Traditionally, they ate salmon, starchy roots like camas and biscuitroot, berries, deer, sheep and whatever else they could hunt or catch.

The Wenatchis (or "P'squosa") were not given reservation land by the federal government—though they had actually signed a treaty, it was never recognized, and fell by the wayside as new settlers moved into their territory.

The Wenatchi Indians unlike many other tribes did not engage in war with the new arrivals and were even friends with the first white settlers and their families.

Janie Hollingsworth, an early settler born in 1911, remembers fondly growing up with the daughter of the Wenatchi Chief in the Nahahum Canyon area, riding horses together happily until the government decided to round up all the Indians and put them in existing reservations.

Following the establishment and reallocation of lands of the Colville Indian Reservation, Wenatchi Chief John Harmelt was supported by Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce people in lobbying for federal protection of Wenatchi rights to the fishery.