Salmon Return to Native Waterways

For the first time in over a century, sockeye salmon can return to one of their native waterways in British Columbia, the Okanagan Lake.

“Today, we are going to open up this waterway to create a passage for our salmon to continue on with their journey as they did thousands of years ago,” says Penticton Indian Band Chief Greg Gabriel.

The new passageway was mainly created thanks to the contributions of the Indigenous Syilx Nation. The Okanagan Dam Fish Passage will bypass a dam, allowing for steelhead, rainbow trout, sockeye, chinook and kokanee salmon to return to the lake. The Habitat Conservation Plan helped fund the project, and the first migration of salmon is expected in the coming weeks. The cooler Okanagan waters will allow for depleting salmon populations to rebuild. “They are considered relatives, not resources, and their return marks a powerful act of environmental and cultural healing,” believes the Syilx peoples.