Sacred Salmon Campaign
“Our bodies are made of the elements of the Earth. Its air gives us breath and its water restores us and gives us new life.” —Laudate Si’ 2
—Laudate Si’ 2
Xaalh and the Way of the Masks: Honoring Ourselves, the Lands, Waters, and Forests 2025
September 8th through September 20th, 2025
The Way of the Masks is a Native-led journey of ceremony and resistance to protect ancient forests, salmon habitat, and tribal sovereignty. From September 7th to 20th, Indigenous leaders from Se’Si’Le and the Lummi Nation’s House of Tears Carvers will travel over 1,600 miles across the Northwest, bringing carved cedar masks that honor the sacred balance of life, called xaalh. This journey will feature nine stops; open to the public in Bellingham, Olympia, Portland, Eugene, Klamath River, Lapwai, Lower Elwha, and Seattle.
This year’s campaign centers on standing up for the Roadless Rule, one of the strongest protections for our remaining wild forests. Due to current political policy the protections are under threat. Events along the route will bring together Tribal Nations, local communities, faith leaders, and environmental advocates in powerful acts of solidarity and ceremony.
IPJC is proud to collaborate in organizing this journey with Se’Si’Le and partners including Save Our wild Salmon, Sierra Club, Washington Conservation Action, Center for Responsible Forestry and others. Together, we’re calling for the protection of these sacred ecosystems. We invite you to show up, spread the word, and stand with us to protect forests, rivers, and justice.
Visit Se’Si’Le for more information about the entire journey. RSVP here for September 19th.
How to get involved:
- New resource! Sacred Salmon Pilgrimage Toolkit for planning a pilgrimage in your community!
- Access our Sacred Salmon Campaign Tools to gather people in your community to meet with your legislators.
- Join IPJC’s Sacred Salmon Campaign Organizing Team
- Host a screening of Covenant of the Salmon People, available for free on PBS:KBTC Documentaries | Covenant of The Salmon People | PBS.
Take Action!
PURPOSE:
Gather the faith community to stand alongside Indigenous communities of the Northwest to protect Indigenous sovereignty, amplify tribal-led land return and ecosystem restoration, Native cultural revitalization, and active decolonization of land, water, and air resources, in the hope to restore and honor Indigenous wisdoms and environmental expertise.
VISION:
IPJC envisions creating a network of faith-based leaders that support Indigenous tribal leaders as co-managers of natural resources, per federal treaties, and parishioners and youth in being in right relationship with all of Creation. All of this is inspired and modeled according to the concrete expertise regarding salmon, ecosystem recovery, and dam removal that Indigenous communities hold, as well as a rightful sharing of the historical environmental legacy in our region.
GOALS:
As a covenant people, restore and protect treaty rights particularly as they relate to access to salmon and traditional fishing grounds.
Honestly and authentically name the harmful impact that the Catholic Church and colonial settlers have had, and continue to have, on Indigenous communities, including specific examination of the impact of the 16th-century doctrine of discovery and papal bulls.
Amplify regional tribal voices that seek Indigenous cultural revitalization, ecosystem restoration, river pollution monitoring to ensure salmon survival, and collective respect of Native land and burial grounds alongside Lower Snake River.
Provide concrete actionable pathways for Catholics to live out Laduato Si’ & Laudete Deum by learning about and supporting environmental justice initiatives led by Indigenous neighbors in their region.
Co-design active conciliation process that invites Catholics to witness and foster localized community action that addresses Indigenous land dispossession, soil, air, and water pollution and its impact on Indigenous populations, and the dismissal
Pass the Columbia Basin River Initiative, which includes removal of the four Lower Snake River dams.
VALUES:
Subsidiarity – the folks that are closest to the pain and harm hold the solutions for how to move forward, in this case we believe that those communities are the Salmon People of the Northwest.
Encounter – through spending time with the land, water, plants, animals, and people connected to it, each of us can restore our connection and heal broken relationships, creating new life and possibilities.
Reciprocity – in recognition that we are only able to move forward together for the common good it is through generative sharing of co-responsibility in the healing of creation with a focus on the health of the Columbia and Lower Snake Rivers and the species that inhabit its nearby ecosystems on land, water, and air.
Laudato Si’ and Laudate Deum
The following themes and connected topics emerge in both of Pope Francis’ encyclicals on the environment. These among others connect to this campaign informing and shaping the connections between our faith and this issue.
