By the time the Boldt decision came around in 1975 regional fisheries were already experiencing a steep decline. After a century of overfishing by non-treaty commercial fishers, destruction of salmon habitat, and the instillation of dams on salmon bearing streams some runs were on the brink of collapse. Policy makers who were opposed to the Boldt decision now saw tribal fishers as the perfect scapegoat to bear the onus for the declining runs. Despite and perhaps because of their small numbers and recent arrival on the scene, tribal fishers became easy targets for the frustrations of non-treaty fishers who now had to share an already depleted harvest.

Three years after the Boltd decision was finalized, On June 17, 1982, Wanapum spiritual leader David Sohappy and his son were arrested in a raid at Cooks Landing on the Columbia River. They were brought in for selling salmon out of season. Sohappy was charged with selling 317 salmon, while his son was charged with selling 27 fish to undercover operatives. They were both sentenced to 5 years in prison. The 344 fish that the Sohappys were convicted of selling were worth about 10,000. This income was used to support an extended family of about 20 people.

Initially, he had been charged for illegally harvesting 40,000 fish that had disappeared above the Bonneville Dam. It was later discovered that the fish had gone somewhere else to spawn due to fluoride in the water that had been dumped by aluminum mills along the river. Despite this finding, the Sohappys were sentenced to five years in prison.

"In 1982, shortly before the massive raid on the Sohappy family camp, Wayne Lewis of the National Marine Fishery Service wrote a letter to the Interior Department, questioning the Sohappy's right to be there, and in 1983, shortly after David was found guilty, the Secretary of the Interior was urged to bring an eviction action. I think it is beyond dispute that the evictions are tied to the entire salmon scam prosecution. It's an effort to push the Sohappy family, first out of the Columbia River and then off Cook's Landing." Thomas Keefe, Jr., Defense Attorney

Another likely reason for the harsh sentence was Sohappy's history as a treaty rights activist. In 1968 he was arrested and won a landmark case Sohappy v. Smith, establishing the precedent that the state must provide valid proof of a conservation activity to interfere with tribal fishing.

Though the media portrayed Sohappy as the ringleader of a criminal fishing operation, in reality, he was protesting on behalf of his religious freedoms. His activism was deeply rooted in his traditional spiritual beliefs.

"They say I'm crazy, but the salmon have to be worshiped. The salmon only come back to the people that worship them. You got the federal laws, then you got the international laws, then you got the constitutional laws, then you got state laws, then you got tribal laws that the Indians got to deal with. A long time ago, the Indians had their own unwritten laws. They never broke it. To break it was to be the end of him."—David Sohappy

Sohappy was the great-grandnephew of the Wanapum tribal spiritual leader, Smoholla, who carried forward their traditional belief that wisdom comes in dreams. He dreamed that the future would bring great destruction and told his people that they must continue to live along the river and continue fishing because only those who practiced the old ways would survive. When the U.S. government passed a law insisting that all Indians become farmers, Smoholla said, "It's not a good law that would take my people away from me and make them sin against the laws of god. You ask me to plow the ground. Shall I take a knife and tear my mother's bosom? Then when I die, she will not take me to her bosom to rest. You ask me to dig for stone. Shall I dig under her skin for bones? Then when I die, I cannot enter her body to be born again."

In 1978, President Carter passed the American Indian Religious Freedom's Act. In some ways, the Sohappy case was a test of the American will to uphold its own laws on behalf of American Indians. During the Sohappy trials, the beliefs he was willing to go to prison to defend were mocked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Schroeder, who said, "Mr. Sohappy's religion, if it is his religion, is a very convenient one it seems to me if it justifies this massive buying/brokering of illegal fish that he did."

Mr. Sohappy was released from prison two years into his sentence, but not before suffering a stroke. U.S. Senator, Daniel Inouye intervened on behalf of the Sohappys saying, "The more I studied the case, the more it became obvious to me that something was wrong."

Despite the US Attorney’s skepticism, there is documented history of tribal commerce in alignment with spiritual laws. Trading fish for a living was in fact a traditional spiritual way of living. Trade meetings provide tribes an opportunity to visit and enjoy news from neighboring communities. Tribes from the coast would often travel inland to trade with the those who fished on the Columbia River, where fish were renowned as being some of the best in the region.

