Fifty years on, a case to uphold Indigenous rights resonates in the US

The late Nisqually leader Billy Frank Jr and Ed Johnstone of the Quinault Tribe pose with a photo from the ‘fish wars’, a period of violence and activism in the 1960s and ‘70s [File: Ted S Warren/AP Photo]

First, she heard a ping, then the sound of something hitting her boat.

It was 1975, and Norma Cagey, only 18 years old at the time, was alone with her husband on the calm waters of the Hood Canal, a tree-lined fjord in Washington state.