One year from now, in February 2024, we will mark the 50th anniversary of federal Judge George Boldt’s ruling in United States vs. Washington, which affirmed tribes' treaty-reserved rights to harvest salmon outside of our reservations.
The court case was brought about by the Fish Wars of the 1960s and ’70s, when state authorities arrested tribal fishermen violently—often with tear gas—for exercising the fishing rights we reserved in the Stevens treaties of the 1850s.
