the Colville Museum that is located near Grand Coulee Dam. I really enjoyed all the beadwork and photos at the Colville Museum. After touring the museums we packed up from our campground in Nespelem and drove to Keller Lake. Everyone was a lot happier here with trees and a big lake to swim in. 

July 18 th    Today we traveled from Wellpinit, WA to Nespelem, WA. This day was a bit more relaxed in the morning as we prepared to travel. Later when we showed up to the campground that the Archealogy Dept. suggest we didn’t care for all the heat and that there were no tree’s around. It was so hot during our stay here that I didn’t need the cover on my tent and I was able to star gaze until I went to sleep. 

July 17 th Today we met with Ray Entz, Director of Wildlife and Terrestrial Resources for the Kalispel Tribe. We met him at the beautiful Camas Wellness Center in Cusick, WA. Ray shared a little bit about his educational pathway and he has a BA and MBA in Biology. Ray believes that environmental justice is the biggest problem that he see’s the Kalispel Tribe facing today. Polluters are not being held accountable for the consequences of their actions. The Kalispel tribe is about 4700 acres. Later we met with Jason, Fish Program Manager for the Kalispel Tribe. He shared that the Kalispel Tribe is working on a study attractins of fish to fish ladders. He said that so far they have noticed that fish have been attracted to certain cool temperature and that they want to go into more research to develop a method to alter the water temperature to attract fish. We viewed  Cut throat trout and some of the fully grown adults were only 7 inches long. And again Norther Pike were discussed an

July 16 h Today we met with BJ Keiffer, DNR Director. He shared a lot with us about the Spokane Tribe and how Timber was the driving force for the tribe, but that timber production has decreased from what it once was. He talked about how Grand Coulee Dam stops salmon from returning. And that reintroducing fish is their greatest natural resource problem. He mentioned that the Spokane tribe is so far removed from the river that other tribes here in Washington that often times people have to relearn that the Spokane tribe were once river people. Other challenges the Spokane face is the aftermath of a few fires that burned a 3 rd of the reservation in 2015 and 2016. Uranium mines are also currently being reclamated on the Spokane Reservation. Something that really helped me that BJ said was – ‘Of all the things people can take from you an education is one of the things they can’t take.’ Later we met with Vernon Stearns Jr., Fuels Manager for the Spokane Tribe. He explained prescribe