The size of a salmon is related to the distance it travels to spawn. Before the Grand Coulee Dam was installed, Columbia River salmon traveled all the way into Canada. The Wanapum and Yakima tribes fished what were once called summer hogs, because these fish could grow to be as big as a hog. This form of trade was, in fact, part of a sacred way of life.

"I don't think there's any question of racism behind what happened to David Sohappy and his son and the other defendants. It happened to Sohappy because he's inconvenient and because he's an Indian." –Phil Stanford, Journalist

The criminalization of Indigenous fishers has been only one of many strategies enacted by the state to erode treaties and undermine federal obligations to tribes for the millions of acres ceded to make way for white habitation. In addition to scapegoating tribal fishers the government also made tribes accountable for fish harvested under the guidelines of US v. WA, by mandating operation of hatcheries to replenish the stock.

In 2019 Patagonia released a movie called Artifishal aimed at raising awareness about how hatcheries play a detrimental role to wild salmon populations. However, the documentary paints hatchery tribes in a negative light and while it’s true Patagonia has a stated mission to protect nature, let’s be clear, we live under capitalism, Patagonia is a corporation, and the reason they want to save the wild salmon is not entirely altruistic. It’s not entirely for the bears or eagles or orcas. Nor is it to uphold treaty obligations to tribes. No, it’s at least in part so that they can process it and sell it in a niche fine-food market.

Patagonia’s attack on hatchery tribes could signal a trend in a new way of scapegoating tribes to let state and local governments off the hook for obligations to environmental concerns raised by their constituents. The blind spot in public understanding of treaty obligations and laws makes it important to look at why some tribes are hatchery tribes and why it’s no simple thing to simply get rid of the hatcheries. Hatcheries were put into place to justify dams. The powers that be, way back as early as the 1800s said, well, if we can just produce salmon in hatcheries then they don’t need to go upstream to spawn, and we can just put this dam right here.

Okay, but now we know that pumping 5 billion hatchery fish into the wild is detrimental to wild salmon runs. But it isn’t tribes that are behind this behemoth worldwide hatchery campaign. It is federal, state, and local governments together with hydroelectric power companies across the globe. There have been hundreds of millions of dollars, perhaps billions put into selling the public on the idea of hatcheries and this includes tribes.

It bears repeating that when the Boldt decision came around in 1975 restoring tribal treaty rights to the fishery, one of the conditions was that tribes would operate hatcheries in order to put back what they took. This was an idea imposed on the tribes. Some elders opposed it, but the science at the time assured the people that it would help the salmon and also be a benefit to tribes in the funding it would provide.

The government literally spent millions of 1970s dollars to convince us of the soundness of their science and then millions more to install these operations in our homelands. At Lummi they funded an operation called the Lummi Island School of Aquaculture (LISA) where they trained tribal members in hatchery operations and taught curriculum that affirmed the soundness of the science behind aquaculture.

They then funded the construction of two hatcheries and sent tribal leaders with Marlon Brando onto the Dick Cavet show to espouse the brilliant ecological benefits of hatcheries. On May 17th, 2023 the Lummi Nation issued a press release announcing an award of funding from the State Capital Budget that put forward more than 10 million dollars for hatchery production and restoration at Lummi facilities. Is it any wonder then, that we have tribal council members and tribal Endangered Species Administration Directors saying, “Hatchery fish are treaty fish”?

A treaty entered into by the United States Government puts forth the supreme law of the land. Therefore, it’s necessary to place the treaty and tribal priorities at the forefront when undertaking matters of salmon. Just as onboarding tribes into the aquaculture industry was an investment, so to must be onboarding us into a more scientifically sound way of salmon restoration. We must be funded. Considering what was taken from tribes and the ecological well-being of our homelands—which in Washington over the last 200 years has been hundreds of billions in profit from the fishery industry, the canning industry, the hydroelectric industry, and finally, the aquaculture industry—funding tribal stewardship can be seen only as a small, but necessary step toward reconciliation.

Vilifying us in documentaries is not the answer, nor is it wise to entrust corporations with the care of our most precious planet. No matter how philanthropic its charter and mission statement, a corporation is by its nature most beholden to the bottom line. If community interest groups and policy makers don’t have any interest in getting tribes on board with more scientifically sound salmon restoration efforts that is a mistake, and as history demonstrates the health of the planet pays dearly when tribes are excluded from participation in decision making regarding ecological stewardship.