Chapter 5. A Prayer for Salmon
“It feels like I’m doing my purpose in life. This is my job as a dancer and as a Winnemem Wintu man and human being to speak up for salmon and water and land and indigenous ways, indigenous lifeways and the spirituality of it all— speak on behalf of all of that, the best we can, anyway.”
— Michael Preston, Winnemem Wintu
Berkeley, CA — Chief Caleen Sisk (Winnemem Wintu), Wounded Knee DeOcampo (Miwok), Corrina Gould (Confederated Villages of Lisjan) and Pua Case (Native Hawaiian) lead a protest in the Bay Area. Run4Salmon organizers Desirae Harp (Mishewal OnastaTis Nation), Niria Alicia, and Hawane Rios (Native Hawaiian) walk behind them. September 8, 2017. Tom Levy/The Spiritual Edge
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By Judy Silber
Winnemem Wintu Chief Caleen Sisk looks out at the wide, still water of Shasta Lake.
CHIEF CALEEN SISK: This water is for the entire state of California. It is the keystone project in the 40s that created the large corporate farming in the desert and makes California rich. This water makes it rich.
This is not a natural lake. It was created when Shasta Dam went up to store water for agriculture and municipalities. The harm it did is never far from Chief Sisk’s mind.
CHIEF SISK: It covers up our homeland. It misplaced us. It gave us nowhere to live. And it took our salmon away and gave the salmon nowhere to live.
Some people see it just as a recreational area. They don’t even know where this water goes or care where it goes.
CHIEF SISK: Yeah, they don’t know where it comes from. They don’t know, basically, anything about water. Most people, surprisingly enough, know only that left handle is hot and the right handle is cold and that’s how they should get their water.
Chief Sisk wants the whole state of California to wake up. To understand we need to protect our water. She also wants justice. She wants the salmon back. Over the next few episodes we’re going to take you on the Run4Salmon, a Winnemem Wintu ceremony that is calling salmon back to waters above Shasta Dam. The Run follows the migration path of salmon for hundreds of miles. It will conclude up above this lake. But it starts far south of here, in the San Francisco bay area.
JUDY SILBER: Can I grab you just for a minute? Just tell me where we are and what we’re doing.
CORRINA GOULD: Sure. We’re at Sogorea Te’, one of the ancient village sites, the older village sites of my ancestors. We have always been here. What is now called Vallejo, California, right along the Carquinez Strait…
This is Corrina Gould, spokesperson for the Confederate Villages of Lisjan Ohlone,and a strong ally of the Winnemem Wintu. We stand on ground that is now a county park and look out on the wide San Francisco Bay. Two hundred years ago these waters teemed with migrating salmon.
GOULD: It was a great place for trading because people would come down to the waters, would trade. We would have ceremony here. There were a couple of shellmounds that were here.
Over the next few days, Gould will lead the Winnemem Wintu, indigenous allies and other supporters across the territory of her people as they begin the Run4Salmon. By acting as a local escort across these Ohlone and Bay Miwok lands, Gould and the Winnemem Wintu are following the protocol of their ancestors.
GOULD: So there’s this story that I know about, protocol, when people come to your land, that they actually ask permission to cross.
GOULD: Whether it’s to come and get medicine, or it’s to come and trade, or to come and visit relatives, but they stand outside in a respectful way and wait for someone to come and get them.
Like Gould’s lesson about protocol, the Run4Salmon relies on ancestral wisdom.
GOULD: …that we all carry with us in our blood. It’s everyone's responsibility to make sure that these prayers are done and these songs are sung.
***
LYLA JUNE: We have to remember, Judy, the Run4Salmon is one of countless ways that indigenous peoples have tried to effectuate change in their world.
Here’s Lyla June Johnston, again. She’s an indigenous scholar who is helping to guide us through this series.
SILBER: There’s a long history of Native activism in this country, right?
LYLA JUNE: Well, yes. I kind of have a problem with the word activist, or activism, because I kind of think of what Winona LaDuke said. She said, why does wanting clean water make me an activist? I mean, ever since 1492, we’ve been engaged in actions to simply persevere as a people. I mean, you have the Pueblo Revolt of 1680 where indigenous people literally kicked out the Spanish crown from New Mexico for decades.
SILBER: Can you tell us about the more recent attempts to bring about change?
LYLA JUNE: Of course. It doesn’t just happen in the past. Ever since the 1900s, we’ve been entering a new era, I would say, of indigenous action. Everything from coming out of the boarding schools, coming out of state-ordered extermination policies, sadly, coming out of forced relocation like the Long Walk and the Trail of Tears. And we’ve been really engaged in a new form of asserting our rights, asserting our rights, asserting our dignity and letting people know we’re here. This includes the American Indian Movement of the 1960s. The 60s were just this bubbly wave, this incredible time period where so many waves of consciousness were flowing through humanity and indigenous peoples were no exception. We had the American Indian Movement. We had the longest walk. We had the occupation of Alcatraz. We had fishers in New England and the Pacific Northwest doing nonviolent civil disobedience by just fishing (she laughs). what they’ve been fishing for thousands of years. And it’s been really quite beautiful what has happened in the last century.
