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The Fight for Willamette Falls

The Fight for Willamette Falls


Cheryle Kennedy gazes across acres of decimated industrial buildings along the eastern banks of the Willamette River. Dust swirls in the dry breeze as heavy machinery crashes and grinds in the background, obscuring the sound of Willamette Falls just a few hundred feet upstream. “You can feel the power of the river,” Kennedy says. She places her hand over her heart. “For us, it’s tumwata, which is ‘heart,’ like your heartbeat. And you can feel that roar as you are there, by the edges of the water.”

Kennedy is chairwoman of the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde. In 2019, the tribe purchased this land, the 23-acre site of the former Blue Heron Paper Company. The machinery in the background is demolishing the old plant to make way for something new: tumwata village, a mixed-use development with restaurants, a hotel, public gathering sites, and private space for tribal ceremonies.

On the west side of the river, a second tribally led project is underway. Moore’s Island is entirely industrial now, all rock and concrete. Willamette Falls Trust, a collaborative body composed of tribal nations, state and local leaders, and private businesses, envisions it as a beautifully appointed public access site: walkways lined with native plants, platforms for cultural programming, and small beaches for launching canoes and boats. 

“Once this project is completed,” says Davis “Yellowash” Washines, Yakama delegate and former board chair for Willamette Falls Trust, “they will say, ‘When we’re in Oregon, let’s go see the second largest waterfall by volume in the United States.’”

Willamette-Falls-indigenous-tribes-waterfall_gr8j4l The Fight for Willamette Falls

Davis “Yellowash” Washines’s family has long-established historic ties to waterfalls like Willamette and Celilo, the latter of which flooded after the completion of the Dalles Dam in 1957. “The sound, the mist of the falls—those things are embedded in my memory,” he says. “And so, when I go to Willamette Falls, and I close my eyes, I can take myself back to when I was a youngster at Celilo and imagine how it was back then.”

You might think the two projects would be part of a singular effort to transform Willamette Falls back from an industrial wasteland into a destination that does justice to its spectacular natural beauty and thousands of years of tribal history. But in fact, the groups behind tumwata village and the Moore’s Island project are at odds at the center of a widely publicized lawsuit over who should control, or even access, the actual falls.

A decade from now, Willamette Falls could be a major tourist destination and place for the people who cared for this land long before white settlers arrived to practice their culture and share its meaning with visitors. But the process of moving beyond the industrial past and restoring human interaction with the cascade has exposed the long-standing wounds of colonization. It leaves one big question unanswered: Who should own Willamette Falls going forward?

Willamette-Falls-indigenous-tribes-waterfall3_txrwjo The Fight for Willamette Falls

As settlers seized hundreds of acres per person under the Oregon Donation Land Claim Act of 1850, new arrivals dammed Willamette Falls and crowded its banks with factories, blocking virtually all public access.

There are few opportunities to absorb the roar, feel the mist, or touch the slippery rocks of Willamette Falls. Portland General Electric (PGE) controls much of the site. The darkened ruin of the paper mill looms. And the reservoir above the dam has partially swallowed the physical falls. It’s hard to even envision what Willamette Falls looked like pre–white settlement.

“This is a very small point in time where this land adjacent to the falls has been industrialized,” says Mary Baumgardner, president of the West Linn City Council and board member for Willamette Falls Trust. “In the history of the falls, it’s such a tiny time. And now technology has changed, so paper production is no longer so important. So we need to have a new way to have a relationship with the falls.”

Willamette-Falls-indigenous-tribes-waterfall4_lplxbo The Fight for Willamette Falls

Each year, Yakama Nation hosts a lamprey celebration in Oregon City, near Willamette Falls. Many Indigenous communities have caught lamprey at Willamette Falls for thousands of years.