Cultural erasure due to environmental degradation – Indigenous communities are inextricably related to the physical places they inhabit, and as those places are destroyed so are their culture and existence.
Endangered species and biodiversity – The extinction of many species creates great urgency, as it ultimately weakens environments and risks our livelihood.
Technocratic paradigm – There is an over-reliance on technical and market-based solutions for healing our common home.
“Many intensive forms of environmental exploitation and degradation not only exhaust the resources which provide local communities with their livelihood, but also undo the social structures which, for a long time, shaped cultural identity and their sense of the meaning of life and community. The disappearance of a culture can be just as serious, or even more serious, than the disappearance of a species of plant or animal.” —Laudato Si’145
Campaign Highlights
Sk’aliCh’elh: A Majestic Matriarchy
Saturday, June 14, 2025
Please join us from 6:30 – 8:30pm at St. Joseph Parish (732 18th Ave E, Seattle, WA 98112). Preceding this event we are excited to host Netse Mot: A Gathering Meal from 5:00-6:30 pm! A Majestic Matriarchy is presented by Se’Si’Le, an Indigenous-led nonprofit in Washington State and is supported by a coalition of NGOs and faith-based partners.
This event will focus on Indigenous women to comfort, celebrate, and bring attention to our Southern Resident orca relatives. Native peoples have a deep affinity with the matriarchal lifeway of our majestic Resident relatives who rely on the older females for stability, especially in times of crisis. A grave crisis is now upon them, their existence is imperiled. Join us to listen, learn, and be inspired by the heartfelt words, visions, and voices of Indigenous women leaders.
Tickets are available on a sliding scale basis and free for Indigenous Peoples. Space is limited. We hope to see you on June 14th! Download the flyer here!
SACRED SALMON TOWN HALL – March 1, 2025
Public Witness in Solidarity with Native Peoples on Salmon Watershed Protection. Inspired by the Washington State Catholic Bishop’s Call for Plan to Care for Creation and the Common Good in the Lower Snake River and “to develop and implement a holistic plan for the Lower Snake River region that seeks input from the Original Peoples of Washington state as principal dialogue partners,” this collective action, led by Jesuit students and Native peoples, will be an opportunity for faithful collective action to public officials, along with prayer, ritual and next steps to take the work home. 10am-11:30am.
SACRED SALMON TOWN HALL – SPRING 2024
Over 150 folks gathered at Seattle University for the culminating event of the Northwest Ignatian Advocacy Summit. High school and college students led a town hall with staff members from Representative Pramila Jayapal and Kim Schrier’s offices, sharing why salmon recovery, dam removal, and tribal rights are important and vital for our community.
Sacred Salmon Town Hall, Ignatian Advocacy Summit, Seattle WA
Sacred Salmon Town Hall for Gonzaga Prep with Julian Matthews of
Nimiipuu Protecting the Environment, Spokane WA
PALOUSE TRIBAL GATHERING AND CANOE HEALING JOURNEY – SPRING 2024
IPJC staff attended a Palouse Tribe gathering on April 19 at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia Rivers, commemorating the painful history of their community being stripped of its land through eminent domain laws when Ice Bridge Harbor Dam was built, flooding sacred sites and burial grounds. Connected to this gathering, a few weeks later, the community gathered for a multi-day healing canoe journey down part of the Snake River. Both events featured powerful truth telling, planting native species to heal the land and each of us, and were a great source of relationship and trust building. Our team has been honored to witness such beautiful and important moments, and we are grateful for the ongoing partnership grounding all of our Sacred Salmon work.
Right Relations – A Matter of Spirit Summer 2024 – Read it here!
Sacred Salmon – A Matter of Spirit Fall 2023 – Read it here!
ALL OUR RELATIONS CAMPAIGN FALL 2023
Over two weeks, the art piece (pictured below) “All Our Relations,” created by Lummi tribal member Cyaltsa Finkbonner, traveled to seven different places in the Northwest in order to depict what a free-flowing river might look like and the interconnected world we inhabit together. Centered around storytelling and prayer, the community learned about the cultural significance of salmon to the Salish Seas People and how salmon is integral to the livelihood and health of the entire Pacific Northwest.
All Our Relations, Olympia, WA event, Photo by MeganCMack
Map at page top – 1841 Oregon Territory by U.S. Ex. Charles Wilkes Esqr. Commander