Bringing the Mccloud River Salmon Home

Bringing the McCloud River Salmon Home The Winnemem Salmon The McCloud River is famous for trout fishing, but for the thousands of years Winnemem Wintu lived on its banks, the McCloud was one of the most fertile salmon spawning rivers in the West. According to fish culturist Livingston Stone, the salmon, were so numerous he could have walked across their backs from one side of the river to the other. These salmon served both a subsistence and spiritual purpose for the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. According to the tribal creation story humans were created without a voice. It was salmon who gave up their voice so that human could speak asking only that human be the voice for the salmon too. Stone arrived on the McCloud in 1872 to establish a hatchery to capitalize on the strength of the fishery. And so it was that the Winnemem viewed Livingston Stone’s arrival and establishment of the Baird Hatchery to be inconsistent with their sacred bond with the salmon. Stone’s initial objective was to breed Pacific salmon to restore the Atlantic salmon stocks. Ultimately salmon eggs from the Baird Hatchery were shipped around the world despite the objections of the Tribe. Given no other choice, the Winnemem eventually accepted that Stone would capture the salmon for breeding, but to maintain their sacred bond they made a promise to the salmon that the salmon could always return home to the McCloud River. The Shasta Dam While the men of the Tribe were defending the U.S. fighting in World War II, the sacred bond between the Winnemem and their salmon was disrupted by the construction of the Shasta Dam. With only the very old and very young left on the River, the U.S. began construction of the dam that blocked access to hundreds of miles of salmon spawning ground on the McCloud and meant annihilation of the salmon.

The H’up Chonas – 1872 The Winnemem originally thought that the white people were the Yapatu, good spirits who were supposed to be coming to help the people. By the time of the war dance they understood that the white people were not the Yapatu. The white people told the Winnemem that they could not catch the salmon any more. The Winnemem had to figure out how to survive under these untenable conditions. The Winnemem dancers in the picture: Norel Putus, Coloochi, and Charlie Pitt were the leaders of the day. They were not dancing just because they had an idea, but because they went to the mountain (Buylum Puiyuk, Mt Shasta) and received what needed to be done through direction from the Creator. The direction was about the Winnemem commitments to the salmon and about how to get along with the newcomers. So they held a war dance and sent a prayer through the mountain because they did not entirely believe that the hatchery people would follow through on their agreement. The salmon were sent through the ice waterfall on the Mountain. Although the Winnemem were not sure where the salmon would come out on the other side they believed it would be somewhere safe for the salmon. With the assurance that the salmon would live on beyond the ice waterfall, the Winnemem were able to make an agreement with the Hatchery to receive the salmon carcasses. The Winnemem also made a promise to the salmon that they could always come home. The construction of the Shasta Dam was not only devastating to the Winnemem Wintu Tribe because it flooded 90% of their ancestral lands and sacred sites on the lower McCloud River, but also because it disrupted the promise they made to the salmon that they could always return to the McCloud River. Recently the Winnemem discovered that the salmon came out on the other side of the earth through Mt Cook in New Zealand.

For more information and to find out how you can help the Winnemem bring their salmon home visit www.winnememwintu.us 14840 Bear Mountain Rd, Redding, CA 96003 – (530) 275-2737 – [email protected]

Bringing the McCloud River Salmon Home

McCloud River Salmon in New Zealand

One of the places the McCloud River salmon eggs were shipped was to New Zealand. Following the Winnemem Hu’p Chonas in 2004, a war dance that received international attention, they were contacted by a professor in New Zealand who told them that the McCloud River salmon are thriving in the Rakaia River in New Zealand. Since the moment the Winnemem heard that their salmon are in the Rakaia River they have been working to bring their salmon home to the McCloud River.

This past spring the Winnemem traveled to the Rakaia River and with the permission of the Maori tribes now responsible for the lands and waterways where their salmon spawn they held a four-day ceremony, Nur Chonas Winyupus. The ceremony was to atone for the broken promise embodied by the Shasta Dam. The salmon are now ready to return to their home in the McCloud River.

The Ngai Tahu, the Maori Tribe with treaty rights over the salmon, have offered to return the salmon to the Winnemem Wintu Tribe. The plan is simple, calls for a very small hatchery, and would be far less expensive than the typical government plans to return salmon to traditional spawning The Rakaia hatchery that will be used as a grounds above the large dams. model for the Winnemem McCloud Hatchery. The Winnemem would import the New Zealand McCloud salmon eggs back to California. They are disease - free, and New Zealand Fish and Game have given their support to the project.

The Logistics To help the salmon travel around the dam, we would use two natural creeks, Little Cow Creek and Dry Creek, where spawning salmon used to migrate before the dam. Water from the McCloud River would be channeled to these creeks and flow down to the Sacramento, below the dam. Returning salmon would be able to catch these creeks and spill out in the reservoir near the mouth of the McCloud River. Once there, they would be able to catch the scent of their birth waters and find their way home. There is currently about ¼ mile of channel that would need to be created to make the connection between Cow Creek and Dry Creek and the Lake.

To help the young fry to remember their home waters, the Winnemem will rear the salmon in a small, open air hatchery until they’re large enough to make the journey to the Pacific and fend off the myriad non-native predators that now inhabit the Sacramento and the delta. The hatchery itself will be modeled after the hatchery on the Rakaia River in New Zealand.