<div dir="ltr">
<div class="gmail-top-anchor"></div>
<div id="gmail-toolbar" class="gmail-toolbar-container">
</div><div class="gmail-container" dir="ltr" lang="en">
<div class="gmail-header gmail-reader-header gmail-reader-show-element">
<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizona-environment/2023/01/30/indigenous-women-learn-to-protect-ancestral-lands-prescribed-burns/10398772002/">azcentral.com</a>
<div class="gmail-domain-border"></div>
<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">In California, women learn how to protect their ancestral lands with fire</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Debra Utacia Krol - January 30, 2023<br></div>
</div>
<hr>
<div class="gmail-content">
<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><img src="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/02/PPHX/ec3776c3-db39-43dc-a74a-efe44d109f25-Klamath_Fire_9.jpg" alt="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." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="416" height="277">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.
<span>Joe Rondone/The Republic</span><p>The program, known as <a href="http://www.conservationgateway.org/ConservationPractices/FireLandscapes/HabitatProtectionandRestoration/Training/TrainingExchanges/Pages/fire-training-exchanges.aspx" target="_blank">TREX</a>,
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.”</p><p>"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."</p><p>"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."</p><p>Vicki Preston, who sometimes gathers acorns in the same woods, was one of the burn's incident commanders.</p><p>"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."</p><p>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."</p><img src="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/02/PPHX/448e27bd-eb51-490a-a983-f13981df959b-Klamath_Fire_18.jpg" alt="Acorns collected before a controlled burn in the Klamath National Forest on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="416" height="277">Acorns collected before a controlled burn in the Klamath National Forest on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022.
<span>Joe Rondone/The Republic</span><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><h2 id="gmail-a-170yearlong-struggle">A 170-year-long struggle to regain land and water stewardship</h2><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>They nearly succeeded.</p><p>According to <a href="https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/revealing-the-history-of-genocide-against-californias-native-americans">one historian</a>, the number of Indigenous people plunged about 80%, from 150,000 to about 30,000. The Karuk Tribe estimated that about <a href="https://karuktribeclimatechangeprojects.com/chapter-2-its-illegal-to-be-a-karuk-indian-in-the-21st-century/">75% of its population were murdered</a>,
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.</p><p>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.</p><img alt="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." src="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/02/PPHX/ec83b014-f8b0-42c7-af08-4c2c239fba13-Klamath_Fire_8.jpg" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="416" height="280">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.
<span>Joe Rondone/The Republic</span><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>In recent years, new policies have been introduced, including an <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/2021/01/26/memorandum-on-tribal-consultation-and-strengthening-nation-to-nation-relationships/">executive order by President Joe Biden</a> to reaffirm tribal consultation, <a href="https://www.bia.gov/sites/default/files/dup/tcinfo/dtll_whcnaa-ttr-mou-9-6-22_508.pdf">an interagency agreement</a> to protect tribal rights into federal agency decision making, and a new <a href="https://www.usda.gov/topics/disaster-resource-center/wildland-fire/commission">wildland fire mitigation and management commission</a>. Those measures may ease the way for tribes across the U.S. to better manage their ancestral lands.</p><p>In 2021, California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed <a href="https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220SB332">a bill</a>
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 <a href="https://www.fire.ca.gov/media/xcqjpjmc/californias-strategic-plan-for-expanding-the-use-of-beneficial-fire-march-16_2022.pdf">prescribed burn plan</a> that supports tribal cultural burning and <a href="https://trackbill.com/bill/california-senate-bill-926-prescribed-fire-liability-pilot-program-prescribed-fire-claims-fund/2220311/">established a pilot fund</a> to cover losses from burning. And in 2022, the Forest Service signed a <a href="https://www.fs.usda.gov/inside-fs/delivering-mission/excel/forest-service-signs-11-new-agreements-advance-tribal-co">co-stewardship agreement</a> between the Karuk Tribe and Six Rivers National Forest.</p><p>Even with those changes, returning fire to the land runs into roadblocks.</p><img alt="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." src="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/02/PPHX/4eb0f1b7-735e-4c72-98b3-e7076f36a289-Klamath_Fire_3.jpg" class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="416" height="277">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.
<span>Joe Rondone/The Republic</span><p>"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.</p><p>"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.</p><p>"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 <a href="https://www.fws.gov/species/western-pond-turtle-actinemys-marmorata">western pond turtle</a> as they return to the riverside at the end of the day.</p><p>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.</p><p>"It's just really powerful to have that space to grow and to learn and teach to one another specifically," she said.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><img src="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/02/PPHX/e86b5cf3-b0f5-4a52-aab7-8649fbd3e30e-Klamath_Fire_21.jpg" alt="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." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="416" height="277">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.
<span>Joe Rondone/The Republic</span><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>"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."</p><p><span><strong>'Our right to fire':</strong><a href="https://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizona-environment/2020/11/25/tribes-battle-agencies-old-policies-restore-fire-practices/3547198001/" target="_blank">Tribes battle agencies, old policies to restore fire practices</a></span></p><h2 id="gmail-slater-fire-we">Slater fire: 'We didn't know if we would ever feel normal again'</h2><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>These
conflagrations also are traumatic to those who lived through them,
especially those who lost loved ones or friends or their homes.</p><p>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.