Willamette Falls has long been a gathering place, with petroglyphs marking its importance that date back thousands of years. Sacred to the tribal nations who continue to steward this land, the falls served as an ancient village site and social venue, where people traded goods, visited far-flung family, and celebrated weddings. And it was a hub of commerce, thanks to its abundance of salmon, steelhead, and lamprey. “The fish was mighty, powerful and strong and plentiful,” Kennedy says. “Throughout time, other tribes came to fish there. We welcomed them there. My great-grandfather welcomed them there.”

That was before settlers seized hundreds of local acres per person—including Willamette Falls—under the Oregon Donation Land Claim Act of 1850. The new arrivals dammed the falls and crowded its banks with factories, sealing off virtually all public access. On June 3, 1889, the Willamette Falls Electric Company used its waters to power the nation’s first long-distance transmission of electricity. Fourteen miles away, streetlights flickered on in Portland. The company later became PGE, which continues to run the T. W. Sullivan Hydroelectric Plant at the falls.

Willamette-Falls-indigenous-tribes-waterfall-lamprey_n4oqlo The Fight for Willamette Falls

At around 450 million years old, Pacific lamprey are older than the dinosaurs. But like salmon, lamprey populations have been decimated by dams, pollution, and climate change.

To understand the conflict among tribes related to Willamette Falls, you need to understand the treaties that impacted them. In the 1850s, tribal nations in this region negotiated a series of treaties with the federal government, ceding the rights to millions of acres of land in exchange for money, goods, and services—
including the right to fish, hunt, and gather at places like Willamette Falls. After the federal government confined Indigenous communities to reservations, many—but not all—were still able to make regular trips to the falls to fish for salmon and gather lamprey, an eel-like fish still considered a delicacy.

The Yakama Nation—as well as the Umatilla, Warm Springs, Nez Perce, and dozens of other tribal nations in what is now Washington state—negotiated access in treaties to their “usual and accustomed” places to fish, hunt, and gather First Foods. “[Territorial governor] Isaac Stevens said, ‘You will still be able to go to the places that you’ve always gone to,’” Washines says. For the 14 confederated tribes and bands of the Yakama Nation, the usual and accustomed areas for foraging and hunting stretched from Canada to Northern California, across the plains and into the Rockies, and into the Puget Sound area.

Cheryle-kennedy-grand-ronde-tribes_z8mxmi The Fight for Willamette Falls

Grand Ronde tribal council chair Cheryle Kennedy, the descendent of a prominent Clackamas chief, feels a deep ancestral connection to Willamette Falls. “I know first-hand about the falls because my people are from the falls,” Kennedy says.

But not all Native nations who ceded land in this region received “usual and accustomed” rights. Kennedy’s great-grandfather, a chief of the Clackamas Tribe, was one of the signers of the Kalapuya Treaty of 1855, which ceded most of the Willamette Valley to the US government in return for food, health care, and protection from frequent conflicts with white settlers. He negotiated with Joel Palmer as the lead US representative, who eventually became corporate director of a woolen mill at Willamette Falls.

Following the signing of the treaty, the US government forcibly marched the Clackamas Tribe, among others, to the newly created Grand Ronde Reservation, more than 60 miles away from the falls.

“The river itself provided life for many,” Kennedy says. “And we shared it. So when we talk about the Willamette River, it is our heartbeat…and we align with it from that sense in that that heart must not quit.”

Willamette-Falls-indigenous-tribes-waterfall5_iszruw The Fight for Willamette Falls

When Yakama Nation decided to host the first Lamprey Celebration in Oregon City, they wanted to honor not just a vital First Food, but the land that supported them. “We wanted to signify to the land that we had not forgotten this place that had sustained our people for thousands of years,” Washines said. “It was a renewal ceremony.”

A century later, the 1950s saw aggressive attempts by the government to assimilate Native people into mainstream American culture while abandoning the agreements that made way for the United States to exist. In 1954, Congress ended the government’s recognition of Grand Ronde’s tribal sovereignty, along with all other tribes in Oregon west of the Cascades.

