[News] In California, women learn how to protect their ancestral lands with fire

[Anti-Imperialist News]

azcentral.com
<https://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizona-environment/2023/01/30/indigenous-women-learn-to-protect-ancestral-lands-prescribed-burns/10398772002/>
In California, women learn how to protect their ancestral lands with fire
Debra Utacia Krol - January 30, 2023
------------------------------

ORLEANS, Calif. — On a nearly 45-degree slope along the middle Klamath
River in October, Isha Goodwin joined women from across the planet
preparing to set fire to the land surrounding Ishraamhírak, a Karuk village
site north of Orleans.

Under a dappled canopy of conifers, tanoak and oak trees, and the
occasional poison oak patch, Goodwin, a member of the Karuk Tribe, drew
fiery circles with a drip torch on accumulations of dead leaves, twigs and
other dried-out plant material, or duff as it's known in the fire trade.

Others wielding fire rakes, pickaxes and shovels watched carefully to
ensure the flames didn’t escape the boundaries set by the burn boss, the
person in charge of the day’s event. A crew from a nearby tribe brought a
water truck for backup.

About 50 women from Indigenous communities across the United States, Canada
and Australia had converged on Karuk country to train and learn more about
bringing fire back to the land at the first-ever all-Indigenous, all-female
training and exchange camp.
[image: Volunteers plan a controlled burn around Karuk ancestral territory,
which includes land owned by the U.S. Forest Service and private
landowners. on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022, as part of a Indigenous Women-In-Fire
Training Exchange program.]Volunteers plan a controlled burn around Karuk
ancestral territory, which includes land owned by the U.S. Forest Service
and private landowners. on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022, as part of a Indigenous
Women-In-Fire Training Exchange program. Joe Rondone/The Republic

The program, known as TREX
<http://www.conservationgateway.org/ConservationPractices/FireLandscapes/HabitatProtectionandRestoration/Training/TrainingExchanges/Pages/fire-training-exchanges.aspx>,
was developed to provide hands-on training for local fire crews by running
cooperative prescribed burns. The two-week fall TREX was renamed WTREX,
reflecting its emphasis on training, or in some cases retraining,
Indigenous women to reclaim their role in protecting their homes, their
cultural assets, their foods and their ecologies by “laying down the fire.”

"This is where my ancestors come from," said Sammi Jerry, a Karuk tribal
member who talked about her small son, Sáak Asaxêevar, at the event.
Looking at the women gathered in a circle and the men supporting their
efforts, she said, "You guys are a part of making our world better, of
completing the circle. And I will eternally be grateful."

"I put a lot on my son when I named him Sáak Asaxêevar," (pronounced "sock
- ahsa-KAY-wah) she said. The boy would forever carry the legacy of the
mountain the group stood upon and fight to protect that mountain and the
Native way of life. "That's part of our resilience. That's part of the
resistance and that's part of the revolution."

Vicki Preston, who sometimes gathers acorns in the same woods, was one of
the burn's incident commanders.

"I'm glad that you all can be here and that we that we're burning in a way
that we have so many folks from our community around us," as well as people
from different places, she said. "This means that we're able to have such a
special connection with all of our participants here, and we're super
supportive of each other."

Others collected acorns before the firestarters converged on the site.
"Just being out here today and seeing all those trees and caring about them
because they're dropping their acorns right now is what's important about
being out here," said Preston, a Karuk who lives just outside of Orleans.
Adding fire treatments to the acorn gathering and land stewardship process
is important, she said, "because the more you know about it the better
you're going to take care of it."
[image: Acorns collected before a controlled burn in the Klamath National
Forest on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022.]Acorns collected before a controlled burn
in the Klamath National Forest on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. Joe Rondone/The
Republic

The Karuk understand well what can happen when Indigenous peoples are
barred from their traditional practices. The tribe lost 150 homes,
including its elder housing complex, and two people lost their lives during
the Slater Fire in 2020.

It wasn't just preventing wildfires from consuming their families’ homes,
making hazel grow straight and strong for baskets or nurturing plants for
food or medicine that brought these women, and the men who provided support
and training, to one of California’s most remote river valleys for two
weeks of rough, oftentimes backbreaking labor.

They were there to preserve their cultures and prevent ecological disaster,
both along the Klamath and in their own homelands. The Karuk Tribe and
other tribes whose ancestral lands lie along the Klamath River also must
overcome obstacles as they work toward that goal and exercise their
cultural sovereignty.
A 170-year-long struggle to regain land and water stewardship

Tribes such as the Karuk, whose 1.04-million acre ancestral land base was
nearly all appropriated by the U.S. Forest Service in the late 19th
century, have been fighting for their rights to steward their ancestral
lands and waters according to time-honored cultural methods since
California became a U.S. state more than 170 years ago.

