Women were responsible for setting-up and dismantling the tule, tk'ú, (Great bulrush, Scirpus lacustris) mat longhouses, which varied from a 20 foot circle and up to 150 feet long. The winter lodges could accommodate an entire extended family unit. They also constructed small round storage huts in shallow pits, to store dried roots, berries, meat, and fish. Mud baths and sweathouses, used separately by the sexes, were also an important part of village life. Some of these structures also served as seclusion for elder women to instruct young girls.

Men used dip nets, twaluut'as, from their canoe-like vessels, wasas, and from platforms to catch steelhead (šušaynš), lamprey eel (k'suyas), coho salmon (sinxw), whitefish (simay), sturgeon (wilaps), suckers (xuun), and other fish. Some brought out their bearpaw snowshoes and went in parties to hunt elk (wawukya) and deer (yaamas), and occasionally antelope (wawataw), big horn sheep (tnuun), bear (yaka), and other game in the Blue Mountains. Hunting provided meat for food, hides to make clothing, and bones and antlers to be shaped into tools.

Winter is a time to celebrate, dance, sing, and to tell stories of their families, history and beliefs. The winter solstice is celebrated as the beginning of the new year. Paica?sa, the winter solstice gathering, is a time for prayer, dancing, and singing. There were also Winter Spirit Dances, wánptša, where shamans and young apprentices sang and danced.

From the dark of winter, new life emerges with the first shoots of wild celery. This is a time of celebration. In March, Umatilla peoples hold a xásya feast to welcome the ka`uyit, "in the beginning, when new things start", of wild celery (Lomatium grayi). Today, this annual tradition continues.

The waters of spring were teeming with salmon, in one run after another. Many large villages, sprang up along the shores and islands of the Columbia River to harvest the abundant salmon. Friends and relatives from various bands came together for this effort.

Using crutch-handled hardwood digging sticks women pried up the entire plant, took only the large bulbs, and then replaced the plant so that they would be able to return to the stand again. Poisonous death camas (Zigadenus elegans) was weeded out when the plant was in bloom, the white blossom could easily be distinguished from the blue flower of the edible form.

In the old days, a woman could gather up to 90 pounds of camas bulbs, two sacks full, in a half-day! The root was baked into bread or biscuits in a stone-lined earth oven along with wild onion and/or berries. It was also cooked into a mush in baskets with hot stones for boiling. Other roots, such as bitterroot, pyaxi, (Lewisia rediviva) and Indian carrot were gathered as well. An edible black lichen, collected off pine and fir trees, was also baked in a stone-lined earth oven to make a cheese-like substance. Women still gather roots and lichen, but not nearly so many.

Everyone welcomes the sweet fruits of summer. A sequence of berries ripens from mid-summer into the fall. Women and children pick wild strawberries, serviceberries, raspberries, blackberries, elderberries, blueberries, huckleberries, gooseberries, chokecherries, and wild currents. These fruits are eaten raw or spread on mats to dry in the sun or before a fire. In the past, dried berries were used in mush, soups, or made into pemmican by pounding berries into dried fish and meat for flavoring.

Out from the summer camps, in pre-reservation days, groups of hunters would form lines and drive prairie chickens, sage hens, or jackrabbits into net enclosures. They would then club the small prey, which added wonderful variety to the daily fare and the soft skins of rabbits were used to make clothing and blankets.

Some of the Umatilla, Cayuse and Nez Perce took their horses and joined relatives and allies from other Sahaptin and Salishan bands on summer expeditions to the plains to hunt the buffalo. The horse provided them the means to travel many hundreds of miles over difficult terrain, and to become part of the world of buffalo people.

Trade was greatly enhanced by the horse. Throughout the fishing season, people from all over the Northwest, from the shores of the Pacific to the Great Plains, gathered at major fishing areas to trade goods. At Celilo Falls, near the junction of the Deschutes River on the lower Columbia River, buffalo meat was traded for dried fish and goods such as obsidian projectile points or knives and marine shells. Celilo continued to be one of the largest trade sites and a great fishing spot until 1957 when a The Dalles Dam was built, flooding the falls. Despite the loss of the falls, fishing and the annual First Salmon Feast continues, usually celebrated on the second weekend of April, and is open to the public.