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60surveillanceto get our salmon back.” The fight and rising emotions played out inthe courtroom and on the riverbank.In 1960, Joe McCoy, a Swinomish Indian, was charged with fishingwhen the Skagit River was closed. One hundred people crowded intothe courtroom to hear his case. “A few individual fishermen unregulatedon the Skagit could definitely destroy its salmon runs,” declaredEdward Mains, assistant director of the Washington FisheriesDepartment. “By gillnet they could take up to 98 percent of a run.”Mains considered unregulated Indian fisheries an “endless chain” andthe “weakest link” in the state’s salmon fisheries. McCoy’s attorneyargued and convinced the lower court that the 1855 Point ElliottTreaty trumped fishing regulations.The Washington State Supreme Court, however, disagreed andruled, “None of the signatories of the original treaty contemplatedfishing with a 600-foot nylon gillnet which could prevent theescapement of any fish for spawning purposes.” The state courtdecision authorized Washington State to regulate Indian fishing,provided its intent was to conserve fish runs. Thor Tollefson, head ofFisheries for the state and a former congressman, pushed to abrogatetreaties and pay off tribes. “The treaty must be broken,” he said.“That’s what happens when progress pushes forward.”The McCoy decision touched off an uproar in the winter of 1963.At Frank’s Landing, fishermen held an emergency meeting and thenprotested at the Capitol two days before Christmas. Janet McCloud,outspoken activist and wife of Don McCloud, led the “No Salmon,No Santa” campaign. As protestors waved their picket signs, McCloudaccused the judge of kidnapping the holiday. “He’s making law wherehe has no right to! Our aboriginal rights were granted to us under thetreaties of the nineteenth century with the U.S. government. Theonly court that can change them is the United States Supreme Court.. . . There will be no Christmas for many of us.”The state’s progressive chief executive, Albert Rosellini, welcomed