Before European settlers came to California, Indigenous peoples used fire
as a tool to protect their homes. Women typically burned the land
surrounding villages, while the men would burn farther out along important
trails or wildlife corridors. People carefully nurtured important plants
and trees like hazel, huckleberry, wild mint, oaks and tanoaks.

Putting "good fire" on the ground supported forests and other lands that
require fire to maintain healthy conditions. Smoke from these "low, slow"
burns also shaded rivers and streams, which cooled the waters for the
salmon.

But when California became a U.S. state in 1850, the lives of the peoples
who carefully managed the lands and the animals and fish for thousands of
years were disrupted, sometimes violently.

The Karuk, along with leaders from other California tribes, negotiated a
series of 18 treaties with the U.S. soon after statehood. But the U.S.
Senate voted against ratification and locked the treaties under seal for 50
years. The lack of a legal foundation left California Indian tribes
vulnerable, with no rights to lands or subsistence. Also, without any
protection by the federal government, Native people could be killed with
little or no consequences. Settlers and the state, partially funded by the
U.S., embarked on a genocidal campaign to wipe all California Indians from
the land.

They nearly succeeded.

According to one historian
<https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/revealing-the-history-of-genocide-against-californias-native-americans>,
the number of Indigenous people plunged about 80%, from 150,000 to about
30,000. The Karuk Tribe estimated that about 75% of its population were
murdered
<https://karuktribeclimatechangeprojects.com/chapter-2-its-illegal-to-be-a-karuk-indian-in-the-21st-century/>,
and the remainder were removed to the nearby Hoopa Reservation just as many
others were placed on remote reservation lands so settlers could claim the
best land for themselves.

Indians who managed to avoid the state's "death squads" labored to keep
their communities and cultures intact, which included traditional land
stewardship. But Indians who attempted to put fire on the ground were often
shot dead by settlers who feared they were trying to burn their homes.
[image: Volunteers set fires during a controlled burn around Karuk
ancestral territory, which includes land owned by the U.S. Forest Service
and private landowners on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022, as part of an Indigenous
Women-In-Fire Training Exchange program.]Volunteers set fires during a
controlled burn around Karuk ancestral territory, which includes land owned
by the U.S. Forest Service and private landowners on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022,
as part of an Indigenous Women-In-Fire Training Exchange program. Joe
Rondone/The Republic

While the Karuk, Yurok, Hoopa and other river tribes struggled to survive
the incursions, the federal government took most of their ancestral lands.
The majority of the Karuk's lands became Klamath National Forest in 1905,
and the remaining lands were incorporated into Six Rivers National Forest
in 1947.

The Karuk crept back to their ancestral lands along the middle Klamath
River and finally obtained federal recognition in 1979. But they still
faced obstacles to exert sovereignty over their lands and continue
traditional land stewardship practices that maintained healthy forests,
waterways and biological diversity.

They fought Forest Service fire suppression policies, along with a host of
issues ranging from training and certification requirements from federal
and California agencies, liability concerns over cultural burns and
prescribed burns, and the fears of environmentalists about the effects on
threatened and endangered species.

In recent years, new policies have been introduced, including an executive
order by President Joe Biden
<https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/26/memorandum-on-tribal-consultation-and-strengthening-nation-to-nation-relationships/>
to reaffirm tribal consultation, an interagency agreement
<https://www.bia.gov/sites/default/files/dup/tcinfo/dtll_whcnaa-ttr-mou-9-6-22_508.pdf>
to protect tribal rights into federal agency decision making, and a
new wildland
fire mitigation and management commission
<https://www.usda.gov/topics/disaster-resource-center/wildland-fire/commission>.
Those measures may ease the way for tribes across the U.S. to better manage
their ancestral lands.

In 2021, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a bill
<https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB332>
that exempts qualified burn bosses from liability if a properly organized
and authorized prescribed burn escapes control, and that law included
tribal lands. The state also issued a new prescribed burn plan
<https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/xcqjpjmc/californias-strategic-plan-for-expanding-the-use-of-beneficial-fire-march-16_2022.pdf>
that supports tribal cultural burning and established a pilot fund
<https://trackbill.com/bill/california-senate-bill-926-prescribed-fire-liability-pilot-program-prescribed-fire-claims-fund/2220311/>
to cover losses from burning. And in 2022, the Forest Service signed a
co-stewardship
agreement
<https://www.fs.usda.gov/inside-fs/delivering-mission/excel/forest-service-signs-11-new-agreements-advance-tribal-co>
between the Karuk Tribe and Six Rivers National Forest.

