The Warm Springs Indian Reservation consists of in north-central

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

, in the United States, and is governed by the

Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs The Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs is a recognized Native American tribe made of three tribes who put together a confederation. They live on and govern the Warm Springs Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of Oregon. Tribes The confederat ...

Tribes

Three tribes form the confederation: the

Wasco Wasco is the name of four places in the United States: Places United States * Wasco, California, a city in California ** Wasco State Prison, located in Wasco, California * Wasco, Illinois, a former hamlet (unincorporated town) in Illinois, now pa ...

, Tenino (Warm Springs) and

Paiute Paiute (; also Piute) refers to three non-contiguous groups of indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. Although their languages are related within the Numic group of Uto-Aztecan languages, these three groups do not form a single set. The term "Pai ...

. Since 1938 they have been unified as the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs.

History

The reservation was created by

treaty A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations An international organization or international o ...

in 1855, which defined its boundaries as follows:

Commencing in the middle of the channel of the
Deschutes River Deschutes River may refer to: *Deschutes River (Oregon) The Deschutes River in central Oregon is a major tributary of the Columbia River. The river provides much of the drainage on the eastern side of the Cascade Range in Oregon, gathering many ...
opposite the eastern termination of a range of high lands usually known as the Mutton Mountains; thence westerly to the summit of said range, along the divide to its connection with the
Cascade Mountains The Cascade Range or Cascades is a major mountain range of western North America, extending from southern British Columbia through Washington and Oregon to Northern California. It includes both non-volcanic mountains, such as the North Cascades, ...
; thence to the summit of said mountains; thence southerly to Mount Jefferson; thence down the main branch of Deschutes River; heading in this peak, to its junction with Deschutes River; and thence down the middle of the channel of said river to the place of beginning.

The Warm Springs and Wasco bands gave up ownership rights to a area, which they had inhabited for over 10,000 years, in exchange for basic health care, education, and other forms of assistance as outlined by the Treaty with the Tribes of Middle Oregon (June 25, 1855). Other provisions of the Treaty of 1855 ensured that tribal members retained hunting and fishing rights in the "Natural and Accustomed Area" which they had vacated. These treaty hunting and fishing rights are rights that were retained by the tribe and are not "special rights" granted by the U.S. government. In 1879, the U.S. government moved about 38

s to the reservation and around 70 more in 1884, despite that tribe's history of conflict with

Columbia River The Columbia River (Upper Chinook: ' or '; Sahaptin: ''Nch’i-Wàna'' or ''Nchi wana''; Sinixt dialect'' '') is the largest river in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. The river rises in the Rocky Mountains of British Columbia, C ...

tribes. The borders of the reservation were under dispute for 101 years, during what became known as the McQuinn Strip boundary dispute. In 1871, a surveyor named T.B. Handley measured the land, determining that it was smaller than outlined in the treaty of 1855. The Warms Spring people objected and, in 1887, a surveyor named John A. McQuinn determined that they were correct, Handley had incorrectly measured the reservation's boundaries. By this time, settlers had moved onto the disputed land. The government offered the Warm Springs people a cash settlement for the land, but the Warms Springs people refused it. In 1972, Public Law 92-427 restored the land to the Warm Springs people.

Geography

The reservation lies primarily in parts of

Wasco County Wasco County is one of the 36 counties in the U.S. state of Oregon. As of the 2020 census, the population was 25,213. Its county seat is The Dalles. The county is named for a local tribe of Native Americans, the Wasco, a Chinook tribe who ...

and Jefferson County, but there are smaller sections in six other counties; in descending order of land area they are: Clackamas,

Marion Marion may refer to: People *Marion (given name) *Marion (surname) *Marion Silva Fernandes, Brazilian footballer known simply as "Marion" *Marion (singer), Filipino singer-songwriter and pianist Marion Aunor (born 1992) Places Antarctica * Mario ...

, Gilliam,

Sherman Sherman most commonly refers to: *Sherman (name), a surname and given name (and list of persons with the name) ** William Tecumseh Sherman (1820–1891), American Civil War General *M4 Sherman, a tank Sherman may also refer to: Places United St ...

