They used to spend half the year or more scooping salmon into their nets. McCloud, in his mid-40s with gray streaking his beard and long, dark hair, remembers growing up fishing with his father on a nearby river. But despite the genetic and ecological risks to future salmon populations, for the Nisqually and many other tribes, no hatcheries would mean practically no salmon. вЂњHatchery-raised fish can interbreed with wild salmon and weaken the fitness of wild stocks and they also can compete with wild salmon for food and other resources,вЂќ WashingtonвЂ™s 2020 State of Salmon in WatershedsВ report notes, before detailing ways hatcheries can reduce such interference. In the past, hatcheries have been implicated in Pacific salmon declines-issues tribes in western Washington first started addressing in the late 1990s. The Nisqually is one of many tribes with their backs shoved against the concrete wall of challenges that salmon face today, and so they, too, have resorted to hatcheries-facilities where humans direct salmon sex, fertilizing eggs in plastic buckets and giving naive young salmon a head start before their journey through an untender world. The FrankвЂ™s Landing Indian Community founded Wa He Lut Indian School in Washington State in 1974 to ensure that Native American children would get the education promised in the Treaty of Medicine Creek. But their situation is familiar to other Indigenous communities in Salmon Nation, the world that today encompasses the northwest of the United States, British Columbia, and Alaska. The Nisqually not only need salmon the United States government owes it to them, a promise made in exchange for the land where we now stand. Having no choice but to rely on hatcheries is вЂњnot something we asked for,вЂќ he says. With healthy salmon habitat in short supply these days, the Nisqually need hatcheries. вЂњMy take on hatcheries,вЂќ McCloud begins, вЂњis being cornered into the back of the room.вЂќ To honor their traditional heritage, the Nisqually need salmon. Amid the blare of a disembodied voice reminding us that a certain child needs to catch a waiting bus, McCloud opens up about the NisquallyвЂ™s reliance on hatchery-born salmon, at once a welcome lifeline and a troubling omen. After introductions to the Nisqually Tribal Council on a wooded curve of riverbank known as FrankвЂ™s Landing-named for Frank IIIвЂ™s grandfather-we head into the library of the Wa He Lut Indian School. High water levels, however, have stranded us on land.

Photo by David RyderДЇrank III, tribal council member Hanford McCloud, and I had planned to be sitting in a boat, touring the river. Nisqually tribal council chair Willie Frank III is the son of Billy Frank Jr., an advocate for Native American treaty rights in Washington State. The Nisqually Indian Tribe, whose homeland hugs the river, hasnвЂ™t held a proper fishing season for chum in years, says tribal chairman Willie Frank III. But like so many things in recent years-say, global health or political sanity-this rare run of all-wild fish is also declining. Chum would run the river from November to February, sustaining the tribe during the long, gray winters. Traditionally, on chilly January afternoons like today, when the low winter sun burnishes sky and water a brilliant blue, Nisqually fishermen would be pulling chum from their nets. The river was once home to thriving wild runs of four Pacific salmon species-chinook, chum, coho, and pink-or five, if you count their cousin, steelhead. Fueled by glaciers on towering Mount Rainier, the river flows west and north for about 130 kilometers across western Washington State, springing from a national park, then journeying through timberlands and towns, municipal dams and farmlands, a tribal reservation and a military base, before rendezvousing with salty Puget Sound in a national wildlife refuge. Listen now, download, or subscribe to вЂњHakai Magazine Audio EditionвЂќ through your favorite podcast app. This article is also available in audio format. See more at The Paradox of Salmon Hatcheries.

This story is part of our package exploring salmon hatcheries. In the US Pacific Northwest, tribal hatcheries uphold Indigenous communitiesвЂ™ treaty rights to salmon, while buying time to rehabilitate lost habitat.

Blind optimism