For the first time, members of the Nooksack Indian Tribe were able to fish for hatchery chinook salmon returning to Whatcom Creek this fall. From Bellingham’s Holly Street upstream to a bridge over the wooded Whatcom Creek Falls, individuals and families tried their luck at catching the fish.
The Whatcom Creek hatchery program began in 2018 and has grown large enough in recent years to support harvest. The program is overseen by state and tribal co-managers and supported by Bellingham Technical College, which enlists fisheries science students in spawning, raising and releasing the salmon each year.
Jeremiah Johnny, Nooksack’s treaty protection advocate, said the opportunity for tribal members to fish where their ancestors did was long past due.
“This area is a very highly valued historic village site that has been closed off to us for many, many moons,” Johnny said.
Using grant funding, the tribe’s Nooksack Way of Life Prevention Program and Cultural Resources Department purchased fishing poles to loan out during the event, as well as coolers and ice so that families could take their catches home.
Sisters Danielle and Tiearra McKay, and their cousins Audriana and Kolby Paez, were among those who borrowed poles and cast lines from the streambank.
Kolby, 11, caught a salmon that weighed nearly 9 pounds.
While Kolby’s catch turned out to be the only one of the day, the community’s excitement and joy was palpable during the fishing event.
The Nooksack Indian Tribe and Lummi Nation held other fisheries on Whatcom Creek this year as well, including Lummi youth fisheries for tribal members 18 years old and younger—a program that began last year.
Managed as a “terminal fishery,” the returning salmon are not needed to resupply the hatchery program or meant to spawn in the creek. The chinook are intended to feed wildlife, including orcas that may prey on them in the Salish Sea as their migrations cross, and to support tribal treaty fishing.
Above: A chinook salmon makes a splash in a rocky pool on Whatcom Creek. Photos and story by Kimberly Cauvel.
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