What is CRITFC

For generations, traditional fishing authorities governed tribal communities on the Columbia River. One such authority was the old "Celilo Fish Committee." The authority exercised by the Celilo Fish Committee was derived from the sovereign powers of the people living and fishing in nearby tribal territories. The committee ordained fishing practices that were disciplined and designed to serve a high purpose: to ensure that the salmon resource was served first--even worshipped--so that it would flourish and always exist.

Tribal fish committee practices were successful--salmon were plentiful season after season. Then, the Columbia River and its adjacent environment were dramatically altered. Obstacles to salmon migration proliferated. Water quality and water flow were diminished. Ocean and in-river fishing increased. The salmon declined.

CRITFC's logo. This logo shows the importance of salmon and the rivers to the tribes. The four feathers symbolize the four tribes working together.

To counteract these effects and to protect their treaty-reserved property and sacred salmon heritage, the Warm Springs, Yakama, Umatilla, and Nez Perce tribes joined together in 1977 in the manner of the old Celilo Fish Committee. The purpose: to renew their authority in fisheries management.

Out of that effort, the tribes created a coordinating and technical organization to support their joint and individual exercise of sovereign authority. Based as it was on a time-tested tradition, the new organization, the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission, became a valuable means for organized intertribal representation in regional planning, policy, and decision-making.

As its founders intended, the organization's assignment remains the same today: unity of action in service of the salmon.