After disease, war, reservation boundaries, and forced boarding schools, one could argue the Grand Coulee Dam was the most harmful impact of colonialism to the upper Columbia River tribes. It displaced thousands of people, flooded important archaeological and habitation sites, and caused anadromous fish like salmon, steelhead and lamprey to go extinct in the upper Columbia. Salmon are an essential part of not only physical subsistence but of spiritual, social and material cultures of the tribes. Their absence is a devastating impact to tribes on both sides of the U.S.-Canada border.
LINK (via: High Country News)
