Returning salmon and residential fish populations sustained the Spokane Indian Tribe from time immemorial to 1939, the year Grand Coulee Dam flooded the ancestral lands of the Tribe and blocked salmon migrating up the Columbia River to the Tribe's usual and accustomed fishing grounds.

Land, fish, and a way of life, defined by the rich natural resources of the river were taken away by the development of the Federal Columbia River Power System. After the construction of the dam, natural resident fish populations were unable to sustain meaningful harvest opportunities primarily owing to the destruction of habitat and continual disruption in completing their life cycle resulting from dam operations.