Kira Kay: On the
foggy banks of the Klamath River in Northern California, members of the Yurok
Tribe are casting their fishing nets. The salmon harvest is finally good again,
after a worrying spring - almost 90 percent of the juvenile salmon died, from a
parasite caused by overly warm and poorly flowing water upstream.
Salmon fishing is central to The
Yurok’s identity and survival, as are the forests that cover almost half a
million acres around them. But these assets became attractive to settlers.
Frankie Myers: As
America grew, its appetite grew as well. Its need for lumber, for building
supplies.
Kira Kay: Frankie
Myers, the tribes’s Vice-Chair, says an 1887 law changed everything.
Frankie Myers: We had
timber resources. We had salmon resources, but we also had the Allotment Act,
which privatized tribal land. The vast majority of our
land was immediately transferred to timber barons, after the act was passed.
9,800 acres, the next day.
Kira Kay: In
recent years, a growing movement has begun to form around the slogan “land
back”, to demand the return of appropriated land to tribal jurisdictions. There
have been some successes: In December, Congress passed legislation that
restored all 19,000 acres of the National Bison Range in Montana to ownership
by the Salish and Kootenai Tribes.
But much of
the appropriated land ended up in private hands. In the yurok’s case, it was
eventually owned
and logged by Green Diamond Resource Company. Thirteen years ago, the Yurok
began negotiations to try to get it back.
Frankie Myers: We
tried to at first to have discussions about the wrongs that had happened, the
atrocities that we went through, the theft of our land to see if there was a
way that we could simply have the land transferred back to the tribe. That met…
that met with not a positive reception.
Kira Kay: Finally,
in what Myers describes as “a nexus of doing good and making a profit”, Green
Diamond agreed to start selling plots of the forest back to the tribe. Over the
past decade, The Yurok have bought back more than 70 thousand acres of their
original territory.
Myers took me on a 6-hour dirt road
trip through the regained forest, land on which he once trespassed, by cutting
through gates.
Frankie Myers: I think
one of the hugest benefits that we've seen to date is having our members, being
able to go to their traditional hunting grounds. I can openly raise my children
now to come out here to harvest, to practice. They're not criminals, and I'm
not a criminal for showing them.
Kira Kay: At the
end of the road: the pristine and sacred Blue Creek.
Frankie Myers: Blue
Creek has some of the densest diversity in the entire nation. We have four runs
of salmonids. We have bear, bald eagles. We have a diversity of plant species.
We have beautiful redwoods. This is a true jewel.
Kira Kay: To help
The Yurok buy the land, an environmental group called Western Rivers
Conservancy raised government grants and donations. But the tribe still had to
take out a 21 million dollar loan. ...to pay it back, the tribe pushed to join California's carbon
cap and trade market. Now, they get paid for each metric
ton of carbon dioxide their forests convert to oxygen on behalf of companies
emitting more than their cap allows.
Frankie Myers: This
could be how we could meet our needs. We wouldn't have to log all of our land. We could implement our land management and
we could also at the same time pay our debt that we had for it.
Kira Kay: But
some environmental groups question both the efficacy and the ethics of carbon
offset. There are critics though.
Frankie Myers:
Absolutely.
Kira Kay: It
allows polluters to keep polluting. How do you feel about that?
Frankie Myers: I was a
critic of the carbon offset program. I had questions about the morality of
carbon offset. I questioned whether or not it was
really going to make an impact. We think that the good outweighs the negative.
And we work diligently to make sure that our partners are truly making a
difference that are truly making a change.
Kira Kay: They
won’t reveal how much they make; but the income is enough to pay down their
loan, put money towards more land purchases, invest in local businesses and
their school, and implement conservation efforts that meld current technology
with indigenous practices. This includes improving the habitat for the four
types of salmon so crucial to Yurok life.
Frankie Myers: It's
just like us. You know, we, we have a better home. You have a better life. You
have a better family. You feel better. We're doing that same thing for
salmonids. But that starts with the data, we got to figure out what's
here. We have a world-class fisheries design team. They rebuild the Creek to
create new habitat, to create new, uh, channels that will benefit our Salmonid
population.
