PORT ANGELES — The Lower Elwha Klallam tribe is planning a massive celebration of the completion of the Elwha River restoration for the weekend of July 17 — just about the time the chinook return to the river to spawn.
“We will be hosting a celebration inviting all tribes,” said Frances Charles, tribal chairwoman.
Charles said she first announced the tribe’s plans in July at the 2014 “Paddle to Bella Bella” arrival celebration in British Columbia, where the Lummi Nation hosted the 2014 Tribal Canoe Journeys’ culminating event.
“We’re excited. We have a lot of work to do,” she said.
All tribes in the Pacific Northwest will be invited to help the Klallam fete the river’s return to its natural course and the arrival of the salmon.
“We thought about holding it in September, as we did the start of the removal, but we wanted the children to be there,” Charles said.
When it was determined that there would be no Canoe Journey in July 2015, the tribe decided to use that period of time for their celebration, she said.
Charles said the celebration would be similar to hosting the Canoe Journey, with participants camping on tribal lands and staying in local hotels, but for a single weekend rather than the full week of a Canoe Journey finale.
The actual number of visitors expected for the celebration is not yet known.
The tribe hosted ceremonies and a celebration of the beginning of the dam removal project in 2011 that was attended by celebrities, high-ranking representatives from the state and federal government, and members of many agencies, organizations and tribes who took part in the effort to remove the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams from the Elwha River.
Before Elwha Dam was completed and put into service to produce electricity in 1913, the Elwha River and its tributaries, with 70 miles of salmon-breeding habitat, had 400,000 or more salmon return each year, including accounts of 100-pound chinook.
When the dam was completed — without the salmon ladders required at the time it was built — the fish were restricted to the 5 miles of river between the dam and the river’s mouth.
Glines Canyon Dam was built 8 miles upstream from Elwha Dam in 1927.
The salmon runs were reduced to a low of about 4,000 salmon, and the Klallam, dependent on the river’s salmon runs for thousands of years, were economically devastated.
Past members of the tribal council have made trips to Washington, D.C., to work against the dams since before they were even built, and tribal members used to go door to door on the reservation to raise money for the trips.
The $325 million project to remove the two dams — the largest dam removal and river restoration ever attempted in the U.S. — began in September 2011.
The last remnants of Elwha Dam were removed in March 2012, and the final portions of Glines Canyon Dam were blasted into rubble Aug. 27, with crews expected to remove the rubble from the river bottom by the end of this month.
River restoration efforts to help native and beneficial plant life return to the former lakebeds is expected to continue through 2016.
________
Reporter Arwyn Rice can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5070, or at arwyn.rice@peninsuladailynews.com.
