We have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to restore wild salmon in the Pacific Northwest’s Columbia & Snake Rivers and their tributaries, once the greatest salmon rivers in the world. We can do this by removing four outdated and expensive dams on the lower Snake River. For too long these dams have impeded the rights of Nez Perce and other Northwest First Peoples to exercise Traditional Fishing Treaty Rights. The federal government promised the Nez Perce People the right to hunt and fish in their usual and accustomed places as part of the 1855 Treaty. The promise was broken. It’s time to right this wrong

We invite you to join the House of Tears Carvers and our partners for the launch of “The Red Road to DC: A Totem Pole Journey for the Protection of Sacred Places” — a touring series of ceremonies, public events, media projects, and campaigns culminating in a rally on the National Mall and an exhibition at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian.

The Atsa Koodakuh wyh Nuwu (People of Red Mountain) are a committee of traditional knowledge keepers and members of the Fort McDermitt Paiute and Shoshone Tribe who are working to oppose the proposed Thacker Pass Lithium Mine on their ancestral homelands and to protect Peehee Mu’huh (Thacker Pass).

This exhibition features a 3,000 pound killer whale (orca) totem carved by the House of Tears Carvers and an award-winning multi-channel film installation that tells the story of the environmental emergency through the figure of the killer whale. It also tells the story of the leadership of Native Nations in protecting the Salish Sea, the orcas, the salmon, and our collective future.