, Linn and Hood River counties. (The Hood River County portion consists of tiny sections of non-contiguous off-reservation trust land in the northeast corner of the county.) The reservation is southeast of

Portland Portland most commonly refers to: * Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States * Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...

; , over half, is forested.

Demographics

Its 2000 census total population was 3,314 inhabitants. The reservations's only significant population center is the community of Warm Springs (also known as the Warm Springs Agency), which comprises over 73 percent of the reservation's population. As of 2003, the reservation was home to a tribal enrollment of over 4,200.

Culture

The Warm Springs Reservation is one of the last holdouts in the U.S. of speakers of the Chinook Jargon because of its utility as an intertribal language. The forms of the Jargon used by elders in Warm Springs vary considerably from the heavily-creolized form at Grand Ronde.

Kiksht Upper Chinook, endonym Kiksht, also known as Columbia Chinook, and Wasco-Wishram after its last surviving dialect, is a recently extinct language of the US Pacific Northwest. It had 69 speakers in 1990, of whom 7 were monolingual: five Wasco and ...

, Numu and Ichishkiin Snwit languages are taught in the Warm Springs Reservation schools. The Museum at Warm Springs houses a large collection of

North American Indian The Indigenous peoples of the Americas are the inhabitants of the Americas before the arrival of the European settlers in the 15th century, and the ethnic groups who now identify themselves with those peoples. Many Indigenous peoples of the Ame ...

artifacts. It was opened in 1993.

Economy

The biggest source of revenue for the tribes is

hydroelectric Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower (water power). Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and ...

(Warm Springs Power Enterprises) projects on the

Deschutes River Deschutes River may refer to: *Deschutes River (Oregon) The Deschutes River in central Oregon is a major tributary of the Columbia River. The river provides much of the drainage on the eastern side of the Cascade Range in Oregon, gathering many ...

. The tribes also operate Warm Springs Forest Products Industries. Many tribal members engage in ceremonial, subsistence, and commercial fisheries in the

for

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several list of commercially important fish species, commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family (biology), family Salmonidae, which are native to tributary, tributaries of the ...

steelhead Steelhead, or occasionally steelhead trout, is the common name of the anadromous form of the coastal rainbow trout or redband trout (O. m. gairdneri). Steelhead are native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific basin in Northeast Asia and N ...

, and

sturgeon Sturgeon is the common name for the 27 species of fish belonging to the family Acipenseridae. The earliest sturgeon fossils date to the Late Cretaceous The Late Cretaceous (100.5–66 Ma) is the younger of two epochs into which the Cretace ...

. Tribal members also fish for salmon and steelhead for subsistence purposes in the Deschutes River, primarily at Sherars Falls. Tribal members also harvest

Pacific lamprey The Pacific lamprey (''Entosphenus tridentatus'') is an anadromous parasitic lamprey from the Pacific Coast of North America and Asia. It is a member of the Petromyzontidae family. The Pacific lamprey is also known as the three-tooth lamprey and ...

at Sherars Falls and

Willamette Falls The Willamette Falls is a natural waterfall on the Willamette River between Oregon City and West Linn, Oregon, in the United States. It is the largest waterfall in the Northwestern United States by volume, and the seventeenth widest in the wor ...

. The tribe's fishing rights are protected by treaty and re-affirmed by court cases such as

Sohappy v. Smith ''Sohappy v. Smith'', 302 F. Supp. 899 (D. Or. 1969), was a federal case heard by the United States District Court for the District of Oregon, decided in 1969 and amended in 1975. It began with fourteen members of the Yakama who sued the U.S. ...

and United States v. Oregon.

