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Meetings look at restoring Columbia River salmon

Meetings throughout the region this week will summarize recent efforts to create fish passage above Grand Coulee Dam.
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The last spawning salmon from the ocean was caught in the 1930s near the mouth of the Slocan River, immediately prior to the completion of the Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River in Washington state. With the permission of the Canadian government, the dam was completed without fish passage, barring three species of salmon from spawning grounds.

Meetings throughout the region this week will summarize recent efforts on the part of the 15 United Tribes living along the Columbia in the US to create fish passage above Grand Coulee and restore the salmon to the Columbia and Slocan Rivers.

Tonight: Grand Forks, Gem Theatre, 7 p.m.

Tuesday: Nelson, Rod & Gun Club 7 p.m.

Wednesday: Nakusp, Bonnington Arts Centre, 7 p.m.

Thursday: Revelstoke, United Church, 7 p.m.

Evening meetings will include a screening of a short film, Treaty Talks, about a 2,000 km journey upstream last year in hand-carved canoes. There is no charge for the events.

Tomorrow at 10 a.m., tribal members from the US and Canada will host a ceremony to call the salmon home, on the shores of the Columbia River at Millennium Park in Castlegar.