Being one with the land has sustained the Cowlitz people since time immemorial.
In modern times, the Cowlitz Indian Tribe continues its efforts of sustainability through multiple programs to access traditional first foods such as steelhead and salmon, camas lily bulbs, huckleberries and more.
A fish distribution program regularly connects tribal members to fish from local rivers. A community garden teaches traditional growing practices while expanding access to fresh produce to tribal elders. Cultural education programs also teach traditional harvesting of native plants, including cedar bark for weaving and qáwmʼ — camas lily — for food.
While the Cowlitz Indian Tribe practices traditional sustainability year-round, November is observed as Native American Heritage Month to honor history, traditions and the contributions to the first peoples of North America.
For Cowlitz Tribal Chairman Bill Iyall, Native American Heritage Month highlights access to first foods. First foods for Native Americans often include salmon, roots, berries and big game, which is all true to the Cowlitz Indian Tribe as the present Interstate 5 corridor historically was rich in natural resources in an untamed wilderness.
“Access to first foods is one of the primary things that I’ve always looked at as a priority,” Iyall said. “I, myself, I’m a hunter, fisherman and long been trying to regain some of that food sovereignty that we lost long, long ago. We have a long ways to go on that issue. But, you know, the foods that were given to us are the best ones for us.”
Iyall said for the western side of the state, deer, elk and grouse are the primary staples for game meat. He added that salmon and steelhead, and all the native species in Northwest rivers, are good for the Cowlitz people.
“The lamprey eel is one that I haven’t had a chance to try, but all the shell foods that we have available, on Puget Sound, but also at the ocean, are critical, I think,” Iyall said.
For the Cowlitz, programs that enhance cultural preservation are a product of losing traditional land when President Abraham Lincoln opened the region with an executive order in the 1860s, Iyall said.
“From that day forward, essentially, we lost our rights that go with the land,” Iyall said, adding that the Cowlitz Indian Tribe recovered the initial reservation land a decade ago. “And now, we’re working on other issues. Certainly, hunting and fishing rights as a tribe and as tribal members is a very top priority.”
Iyall added that the tribe’s preservation efforts are not just for the good of themselves, but for the community as a whole.
“The tribe is interested in working with the community at every level,” he said. “But our preservation efforts are for the good of the community and the good of all in Southwest Washington.”
Historically, Iyall explained that the Cowlitz Indian Tribe sat on many treaty councils, but none of the treaties were ever ratified — which has harmed hunting and fishing rights. While still in the fight for rights to continue traditions, the tribe carries on the love of local steelhead and salmon nationwide through its Fish Distribution Program.
The Fish Distribution Program sends fish fillets to members of the tribe as far away as Florida, New York, Maine and other distant states. Members across the country can receive a box of 30 fillets per month, said Tom Scanlan, Fish Distribution Program manager.
“It’s a little bit tiresome at times when we’re getting hundreds and hundreds of fish,” Scanlan said, as he is a part of a team of three in the program. “On the other hand, to see people getting all of the traditional first foods that have been in these river systems forever and ever and to be able to send it to somebody who’s living in Florida and their traditional members from here to get a box like that, it’s pretty awesome.”
A lot of the fish made available for the distribution program are excess from local river fish hatcheries on the Lewis, Kalama and Cowlitz rivers. The program has been operating for over 20 years, Scanlan said, but the frozen fish distribution on a national scale didn’t begin until the pandemic when a CARES grant awarded in 2021 was used to build the processing facility by revamping the garage space of the Cornelius House on the Cowlitz Indian Tribe’s reservation in Ridgefield.
The team of three, including Cowlitz Indian Tribe member Ashley Studer, fillet roughly 150 fish each day during the peak seasons.
In October, the program sent out 90 boxes to tribal members, Scanlan said. While the program is year-round, the fish species is dependent on the season. Tribal members may receive steelhead, Chinook salmon and Coho salmon depending on the run in the rivers.
The program, along with the tribe’s community garden in Toledo, heavily supports Cowlitz Tribal Housing: St. Mary’s. The community garden was established in 2019. Since then, the Cowlitz Indian Tribe has been growing and distributing more than 40 different foods and plant medicines to over 375 Native households at eight distribution sites along the I-5 corridor from Federal Way to Vancouver.
Iyall highlighted the tribe’s longtime efforts to propel fish populations in area rivers.
“The nature of the salmon is gravel to gravel,” he said. “This is a term that we’ve always referred to. They’re born in the gravel and they return to the gravel. And so to do that, it’s a long journey out into the ocean and back and then now there’s barriers, many, many dams and the fisher being propagated in many ways. But hatcheries are an element that is important because that’s a part of the resource now.”
Iyall added that natural fish passage is the ultimate goal for the tribe’s efforts, but is rare in modern society, he said.
With native plants, the tribe offers several opportunities each year to engage with harvest and gathering practices, as well as utilizing cedar bark for weaving.
The art of cedar bark weaving by the Cowlitz Indian Tribe is on full display at the Cowlitz Cultural Corridor that tells the tribe’s past and spirit at the ilani Hotel and Casino.
The tribe does utilize the full tree, too.
“We can take the bark from a tree in a way that it doesn’t hurt the tree,” Iyall said. “Then process the bark and it becomes weaving material. And then the tree itself, it is the foundation for our canoes and for many other forms of artwork. A lot of our carvers do some phenomenal things with cedar and it’s an element of its own to protect. So we have to work to protect that.”
To learn more about the history of the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, visit cowlitz.org/our-story.
