Day 4


July 10th – Tuesday



One of our longer days, due to driving. We started out at the Yakama Nation fishery. It was super amazing. They walked us through the whole process of trapping, transporting, and tagging the fish. This was a state of the art facility. The key point I admired was, no consumption of water. The water they get for the water to water transport and lift is all recycled back into the river. Everything was powered by non-electric motors because of the constant flooding. The fish lift is the second tallest in the United States.

They showed us how the whole process happens. We saw them tag the fish and get a DNA sample. That was truly amazing, these people have very cool jobs. I was a little saddened when they inserted the tracking device and extract scales, because poor baby fish. L

John was a Yakama Native and took us down to the scaffolding where all the traditional fishing happens. I really enjoyed all the knowledge he shared about the traditional fishing practices. He was more than welcoming inviting non-natives to come and watching the dip net fishing happen and further enriching our knowledge of Native Traditions. This is new to me, most of the things I’ve experienced are very rare because the Nation wants to preserve their traditions and keep it to themselves. This was different and I liked it.

After this we went to the petroglyph. Beautiful perverted pictures that tell Native stories. We took a light hike to “She Who Watches” it was beautiful and amazing big eyes looking at you. It was an amazing experience Jacob shared the story with us and gave it more meaning.

The group made it to Deschutes where we are going to camp until Saturday. There was a bear scare while some campers were playing soccer. Everyone freaked out and no one slept.  
We'll see what tomorrow's like.

- Destiny

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