</p><p>Erin Hillman said Happy Camp still has a long way to go to fully recover, but residents have made much progress.</p><img src="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2020/10/03/PPHX/11595a25-c3d6-438a-9402-7e50e400f788-happy_camp_00001119.JPG" alt="Leeon Hillman, and his wife, Erin, owners of Kingfisher Market in Happy Camp, lost their home to the Slater Fire on Sept. 9, 2020." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="416" height="268">Leeon
Hillman, and his wife, Erin, owners of Kingfisher Market in Happy Camp,
lost their home to the Slater Fire on Sept. 9, 2020.
<span>Cheryl Evans/The Republic</span><p>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.</p><p>Erin
Hillman said they lived in a trailer for eight months while dealing
with insurance companies, lot cleanup, contractors and supply chain
issues.</p><p>“We got lucky and found a rental home,” she said.</p><p>Nearly two years later, their home is finally going up with an anticipated February finish date.</p><p>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.</p><p>“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.”</p><p>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.</p><h2 id="gmail-karuk-celebrating-important">Karuk celebrating important lands coming under tribal control</h2><p>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.</p><img src="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/02/PPHX/c5388bce-81da-4269-9135-4a6da65694e2-Klamath_Fire_2.jpg" alt="Russell "Buster" Attebery, Karuk Tribe chairman, inside their Happy Camp, Calif. offices on Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="416" height="296">Russell "Buster" Attebery, Karuk Tribe chairman, inside their Happy Camp, Calif. offices on Tuesday, Oct. 4, 2022.
<span>Joe Rondone/The Republic</span><p>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.</p><p>“<a href="https://huffman.house.gov/imo/media/doc/huffman_legislativemap-katimiinarea_08-09-2021.pdf">Katimiîn and Ameekyáaraam</a> are places where we have done ceremonies since time immemorial,” he said.</p><p>“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.</p><p>Returning Katimiîn, or
“upriver edge falls,” and Ameekyáaraam to tribal control will prevent
what Attebery called “outside agencies” from purchasing the land for
development.</p><p>“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.</p><p>“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.”</p><div><p>Indigenous Women participate in Fire Training Exchange</p><p>About
50 women from Indigenous communities converged on Karuk country to
train and learn more about bringing fire back to the land.</p><p>Joe Rondone/The Republic, Joe Rondone/The Republic</p></div><p>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.</p><p>Rep. Jared Huffman, D-Calif., introduced the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/6032/all-actions">legislation to return the 1,031 acres</a>
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.</p><p>Huffman told The Republic that the
Karuk Tribe has long had to obtain permission from the Forest Service
to hold its most important ceremonies.</p><p>“We need to be better than that.”</p><h2 id="gmail-the-land-the">The land, the fire and the water are all part of home</h2><p>Women gathered acorns, a key food for many California tribes, before the autumn burn.</p><p>"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."</p><p>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.</p><img src="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/02/PPHX/4d1b5fe8-6a92-466b-a10f-87daefab7629-Klamath_Fire_17.jpg" alt="Annelia Hilman picks acorns before a controlled burn in the Klamath National Forest on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="416" height="277">Annelia Hilman picks acorns before a controlled burn in the Klamath National Forest on Monday, Oct. 3, 2022.
<span>Joe Rondone/The Republic</span><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>"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."</p><p>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.</p><p>"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."</p><img src="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/presto/2022/12/02/PPHX/91bc08a5-a4e0-4a3d-8acd-7cc161b66763-Klamath_Fire_20.jpg" alt="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." class="gmail-moz-reader-block-img" style="margin-right: 25px;" width="416" height="275">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.
<span>Joe Rondone/The Republic</span><p>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.</p><p>“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 <a href="https://www.firesticks.org.au/">Firesticks Alliance</a>,
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.</p><p>“This is part of our ceremonial and cultural lives,” Clubb said.</p><p>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.</p><p>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.</p><p>“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.</p><p>“This is home. This is where I am, who I am.”</p><p>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.</p><p>“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.”</p><div id="gmail-asset-2715303002">
<div>
<p>Dig Deeper</p>
<p>Top news headlines</p>
</div>
<div>
<span>
<img src="https://www.gannett-cdn.com/-mm-/e87142a7e6ba712b087fe1a504fbe831e43d680e/c=0-66-1280-786/local/-/media/Phoenix/2014/03/11/sternphoto.jpg?quality=50&width=180" style="margin-right: 0px;" width="180" height="101">
</span>
</div>
</div><p>"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."</p><p>"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."</p><p><em>Debra
Krol reports on Indigenous communities at the confluence of climate,
culture and commerce in Arizona and the Intermountain West. Reach
Krol at <a href="mailto:debra.krol@azcentral.com" target="_blank">debra.krol@azcentral.com</a>. Follow her on Twitter at <a href="https://twitter.com/debkrol">@debkrol</a>. </em><em>Coverage of Indigenous issues at the intersection of climate, culture and commerce is supported by the Catena Foundation.</em></p><p><strong>Support local journalism</strong>. <a href="https://offers.azcentral.com/specialoffer?gps-source=CPNEWS&itm_medium=onsite&itm_source=TAGLINE&itm_campaign=NEWSROOM&itm_content=DEBRAKROL" target="_blank">Subscribe to azcentral.com today</a>. </p></div></div>
</div>
<div>
</div>
<div></div>
</div>
</div>