Kira Kay: Meanwhile,
The Yurok are sustainably logging their regained forests, thinning to allow
more mature trees to flourish, and to reduce the risk of uncontained fire. The
Yurok were encircled with forest fires this summer, along with much of the Pacific
Northwest.
Frankie Myers: When we
talk about fire, there is a conversation that happens with the assumption that
fire is bad. That's not our view as indigenous people. Fire is no worse for the environment than the river that runs through
it, or the rain that falls. What we want on the ground is nice, slow,
cool burning fire, as opposed to high intensity, canopy catastrophic
fires.
Kira Kay: Today
Frankie Myers can take his son, Sregon, salmon fishing on the Klamath River,
knowing that part of their ancestral land is back in their hands. The
tribe is now exploring buying more parcels. But underpinning this success is
the reminder that the land wasn’t donated back, or even won through a legal
battle.
Is there a risk though that you're, disincentivizing
the handful of organizations or people who may have wanted to just give it back
if there's money to be made, why do the right thing?
Frankie Myers: I think
that's a, that's a good question. I think after 150 years, if we haven't been
given the land back yet, they're not going to give it back to us. End of the
day, this is still America. There are still profits that need to be made. We
did have to have a lengthy internal discussion about whether
or not it was okay for us to buy land that was stolen from us. My
elders, the people who came before me they gave us direction. Get your land
back, whether it's right, doesn't matter.
Powwow Announcer: Ladies
and gentlemen good evening from Kamiah, Idaho.
Kira Kay: The
Chief Lookingglass Powwow is the cultural and social event of the year for The
Nez Perce Tribe. It is first and foremost an intense dance competition, held on
the grass of the community center on the Tribe’s Idaho reservation. Last year’s
powwow was cancelled because of COVID-19, so this is also a bittersweet
reunion, with families camping together for the weekend.
Powwow Announcer: Here we
go, Junior Girls Traditional.
Kira Kay:
Dancers of all ages compete in various categories. Your rhythm and footwork are
important… so is your personal flair, including the design of your
regalia.
Karen Umtuch: These
are elk teeth; imitation. But the real ones, only two comes with every animal. So if you have this many on there, your husband would have
to be a very, very good hunter!
Powwow Announcer: You
have nobody to blame but yourself if you are out of shape, because you had a
whole year to get into shape!
Kira Kay: Amidst
the lighthearted banter and the impressive athleticism, there is also a nod to
the tribe’s tragic history: its war with the US army and expulsion from its
homeland.
Powwow MC: We
recognize our ancestors and the struggle and sacrifice that they went through.
And it was during that time in 1877 that our people were driven out of this
valley.
Kira Kay: The
Nez Perce fought, and fled, across 1800 miles of some of the most difficult
terrain on the continent. Old women and newborn babies were killed. The bloody
pursuit ended in surrender and confinement for the survivors.
Shannon Wheeler: Where
Oregon, Idaho, and Washington now sit, I like to call that -- they're a part of
the United Kingdom of the Nez Perce! And, and so each of those states have portions
that lie within our territory.
Kira Kay: We met
Tribal Vice-Chair Shannon Wheeler in the Wallowa Valley of Northeast Oregon.
He’s been coming here all his life, as a visitor.
Shannon Wheeler: The
first thing you notice of course is Wa-walmuks, the mountains here. The second
thing I noticed was the water when I’d come over here as a kid.
Kira Kay: But
you would come and stay in a hotel on your land.
Shannon Wheeler: Yes,
yes. Or a tent. Yeah.
Kira Kay: IT
REMAINS A SACRED AND SPECIAL PLACE FOR THE TRIBE.
Shannon Wheeler: Our
people are buried all over here and there have been many inadvertent
discoveries and their remains not handled correctly.
Kira Kay: The
Nez Perce had lived on this land for 16,000 years. The US government granted
them rights to 7.5 million acres, including the Wallowa valley, in an 1855
treaty made in exchange for access to trade routes to the pacific.
Shannon Wheeler: We
agreed to live in peace. We agreed to do the things that we promised within the
treaty and our people upheld those things.
Kira Kay: And
the US. had accepted that
Shannon Wheeler: Yes
Kira Kay: And
then changed their mind?
Shannon Wheeler: After
gold was discovered. And so it took like 14 years, and
then the United States army, well we’re going to forcibly remove you now.
