EDITOR’S NOTE: Work to remove the two Elwha River dams begins this week — with special events to commemorate the beginning of the river restoration project.
In conjunction, Port Angeles writer/historian John Kendall continues his look-back at the dams, their role in North Olympic Peninsula development and their legacy as they come down.
Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this series can be found by searching the word “historical” in the search engine at www.peninsuladailynews.com.
By JOHN KENDALL
For Peninsula Daily News
Thousands of years ago, Native Americans settled the shores of what was later called the Strait of Juan de Fuca and Hood Canal.
They split into groups, and some of the Klallam group settled along the Elwha River Valley, as far south as Indian Creek and at the river mouth.
During the 1860s, non-Native settlers moved in; they claimed up to 160 acres of land promised by the government.
An 1880 count tallied 67 Klallams along the Elwha.
The Klallams were not yet citizens, so their land ownership rights were restricted. The 1884 Indian Homestead Act made it possible for several Klallams to own land.
Native American homesteaders had to cut ties to their tribe, which forced many to become farmers.
But fish from the Elwha remained the mainstay for all Klallams along the river.
Tom Aldwell’s dam changed that.
“Some of my ancestors may have helped Aldwell clear the land because some of them were loggers,” said Robert Elofson, natural resources director for the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe and its director of the river restoration project.
But there was nothing to stop the project, he said, because “we had no power, no contact with Congress; we had contact with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which didn’t seem very effective.”
A 1910 state law required fishing licenses, but you had to be a U.S. citizen to get one, which Native American were not yet regarded.
After the dam was built in 1913, a state law made it illegal for anyone to possess a dead fish.
Several Klallams were jailed.
The state, in 1916, ruled that Native Americans could not fish off their reservations — which the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe did not have, so they could not legally fish the Elwha.
Under a 1924 law, Native Americans become U. S. citizens.
Using a 1934 law, the Indian Reorganization Act, the “Bureau of Indian Affairs chose farmlands to get the Indians to be farmers,” said Marilyn Edgington, tribal legal records clerk.
But weren’t the Klallams using the river for what was left of the fishery?
“The Indians still fished,” she replied. “A lot were jailed, and a lot of their fish was confiscated.”
Edgington said that although the program to encourage agriculture was unsuccessful from either the government’s or Klallams’ standpoint, it did include the government purchase of 372 acres at the mouth of the Elwha River for the band.
“The land was held in trust for the Klallam people,” Edgington said.
Fourteen families settled on that land. They formed an agricultural co-operative, the Elwha Valley Indian Community Association, in 1939.
That group became the nucleus for the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe when it was officially recognized by the government Jan. 19, 1968. A tribal government was formed.
The new tribe had old issues — fishing in general and its relations with state fishing in particular.
The tribe joined others in a 1971 lawsuit against the state. Three years later, the Boldt decision — by U.S. District Judge George Boldt in Seattle — upheld tribal fishing rights.
The tribe and state were now co-managers of the Elwha River fishery.
One result was a tribal fish hatchery on the Elwha in 1975, which has been replaced by a new one as part of the dam removals and river restoration.
Does Elofson expect to fish the upper Elwha before he dies?
“I hope that I can go to the Elkhorn area, catch a salmon, cook it up,” the 58-year-old tribal natural resources director replied.
“I hope that’s the case before I get too old to hike up there.”
Thursday: The hydroelectric dams’ mediocre record on flood control at Lower Elwha.
