Salmon focus of meeting

Photo: File photo

The Little Shuswap Lake Indian Band is inviting people to talk about the past, present and especially the future of wild Pacific salmon.

As the annual salmon run takes place on the Adams River in the Shuswap, the band, along with the Adams River Salmon Society, is holding a symposium of Indigenous and scientific communities at Quaaout Lodge on Little Shuswap Lake, near Tsútswecw Provincial Park (being renamed from Roderick Haig-Brown).

Registration and the full agenda and speaker profiles are available online www.salmonsymposium.com. Seating is limited for the two-day symposium that will be held. Sept. 30 to Oct. 1.

The symposium includes a special one-time public presentation of edited sequences from Nettie Wild’s Uninterrupted.

“While people and communities have benefitted and relied on salmon historically, there are questions arising about its sustainability. The Shuswap Salmon Symposium is designed to bring people together who have an interest in these questions to share knowledge about how we benefit from the salmon, changes we may be witnessing in our communities, and whether we are acting effectively to manage and co-exist with wild Pacific salmon. Indigenous knowledge will be shared alongside scientific knowledge about how the salmon are being managed today,” the band said in a statement.

“The Shuswap Salmon Symposium is designed to respect various perspectives toward creating a dialogue moving forward. Symposium delegates will be exposed to a range and diversity of knowledge to inform how to sustain the salmon population, for its own survival and for the ongoing benefit to our people and communities.”

If anyone would like to support the event but are unable to attend, there is also opportunity to sponsor a Secwepemc elder or youth. Contact event organizers for more information at [email protected].