Kira Kay: Their
land was reduced to a reservation only 5 percent of the size of the Tribe’s
original territory. Much of their sacred spots and rich farmland excluded. At
the heart of the lost territory sits
Am’saaxpa, or land of the boulders, where the most famous of The Nez Perce
leaders, Chief Joseph, held his council. Today the nearby town of Joseph,
Oregon has become an artsy tourist destination, celebrating Chief Joseph but
with little hint of the ethnic cleansing that led to the creation of towns like
this.
Am’saaxpa became the Hayes family
farm. But the last of the Hayes family died in 2014. And then, last year, a
Tribal official got word: the property was for sale. Another bidder wanted to
put a housing development on the land. but The Nez Perce pulled together 3.3
million dollars to buy it themselves.
Coast to coast, other tribes are also
buying back their lost land when it hits the market. In Maine, the
Passamaquoddy saw a real estate listing and, with the support of an
environmental consortium, bought back Pine Island.
Dwayne Tomah: What an
honor to be above our land!
Kira Kay: They
had been given it in thanks for their assistance to the colonists during the
Revolutionary War, but lost it when Maine became a
state in 1820.
Near California's Big Sur, the
Esselen Tribe bought the 1,200 acre Adler ranch, again
with the help of a nature conservancy. An Esselen representative likened it to
getting back the Tribe’s Sistine Chapel.
And just a few hours north, The Yurok
tribe has spent 10 years slowly buying back more than 70 thousand of the half a
million acres once taken.
Back at the Idaho powwow, Nez Perce
tribe members see their purchase as a reassertion of their
identity.
Lucii Simpson: The
government has had control over us, the army has had control over us, the
Christian Churches have had control over us. And now we are getting back
some of the power that we had in the past.
Stella Sammaripa: It does
bring that healing and it also brings a responsibility for us to take care of
that land again. I can't wait to go camp on that land, you know, just to
set up a teepee, set up a tent!
Kira Kay: And
this past July, a moment 144 years in the making: The Nez Perce returned on
horseback to the land they now again own, for a blessing ceremony.
Shannon Wheeler: Those
same bloodlines that had to leave are still alive. And that's what this
ceremony was for, to be able to let those emotions out, so that our people
could walk from this day forward with a better heart.
Kira Kay: Behind
this good news though is the lingering question of whether paying for land
rewards historical wrongs. The owner of this land though, he called it a
business transaction.
Shannon Wheeler: Yeah.
He was definitely all about business, uh, uh, and he
benefited from it.
Kira Kay: There
are people who might watch this and say, “Problem solved. They’ll just pay for
it.” Are you worried that you’re setting a bad precedent?
Shannon Wheeler: If we
set a precedence of this is the way that we have to do
it, then that’s what we’re having to do. Uh, as, at some point in time in the
future, we would hope that the federal government would see that well, we, what
we did was wrong.… The, the, this tribe and these people need to be compensated
for that. We have to fight for every
ounce that we get and if we have to pay for some of it, then that’s what we
have to do.
###
|
TIMECODE |
LOWER
THIRD |
1 |
0:53 |
FRANKIE MYERS VICE-CHAIRMAN, YUROK TRIBE |
2 |
1:11 |
[COURTESY] UNDERTOLD STORIES PROJECT |
3 |
1:23 |
[COURTESY] IN THE SPIRIT OF ATATICE |
4 |
1:51 |
FRANKIE MYERS VICE-CHAIRMAN, YUROK TRIBE |
5 |
3:46 |
FRANKIE MYERS VICE-CHAIRMAN, YUROK TRIBE |
6 |
8:11 |
KAREN UMTUCH POWWOW PARTICIPANT |
7 |
9:22 |
SHANNON WHEELER NEZ PERCE VICE-CHAIRMAN |
8 |
11:24 |
[COURTESY] SUNLIGHT MEDIA COLLECTIVE |
9 |
11:51 |
[COURTESY] WESTERN RIVERS CONSERVANCY |
10 |
12:23 |
LUCII SIMPSON NEZ PERCE MEMBER |
11 |
12:39 |
STELLA SAMMARIPA NEZ PERCE MEMBER |
12 |
13:04 |
SHANNON WHEELER NEZ PERCE VICE-CHAIRMAN |