Tourism

In 1964, the first part of the Kah-nee-ta resort was completed – Kah-nee-ta Village – a lodging complex with a motel, cottages, and

tipi A tipi , often called a lodge in English, is a conical tent, historically made of animal hides or pelts, and in more recent generations of canvas, stretched on a framework of wooden poles. The word is Siouan languages, Siouan, and in use in Dakot ...

s. The resort eventually included a lodge, casino, convention center, and golf course. Due to lack of rentability, the resort was closed in September 2018. 2017-08-18 Warm Springs 03

The Indian Head Casino on U.S. Route 26 opened in February 2012. It has of gaming space, with 500 slot machines and 8 blackjack tables. The tribes expect the casino to net $9 to 12 million annually. The casino previously operated at

Kah-Nee-Ta Kah-Nee-Ta Resort & Spa was a resort in central Oregon, United States, on the Warm Springs Indian Reservation, near the community of Warm Springs in Jefferson County. It closed on 5 September 2018, laying off all its employees. It is plann ...

, where it had only 300 slot machines and made $2 to 4 million a year. The new location was intended to be more accessible to travelers, since Kah-Nee-Ta is located about a half an hour from Highway 26.

Other business ventures

In 2016, the tribe's lumber mill, also located on Highway 26 near the village of Warm Springs, shut down. It had been operating for decades but output had declined in recent years. One solution proposed by a tribal entity, Warm Springs Ventures, to create new revenue and jobs for the tribe was the launch of three new business ventures: cannabis cultivation, extraction and distribution; drone training, certification and manufacture; and a

carbon offset A carbon offset is a reduction or removal of emissions of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases made in order to compensate for emissions made elsewhere. Offsets are measured in tonnes of carbon dioxide-equivalent (CO2e). One ton of carbon ...

venture that would sell carbon offsets to major polluters. All three ventures were expected to be operating sometime in 2017. The tribe was awarded the right by the Federal Aviation Administration to certify drone operators in 2016. The cannabis project was approved by a vote of tribal members but as of October 2016 still faced administrative and funding challenges.

Ecology

Biologists of the Confederated Tribe of the Warm Springs have assisted the

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) is a government agency of the U.S. state of Oregon responsible for programs protecting Oregon fish and wildlife resources and their habitats. The agency operates hatcheries, issues hunting and ...

in tracking the repopulation of

wolves The wolf (''Canis lupus''; plural, : wolves), also known as the gray wolf or grey wolf, is a large Canis, canine native to Eurasia and North America. More than thirty subspecies of Canis lupus, subspecies of ''Canis lupus'' have been reco ...

in Oregon. Wolves are dispersing into territory where they haven’t lived for decades including the northern Cascades region. The biologists fitted OR-93 with a purple radio collar in June 2020. The two-year-old male wolf had left his White River pack and became the 16th documented gray wolf in the

repopulation of wolves in California The repopulation of wolves in California was recognized in late December 2011, when OR-7, a male gray wolf from Oregon, became the first confirmed wild wolf in California since 1924, when wolves were considered extirpated from the state. The fi ...

when he reached

Mono County Mono County ( ) is a county located in the east central portion of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 13,195, making it the fourth-least populous county in California. The county seat is Bridgeport. The coun ...

, east of

Yosemite National Park Yosemite National Park ( ) is an American national park in California, surrounded on the southeast by Sierra National Forest and on the northwest by Stanislaus National Forest. The park is managed by the National Park Service and covers an ar ...

in the central

Sierra Nevada The Sierra Nevada () is a mountain range in the Western United States, between the Central Valley of California and the Great Basin. The vast majority of the range lies in the state of California, although the Carson Range spur lies primarily ...

in February 2021 Two adult wolves were found on the reservation in December 2021 by the biologists and two pups were caught on a trail camera in August 2022. These resident wolves brought the total number of known wolf groups in the region to three.

Infrastructure

Water from the

goes through a treatment facility and serves around 3,800 people.

Gallery

References

Warm Springs Reservation and Off-Reservation Trust Land, Oregon
United States Census Bureau

External links

Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs

Text of Treaty with the Tribes of Middle Oregon, 1855
from the

United States Fish and Wildlife Service The United States Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS or FWS) is an agency within the United States Department of the Interior dedicated to the management of fish, wildlife, and natural habitats. The mission of the agency is "working with othe ...

Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
- member tribes include the Warm Springs {{authority control American Indian reservations in Oregon Geography of Jefferson County, Oregon Geography of Wasco County, Oregon 1855 establishments in Oregon Territory