During ceremony at nʕaylintn, syilx people call their salmon relatives home

After carefully stepping down a bouldered stairway, syilx Nation members stop at the edge of sq’awsitkʷ (the Okanagan River), with one baseball-sized rock in each hand — ready to call their salmon relatives home.

Joined by non-syilx members from the community on Wednesday, about 20 people stand at the shore and clap the stones together. 

The rushing water roars beside them, but it doesn’t drown out the sounds of the rocks clanging together, or the people singing and drumming. 

It’s a cool summer morning in syilx homelands, and the high-arching nʕaylintn (McIntyre Bluff) towers over them. 

Surrounded by other ceremonial helpers, caylx (Richard Armstrong) kneels down towards the water and says a prayer for its health, and for the safe return of salmon.

“The ceremony that we do is to honour the salmon for giving their lives to come back to us,” says caylx, a syilx Elder and knowledge keeper who has led salmon ceremonies across his ancestral homelands since he was 14.

“It’s not a show-off thing,” he explains. “It’s giving thanks to the salmon for all of the dams that they have to go through — they die coming back to us; they try to go through it, under it, around or however, to get through it. 

“But they’re gonna come back to us.”

After saying his prayers, caylx claps his two rocks together. Then, he and other community members toss their rocks into the waterway, upstream from the town of “Oliver.”

“All that energy that you have — your thoughts and prayers — go into the river for that purpose,” says nk’lxwcin (Chad Eneas), caylx’s nephew, who helped lead the ceremony.

The clanging of the rocks are intended to call and direct the fish home — it re-creates the sound of rocks rolling through a stream, a sound familiar to the salmon swimming in the water.

“The whole purpose of that is so that our thoughts, energies and prayers can come together as one,” nk’lxwcin tells the group.

“That ceremony has to do with that relationship that the salmon has with the water and the land.”

Ceremony held ‘for hundreds and hundreds of years’

Wednesday’s ceremony was just one of the five salmon calling ceremonies to take place this past week. 

The annual gatherings are all held along nx̌ʷntk’ʷitkʷ (the Columbia River) and its tributaries, with calyx carrying the responsibility for leading many such ceremonies for decades.

“It’s a responsibility that has to be done,” calyx said, as he nears 80 years old. “If I can’t do it, either this guy [nk’lxwcin] or one of my nephews, is going to be carrying it on.

“My uncle did it before me, and his uncle before him. These kinds of ceremonies were done for hundreds and hundreds of years.”

The ceremony took place just a few metres from the McIntyre Dam, built in 1954 to divert irrigation water for farms and to control the Okanagan River’s flow between Vaseux and Osoyoos lakes.

“nʕaylintn — not ‘McIntyre Dam’ — this is nʕaylintn,” said tustens Roger Hall, a syilx Nation member who helped lead the ceremony. “That’s the name of that area and that bluff right there.

“[The dam] was put in there by the colonial system. Here was a very important spot for the people fishing.”

tustens pointed out different spots throughout the area where many syilx people would regularly fish and camp.

Y̓ilmixʷm (Chief) ki law na Clarence Louie, of Osoyoos Indian Band, said the road leading to the site was once filled with parked cars, and the dam itself was covered with syilx people fishing with nets and gaffs.

“This used to be the spot,” Louie said as he softly surveyed the area, clad in Indian Motorcycle apparel, with his gaze hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. “Our people used to fish here all the time.”

Colonization re-shaped the river — and blocked the salmon

In the late 1800s, European settlers began to overfish the Columbia River and its tributaries, including the Okanagan River. 

Rapid colonization saw waterways like the Okanagan River straightened into channels, and numerous dams built across the watershed, erasing salmon spawning habitats in the process and blocking ancient migration routes. 

As time went on, salmon stocks diminished in turn.

“ntytyix (Chief Salmon) is why we’re gathered here. It’s one of our main food chiefs,” tustens said.

Many animals depend on salmon in their diet; but for syilx people, it’s not just a vital food source, either.

“It’s also a spiritual and cultural connection to who we are as syilx,” he explained. “That’s who we are — we’re the salmon people.”

Thanks to the decades-long efforts of the Okanagan Nation Alliance and other Indigenous nations throughout the Columbia River watershed, salmon populations are slowly making a comeback.

“No matter if the white man builds a dam 10 miles high and six miles wide, that salmon is going to try to go over it, under it, around or through it,” caylx said.

“They’re going to come back to you. But that salmon comes up for a reason. Not just for us.”

nk’lxwcin said that in the syilx Nation’s captikʷł — a collection of stories and teachings about syilx laws, customs and values — this location was one of the places where Senk’lip (Coyote) brought salmon for the people-to-be.

“[Senk’lip] breaks the dam, he brings salmon up here for the people,” nk’lxwcin said. 

“But at that time, we were given a responsibility to always remember — to respect — what they needed, so they can always come back forever.”

He said such places are reminders on the land of the gifts put here for the people. 

“They’re here to give us life,” he explained. “They’re a reminder that we need them — they don’t need us.”

caylx added it’s important to start educating syilx Youth about the importance of these teachings — especially to remember that water must be kept clean for the tmixʷ (all living things).

“They’re the ones that’re going to be responsible for making sure our waters are not polluted,” he said. “They’re the ones that are going to have to stand up and say, ‘You can’t do that here — that’s going to pollute our waters.

“I’m asking all the young people to stand up for that right … to understand the importance of that water and the fish, to us as people — as syilx people.”