Even with those changes, returning fire to the land runs into roadblocks.
[image: Bill Tripp director of natural resources and environmental policy
for the Karuk Tribe sits outside in the Middle Klamath River Valley on
Monday, Oct. 3, 2022.]Bill Tripp director of natural resources and
environmental policy for the Karuk Tribe sits outside in the Middle Klamath
River Valley on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. Joe Rondone/The Republic

"There's still significant challenges" to laying down cultural fire, said
Bill Tripp, Karuk natural resources director. He said the Forest Service's
90-day moratorium on prescribed burning prevented the tribe from conducting
its cultural burn at the most advantageous time.

"The pause took that late June burn window away from us," said Tripp, who
is a member of the wildland fire commission and a leader in returning
cultural fire to aboriginal lands.

"We need to be out there taking care of the grasses and some of those
invasive species," he said. Mid-summer days lead to high-humidity evenings,
and in addition to better control of the burn, starting fires at sundown
also preserves local wildlife, such as the western pond turtle
<https://www.fws.gov/species/western-pond-turtle-actinemys-marmorata> as
they return to the riverside at the end of the day.

At the burn site, Analisa Tripp, the tribe's collaborative stewardship
program manager said women's TREX events have been on the increase. Their
goal, she said, is to create safe learning environments for women in fire
management, which currently is male-dominated.

"It's just really powerful to have that space to grow and to learn and
teach to one another specifically," she said.

Analisa Tripp said they had to jump over a variety of hurdles, including
access to places traditionally used by Karuk people when more than 95% of
their aboriginal territory is under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Forest
Service and most of the remainder is owned by non-Native people.

Regulations regarding protective gear by participants, permissions from the
Forest Service and private landowners, planning presentations, safety
strategies and other such steps were needed before the first applications
came in.
[image: Marlene' Dusek, of Pay-mkawichum, Kumeyaay-Ipai and Cupa descent,
prepares for a controlled burn around Karuk ancestral territory, which
includes land owned by the U.S. Forest Service and private landowners on
Monday, Oct. 3, 2022, as part of an Indigenous Women-In-Fire Training
Exchange program.]Marlene' Dusek, of Pay-mkawichum, Kumeyaay-Ipai and Cupa
descent, prepares for a controlled burn around Karuk ancestral territory,
which includes land owned by the U.S. Forest Service and private landowners
on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022, as part of an Indigenous Women-In-Fire Training
Exchange program. Joe Rondone/The Republic

But, she said, the tribe was able to support cultural practitioners with a
cultural burn in another area for managing culturally important plants like
hazel and medicinal plants. That burn was started with traditional pitch
sticks, which the WTREX group hoped to use during the burn.

More work remains to be done to maintain and grow cultural knowledge and
lands, she said. Tripp's sister, an environmental educator, teaches school
kids traditional knowledge.

"Those kids are so much more knowledgeable than I was at their age," she
said. "It's empowering to see them sharing that knowledge with their peers."

*'Our right to fire':*Tribes battle agencies, old policies to restore fire
practices
<https://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizona-environment/2020/11/25/tribes-battle-agencies-old-policies-restore-fire-practices/3547198001/>
Slater fire: 'We didn't know if we would ever feel normal again'

The Karuk people who lived through the devastation of the Slater Fire in
late 2020 are hopeful that their efforts to bring fire back to the land
will help save homes and lives during the next wildfire.

Two years after that blaze tore through much of Happy Camp, hope echoes in
the sounds of hammers and the calm voices of those who lost homes, pets and
regalia to the blaze as they recover.

The fire burned more than 157,000 acres of Klamath Mountain lands in late
2020 and, with other huge wildfires over the past 20 years, provided even
more impetus for the Karuk and other tribes in the West to return fire to
the land.

These conflagrations also are traumatic to those who lived through them,
especially those who lost loved ones or friends or their homes.

Along Indian Creek Road, where nothing stood but twisted metal and the ashy
remains of peoples’ lives, homes in various stages of reconstruction dot
the landscape even as snags, the burned trees, still dot the hillsides.