For decades afterward, Grand Ronde citizens, including Kennedy, fought to have their federal status restored. In 1983, their work paid off with the Grand Ronde Restoration Act. But the old treaties defining their relationship with the federal government no longer applied. In other words, Grand Ronde’s official status is categorically different from many other tribal communities in the area. Grand Ronde negotiated a salmon fishing agreement not with the federal government, but with the state of Oregon and, in 2018, they finalized a deal with the Oregon Department of Lands to erect a metal fishing platform bolted to the rocks under the water at the base of Willamette Falls. There, it exercises its state-issued permit to catch 15 salmon per year—for ceremonial use only. This platform has become one of the only ways Grand Ronde can commune with a waterfall its people have visited for millennia. But the site also has become a point of conflict with other tribes in the area.

Willamette-Falls-indigenous-tribes-waterfall2_caq1n3 The Fight for Willamette Falls

To access—or even see—Willamette Falls today, options are slim. Hardy adventurers can rent a kayak downstream and paddle against the current toward the base of the falls, but most just catch a brief glimpse while whizzing by on a highway bridge over the river.

This spring, water levels at the base of the falls were unusually low. Warm weather melted the snowpack feeding the Willamette River earlier than usual, and the river was so stunted that Grand Ronde fishers had to abandon their platform to fish from the rocks below. Ultimately, they went home empty-handed. “It was a dismal year,” Kennedy says.

Grand Ronde was a member of the Willamette Falls Trust until 2021, when it pulled out over long-standing disagreements. Arguments arose over which contemporary tribes include descendants of year-round residents of the falls, which nations were there seasonally, and who has a more legitimate right based on those parameters. The split was deeply contentious, and that acrimony has lingered.

“No one tribe is the sole caretaker of the falls; all five tribes have historical connections to various places, including Willamette Falls—unique unto themselves—and shared histories relating to the falls,” Robert Kentta, former board chair of the trust and councilman for the Confederated Tribes of the Siletz Indians, said in a statement shared with OPB. “It is not the prerogative of one tribe to say that others do not belong in such a place. It is not one tribe’s prerogative to tell the stories and interpret the connections of others to that place, try as they might.”

Kennedy disagrees with Kentta’s assessment. “That is one thing that distresses me, when I hear people say, ‘Oh, you say it’s just yours,’” she says. “I haven’t said that. And I won’t say that, because that would be discrediting my heritage, my traditions, and my trainings.”

But in a June 9 letter to Gov. Tina Kotek, Kennedy called Grand Ronde “the Tribe of record in the area” and urged Kotek to further review a request for state funding from the Willamette Falls Trust, saying the trust project is “misguided” and “disingenuous.” She also claimed the trust “excludes” Grand Ronde and took issue with its inclusion of “an out of state tribe.”

The Grand Ronde fishing platform was the subject of heated exchanges during a federal trial this spring between the state of Oregon and PGE over the ownership of Willamette Falls. PGE says the Grand Ronde’s platform—authorized by the state—is a safety hazard, both for tribal members fishing there and for workers at the power plant PGE operates. Some members of other tribes see the platform as offensive; one, who asked to remain anonymous, likened the move to the United States planting its flag on the moon, claiming for itself something that belongs to all.

PGE says it wants to issue a perpetual cultural practices easement to all tribes with ties to the falls, but the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which licenses the power plant, rejected that, saying the title to the land is unclear because the state claims some of it. So PGE filed a lawsuit asking a federal judge to give it ownership of the land that the state is claiming.

Willamette-Falls-indigenous-tribes-waterfall7_m2sd6t The Fight for Willamette Falls

For many tribes in the area, regaining access to Willamette Falls is about rebuilding relationships, repairing longstanding wounds, and educating both their community and the larger public about the falls’ cultural significance.

