Celebrating the Spirit of Wild Salmon
The Wild Salmon Caravan project celebrates the spirit of wild salmon through arts and culture and raises awareness of the important role that Indigenous Peoples play in their conservation.
Swim with us:
Stand for wild salmon!
Revitalizing intertribal relationships and strengthening the networks that support Indigenous fisheries governance.
Wild salmon is a cultural and ecological keystone species for all Indigenous Nations of the Pacific Northwest, the original stewards of these lands on Turtle Island. By bringing Nations together through ceremony, dialogue, and collaboration, the Wild Salmon Caravan helps rebuild connections disrupted by colonial systems and fragmented management.
It creates space for knowledge sharing, alignment of priorities, and collective stewardship grounded in Indigenous law and responsibility to salmon. In doing so, it supports stronger, more connected governance systems that uphold cultural values and sustain salmon for future generations.
Our Journey
The Wild Salmon Caravan was ‘spawned’ at the Wild Salmon Convergence in 2014, a think tank that united Indigenous fisherpeople, researchers, and thought leaders to address issues and develop strategies for preserving Indigenous knowledge in wild salmon conservation. This initiative emerged in response to the alarming decline in the number of wild salmon returning to the Adams/Shuswap Lake Watershed to spawn.
Salmon as Life:
Culture, Ecosystems, and Resilience
Wild salmon have been our most important Indigenous food source and a cultural and ecological keystone species for thousands of years, sustaining the entire Pacific and Inland Temperate Rainforests. They are a crucial indicator of the health and integrity of Indigenous land and food systems, which are deeply interconnected with the agroecological system. Wild salmon nourish many species, including bears, wolves, eagles, forests, and our families and communities.
The ability of our communities to tackle the many environmental and socio-economic challenges threatening wild salmon is closely tied to the strength and resilience of these salmon. They must overcome many obstacles on their journey to the Salish Sea and back to their spawning and nursing grounds in the rivers, lakes, and streams of the Fraser Basin. The Wild Salmon Caravan seeks to bring deeper meaning and understanding to truth and reconciliation in ways that words alone cannot convey, emphasizing the profound connection between the health of wild salmon and the well-being of our communities and ecosystems.
“Wild salmon need us now more than ever to celebrate and honour their amazing generosity as a keystone species and to show the world how important they are to our Indigenous land and food systems.”
-Dawn Morrison, Wild Salmon Caravan Organizer and Curator
Coming Together for Salmon
The Wild Salmon Caravan is an annual, Indigenous-led gathering that brings communities together through ceremonies, feasts, and community forums to celebrate and protect wild salmon.
Purpose, Vision & Values
Rooted in ancestral knowledge and carried forward through collective action, the Wild Salmon Caravan reflects a shared commitment to salmon, land, and community. The following purpose, vision, and values express the spirit and direction of this ongoing journey.
Purpose
The main purpose of the Wild Salmon Caravan is to build capacity of coalitions and campaigns that link Indigenous and non-Indigenous peoples, artists, food systems networks, individuals, organizations, and communities who are working to protect, conserve and restore wild salmon and its habitat in the Fraser Basin and Salish Seas corridor.
Vision
The vision of the Wild Salmon Caravan is to nurture the creative energy that wild salmon have inspired through the ages, and affirm inter-tribal relationships that are the foundation of Indigenous trade economies and wild salmon knowledge, wisdom and values.
Values
The core values of the Wild Salmon Caravan are rooted on principles of collaboration, ancestral memories, and intrinsic connection to lands and water ways to educate, inform, and transform the darkness surrounding the industrial storm that is endangering wild salmon.
“Ancient ceremonies and songs of Coast and Interior Indigenous peoples—alongside vibrant expressions of visual and performing arts—call the wild salmon home to the rivers, lakes, and streams of the Fraser Basin and Salish Sea corridor, where their life cycle of birth and return continues.”