Erin Hillman said Happy Camp still has a long way to go to fully recover,
but residents have made much progress.
[image: Leeon Hillman, and his wife, Erin, owners of Kingfisher Market in
Happy Camp, lost their home to the Slater Fire on Sept. 9, 2020.]Leeon
Hillman, and his wife, Erin, owners of Kingfisher Market in Happy Camp,
lost their home to the Slater Fire on Sept. 9, 2020. Cheryl Evans/The
Republic

Hillman and her husband, Leeon, both Karuk tribal members, owned the
Kingfisher Market, the sole grocery store in Happy Camp. The Hillmans
provided a key service to residents by keeping the market open with
generator power while dealing with the loss of their own home on Indian
Creek Road.

Erin Hillman said they lived in a trailer for eight months while dealing
with insurance companies, lot cleanup, contractors and supply chain issues.

“We got lucky and found a rental home,” she said.

Nearly two years later, their home is finally going up with an anticipated
February finish date.

The Hillmans sold the market back to the former owners after running the
store and rebuilding their home became too much to bear. Leeon found work
in nearby Seiad Valley, while Erin returned to work for the tribal
government.

“I’d like to say I lost weight but I did lose hair,” Erin Hillman said. “I
didn’t know if I would ever have joy again or see past the situation we
were in to feel normal again.”

Leeon has been slowly reassembling his ceremonial regalia that was lost in
the fire. One reader contacted The Arizona Republic to donate a deerskin,
which Erin Hillman said Leeon received, along with another donated deerskin.
Karuk celebrating important lands coming under tribal control

President Joe Biden signed legislation Jan. 5 that will add more land under
direct tribal control and help bring fire back to some of their most sacred
places. The tribe was elated to see the measure pass.
[image: Russell "Buster" Attebery, Karuk Tribe chairman, inside their Happy
Camp, Calif. offices on Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022.]Russell "Buster" Attebery,
Karuk Tribe chairman, inside their Happy Camp, Calif. offices on Tuesday,
Oct. 4, 2022. Joe Rondone/The Republic

The bill will transfer about 1,031 acres of land from the U.S. Forest
Service back to the Karuk Tribe, said Karuk Chairman Russell "Buster"
Attebery in October, before the bill had passed in both houses in late
December. This land is important to the Karuk people because it encompasses
the place the tribe considers the center of their world.

“Katimiîn and Ameekyáaraam
<https://huffman.house.gov/imo/media/doc/huffman_legislativemap-katimiinarea_08-09-2021.pdf>
are places where we have done ceremonies since time immemorial,” he said.

“It's where we do our Pik-ya-vish, our white deerskin dance and brush
dances, and it will give the tribe an opportunity to restore those lands to
the natural state,” Attebery said. That includes addressing some
developments that dismayed the Karuk.

Returning Katimiîn, or “upriver edge falls,” and Ameekyáaraam to tribal
control will prevent what Attebery called “outside agencies” from
purchasing the land for development.

“We've actually had to go the extra mile in order to perform our ceremonies
in these areas,” he said. It will also guarantee that the Karuk’s
ceremonies won’t be disturbed by boaters or other intrusions and will mean
tribal members would no longer have to keep applying for special use
permits from the Forest Service, which were sometimes denied.

“We will be able to put fire back on the landscape to protect those lands,"
he said. "It's something that the tribe has been doing since time
immemorial.”

Indigenous Women participate in Fire Training Exchange

About 50 women from Indigenous communities converged on Karuk country to
train and learn more about bringing fire back to the land.

Joe Rondone/The Republic, Joe Rondone/The Republic

Currently, the 3,500-enrolled member tribe with about 5,000 enrolled
descendants has about 914 acres of trust land in three different locations,
and owns another 822 acres of private land. The new legislation more than
doubles the Karuk Tribe’s trust land base.

Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., introduced the legislation to return the
1,031 acres
<https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/6032/all-actions>
that form the center of the Karuk world. Huffman represents Karuk and 29
other tribes in his district, which spans the North Coast from Sausalito to
the Oregon border.

Huffman told The Republic that the Karuk Tribe has long had to obtain
permission from the Forest Service to hold its most important ceremonies.

“We need to be better than that.”
The land, the fire and the water are all part of home

Women gathered acorns, a key food for many California tribes, before the
autumn burn.

"I love acorns," said Annelia Hillman, a basketweaver who also works with
traditional foods. "I really wanted the opportunity to learn more about how
I can better care for our food resources and our land, and fire is a big
part of that."

As they gathered, the women shared stories handed down from generations of
grandmothers to their daughters about how acorns from the white, black and
live oak acquired their caps, and why the fourth variety, the tanoak,
produces the sweetest acorns. Hillman also showed how to distinguish
between good and bad acorns.
[image: Annelia Hilman picks acorns before a controlled burn in the Klamath
National Forest on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022.]Annelia Hilman picks acorns before
a controlled burn in the Klamath National Forest on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022. Joe
Rondone/The Republic

Tribal members who didn't grow up surrounded by their culture and history
are growing that cultural knowledge in themselves, while those whose lives
have always included cultural pursuits serve as teachers or are deepening
their own understanding.