But Grand Ronde has questioned PGE’s motives for its current legal moves. The company is hoping to sell a portion of its undisputed land at the falls to Willamette Falls Trust for its public access project, which state legislators just bolstered with another $45 million in funding. PGE is also business partners with trust member Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, which co-owns the Pelton Dam on the Deschutes River.

In a statement to Portland Monthly, PGE spokesperson Andrea Platt emphasized that, as of press time, there was “no agreement or commitment on the part of PGE to sell any of its land at Willamette Falls.” She notes that PGE has always supported a cultural practices easement involving “all Northwest Native Tribes with ancestral and cultural ties to the falls,” and that all tribes were invited to participate; the Willamette Falls Trust includes tribes that have no business relationship with PGE. According to Platt, Grand Ronde has “an open invitation” to rejoin the trust’s board. “PGE’s role is to support a Tribal-led process that honors cultural values, encourages broad participation and fosters long-term stewardship,” she wrote.

Lawyers for Grand Ronde, which intervened in the lawsuit, said public land at the falls shouldn’t pass into the ownership of a private corporation. They also claimed that PGE’s alarm over the safety of the fishing platform is an excuse for the utility to side against Grand Ronde in the intertribal disputes.

At press time, US District Judge Michael Simon had not issued a ruling.

Willamette-Falls-panorama-indigenous_pdehgs The Fight for Willamette Falls

Willamette Falls is the second-largest waterfall by volume in the United States. So why is this Niagara of the West so hard to access?

Artificial boundaries like state lines and Western concepts of land ownership changed the relationships of Native nations to each other and to the land. White settlers and the federal government wrested control of this vital cultural hub nearly two centuries ago. Forced resettlement, combined with federal policies that stripped wealth, land, and even federal recognition of the existence of some tribes left a legacy that complicates ongoing efforts toward repair.

Those land grabs on the part of the US government also created a persistent morass of intertribal conflict that is threaded through efforts to revive the natural wonder. For non–Native Americans who want a clear, one-to-one understanding of which tribes belonged where, the story of Willamette Falls serves as a reminder that the tidy boundaries of those neat analogs are a creation of colonization itself, not larger reality.

“We have made a huge mess,” says Baumgardner, the trust board member and West Linn council president. “I don’t think we should be afraid to wade into these matters, because we can’t address them if we don’t talk about them.” Baumgardner is also part of an effort by local city and county leaders, as well as Grand Ronde and the regional government Metro, to designate the falls as a National Heritage Area.

Willamette-Falls-indigenous-tribes-waterfall6_w30ryl The Fight for Willamette Falls

The 2025 Willamette Falls Lamprey Celebration involved boat tours, traditional dance performances, and educational talks, so people could learn about the area and its inhabitants.

While the ownership of Willamette Falls remains in contention, lamprey continue to congregate there, even at lower numbers. Along with other First Foods, like berries, salmon, and deer, the lamprey was once a staple, providing sustenance throughout the year for people who lived near the falls, as well as those who traveled there to harvest the fish. That includes members of Washines’s family within Yakama Nation. Historic photos of the falls show Pacific lamprey covering the rocks like a wriggling shag carpet.

Lamprey also played a role in cultural rites of passage. Washines said teens waited for elders to decide they were ready to learn the dangerous practice of harvesting at the falls. And he described what was once a typical baby pacifier: a dried lamprey tail tied to a piece of yarn. “As an infant, you already develop and acquire a taste for the food,” Washines says. “And that stays with you throughout your life.”

Each June, the Yakama Nation hosts the Lamprey Celebration at Clackamette Park in Oregon City. Tribal members bring the fish they gathered among the rocks at the base of the falls to be grilled as part of a feast. All are welcome. 

“We all share this desire to share the beauty, the splendor, the magnificence of Willamette Falls with everyone,” Washines says. “The Yakama Nation is not going anywhere, and our neighbors aren’t going anywhere. So let’s be good neighbors.”



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