where the salmon run - Washington Secretary of State

“i live here!” 33
proclaimed the coming of fall. In December, the late-running chum
raced to spawning grounds after three or four years out at sea. You
could always spot chum, known as dog salmon for their canine-like
teeth.
Long before he walked to a one-room schoolhouse, Billy became a
student of nature. He learned the life cycles of the different species of
salmon. Salmon are resilient to be sure. But they depend on intricacies
of nature to survive. The temperature and health of the water, the
force of its flows, and the state of gravel beds all take part in creating
the delicate habitat of the fish.
Billy learned the Nisqually River, the way it meanders across the
heartland and changes course through the years. He swam every
stretch of that river growing up. “The river moves. Our river isn’t like
the Puyallup River. . . . Our river moves across that valley and back
and forth. One year you’ll have a place to set net and the next you
won’t have a place to set.” He learned the importance of medicinal
plants like Oregon grapes, wild cherry, and prince’s pine, an evergreen
plant that relieves stomach pain when it’s dried.
Early on, Tahoma (or Rainier), the great water source of the
Nisqually watershed, mesmerized Billy. He relished the sight of the
icicles that dangle like daggers inside the mountain’s ice caves. “Oh,
God almighty. You know, we pray to the mountain every day. We
wake up and pray to the mountain. It was a wonder of the world. It’s
just this magical place that the Nisqually River comes from. And
water is still coming out.”
Billy caught his first salmon at age eleven and the nuances of fishing
passed down another generation. “My dad always told me to prepare
for the salmon coming back. Don’t get caught in a hurry. Have it done
in advance. He told me about a guy cutting a net in the dark and
stabbing himself in the stomach. ‘Don’t be like that,’ he told me.”
A lifetime on the river taught him the techniques of an expert
fisherman. “When you set a gillnet, you have got to have a backwater
coming back up the river. . . . You can’t just set a net out in swift
water and expect to catch any fish.” Billy’s ancestors trapped fish in