Hillman, a Yurok tribal member married to a Karuk man, said she came to the
WTREX to learn more about how to care for food resources and the land. The
combination of climate change and more than 100 years of improper care for
the landscape will require much legwork so Native people can heal their
land, she said.

"Getting that fire on the ground is like starting to heal a scar," Annelia
Hillman said. "It helps our wounds heal through the first stage of fire."

Beau Goodwin, one of the men who came out to provide support for the
women's burn event, is a cultural practitioner and medicine man when not
serving as an engine captain for the Forest Service. He said the event was
important because the mountain the group was putting fire on is a mountain
that Karuk people pray to during the World Renewal Ceremony.

"It's really special that we're here burring and that it takes women to
come do this," said Goodwin, a Karuk member who is Isha Goodwin's cousin
and Jerry's brother. "I've tried this but now it's the women there saying
'No, we're going to do it,' and here we are."
[image: Chanel Keller of Esselen tribal heritage prepares for a controlled
burn around Karuk ancestral territory, which includes land owned by the
U.S. Forest Service and private landowners on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022, as part
of a Indigenous Women-In-Fire Training Exchange program.]Chanel Keller of
Esselen tribal heritage prepares for a controlled burn around Karuk
ancestral territory, which includes land owned by the U.S. Forest Service
and private landowners on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022, as part of a Indigenous
Women-In-Fire Training Exchange program. Joe Rondone/The Republic

Chanel Keller took time off from her studies at Cal Poly's forestry program
to come to the WTREX. "I am working on becoming a burn boss so that I can
manage the cultural fire program on our ancestral land on the Central
Coast," said Keller, a member of the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County.
Keller was also eager to relearn land stewardship from other Indigenous
women.

“I'm here today to share in the space with other indigenous women that are
wanting to care for the country and care for our people,” said Kylee Clubb.
She’s the co-chairperson of Firesticks Alliance
<https://www.firesticks.org.au/>, a network of First Nations people from
Australia who are also reviving the use of cultural burning to restore
lands and cultures. Indigenous peoples in Australia have practiced fire and
land management for about 60,000 years.

“This is part of our ceremonial and cultural lives,” Clubb said.

Clubb said she also learned that Indigenous Australian nations have much in
common with U.S. tribes: “We all have the same issues at home” related to
Indigenous peoples standing up for their rights, she said.

Back in Happy Camp, Erin Hillman said that right after the fire, she told
her husband Leeon she wanted to move to Florida, where her dad currently
lives, or back to Eureka where she grew up before moving to Karuk ancestral
lands. But Leeon pointed out that Florida has hurricanes and Eureka has
earthquakes. And, Leeon said, those communities have other problems.

“Once you start looking at all the other places you could and compare them
to your home, there’s no question in my mind about where I’m going to be,”
she said.

“This is home. This is where I am, who I am.”

There’s no other place where she can rise in the morning, drive a half-hour
and be in the place where her ancestors lived hundreds of years ago. Her
kids, her parents and family all grew up along the Klamath River, Hillman
said.

“There is no other place where I can go pick willow or hazel or be around
my community.  There just isn’t any other place where I would feel that
comfortable to be who I am.”

Dig Deeper

Top news headlines

"As soon as I heard that we were burning here, I called my brother Beau,"
Jerry said. She said although she could stand on her own and could speak
for herself, she needed Goodwin to come because he is the medicine man for
the place they stood on that October day. "He is the one that these prayers
have been passed down to over the millennia."

"And I really hope that when you guys go home to your homeland, you guys
remember that you're in Karuk Country and we're badasses."

*Debra Krol reports on Indigenous communities at the confluence of climate,
culture and commerce in Arizona and the Intermountain West. Reach Krol at
debra.krol at azcentral.com <debra.krol at azcentral.com>. Follow her on Twitter
at @debkrol <https://twitter.com/debkrol>. **Coverage of Indigenous issues
at the intersection of climate, culture and commerce is supported by the
Catena Foundation.*

*Support local journalism*. Subscribe to azcentral.com today
<https://offers.azcentral.com/specialoffer?gps-source=CPNEWS&itm_medium=onsite&itm_source=TAGLINE&itm_campaign=NEWSROOM&itm_content=DEBRAKROL>
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