Thursday Benefit in Berkeley for the Winnemem Wintu Tribe

California’s history is written in water.   The stories of the Golden’s State’s agricultural and urban development, gold mining, fishing industry and more are intertwined with the state’s liquid gold.  But no one has a longer or deeper connection with the state’s water than Native Americans.  The experience of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe is particularly compelling – and it’s a story about water.  On Tuesday, February 3, you can hear that story at a benefit for the Tribe at the David Brower Center in Berkeley.  You can find more information about the event here.

Winnemem Wintu means “middle water people,” referring to the tribe’s traditional homeland along the McCloud River, which flows off the shoulder of Mount Shasta and is located between the Sacramento River to the West and the Pit to the East.  The Winnemem are a salmon people.  Their diet, culture and religion revolve around the annual arrival of the Sacramento River’s winter run Chinook salmon.   

Like so many tribes in California, the Winnemem suffered since the arrival of Europeans.  But the completion of Shasta Dam in 1945 represented a particularly devastating blow.   Shasta Dam reduced downstream flooding and provided water for farms and cities, but for the Winnemem, the dam was a disaster.  It flooded much of their homeland and sacred sites under hundreds of feet of water and it stopped the annual migration of life-giving salmon.  Decades later, as a direct result of the construction of the dam and the loss of their land, the Tribe lost federal recognition.  (In 2007, the State of California offered its support for restoring the Tribe’s federal recognition, with the passage of Assembly Joint Resolution 39, authored by Assemblyman Jared Huffman (D, San Rafael).)

Congress recognized the impact that the dam would have on the Tribe when it passed the Central Valley Project Indian Lands Acquisition Act in 1941.  The Act required compensation for the Winnemem, along with the relocation and recognition of the Tribe’s cemeteries.   Seventy years later, the Tribe is still waiting for the requirements of that Act to be honored.   

But the Tribe’s story is not just about tragedy.  The Winnemem still practice their traditional religion and see themselves as the stewards of the McCloud.  They have struggled to stop a proposed raise of Shasta Dam, which would flood even more of their traditional lands.  Tribal leaders have gone as far as New Zealand to look for ways to bring native salmon back to the McCloud.  This article from NRDC’s OnEarth magazine tells a little more of the Tribe’s remarkable story.

If you haven’t heard the Winnemem Wintu in person, try to find time to attend the event this Thursday.  You’ll find it inspiring and moving.