SILBER: What about Standing Rock? What role does that play today?
LYLA JUNE: I think Standing Rock has absolutely defined indigenous action within this millennium. We have shown the world that we are capable of articulating a message and reaching a global audience. We were simply trying to protect the very thing that not only gives indigenous peoples life, but all of us life, and that’s water. And in a way, in a big way, that’s exactly what the Winnemem Wintu are doing today with the Run4Salmon.
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It’s September. Already a warm day with the promise of getting hotter. The Run4Salmon starts out at Sogorea Te’ on a dirt trail that winds through low hills full of chaparral. Over two days, we’ll walk a total of 27 miles. We look out onto the Carquinez Strait where the San Francisco Bay narrows, before it opens up again.
WOUNDED KNEE DEOCAMPO: All life is sacred. Water is life. Water is medicine. Water is sacred.
An elder named Wounded Knee DeOcampo is here. He’s Miwok from the Sierra foothills, one of many allies who support the Winnemem Wintu on the Run4Salmon. DeOcampo is what’s known as a long walker and for much of today, he will walk at the front of the group. He earned the title in 1978 when Native American activists marched across the country to protest policies that took away indigenous rights.
DECAMPO: The battle must go on to protect something that’s very sacred to everybody that lives on this earth as earth people.
YOUNG MAN SINGS: We walk for the salmon, we run for the salmon, we ride for the salmon, we paddle for the salmon.
At times, the Run feels festive. People are chatty. They joke around a lot. But when we’re actually walking, the group is often serious, like a prayer. We walk at a steady pace. Hand drums and ceremonial songs keep us focused. The group is often single file as it winds its way through urban neighborhoods.
STEPHANIE DODARO: Even walking through these areas, step by step, even if it’s not the prettiest part all the time, by stepping on the land, you have a different relationship.
Stephanie Dodaro is in her mid-40s, of mostly European heritage, but traveled cross country with indigenous activists a few years ago. She says walking in prayer is a different way to walk on the land.
DODARO: You put sweat equity in that. You become bonded with it in a different way. And so, you get to appreciate it. You appreciate it more as the end result.
Out here, her walking prayer focuses on the Run4Salmon’s goals.
DODARO: I think about the salmon. I think about the water. I think, everyone has to drink the water. Everyone who’s affected by everything that’s happening in our environment.
The land we’re on is pretty built up. The railroad hugs the shore for a ways. There’s military and industrial development, including a C&H sugar plant and a Shell refinery. Also a lot of housing. Sidewalks. Cars. Strip malls. Concrete. Winnemem Wintu Chief Sisk isn’t walking with us, but she checks in regularly by car. At one point, she takes note of the surroundings.
CHIEF SISK: Oh, it’s incredible because this should be marsh land. This should all be tulles. It should almost be like the EverGlades here.
We stand on the street. Cars whip by. She looks out at the boxy houses and wide streets and laments the thoughtless development.
CHIEF SISK: It’s like this is such a sensitive estuary that is critical to the salmon in their journey to the northern rivers. It’s got houses everywhere. They’ve diverted the water system so the springs don’t come up here any more. And you know, this is called modern living. But with no sense of where is appropriate to live. Without ruining our own water system. And this is what modern living did not consider.
It did not consider what salmon needed. The beauty of salmon is the way they travel vast distances across diverse habitats to fulfill their destiny, to breed the next generation.
Before we move on, let’s review how it would go if you were an adult salmon.
After feeding in the wide Pacific Ocean for a few years, you’d start the long journey back to where you were born. You’d first pass into inland waters through one small opening under the Golden Gate Bridge. Then you’d head east, through the San Francisco Bay before coming to the place where two great rivers meet, the Sacramento and San Joaquin. They form what’s called the Delta, once a prolific feeding ground for all kinds of fish.
Through it, and beyond, you’d do your best to smell your way back to the place where you’d been born. All of the human rerouting of water might confuse your sense of direction. But if you managed to follow the Sacramento River, about as far as you could get is Shasta Dam. When it was first built, people told stories of salmon hurling themselves against the dam as they tried to jump past. If you’re a salmon today, your DNA might still tell you to push forward…but you’d be stuck. There’s no way to make it to Winnemem Wintu homelands on the McCloud River where your salmon relatives once abundantly spawned.
Back on the Run4Salmon, we walk through nicely manicured neighborhoods. With their footsteps, the walkers want to wake people up to the plight of salmon, and to raise awareness about threats to water and their habitat. Here’s how Michael Preston puts it.
MICHAEL PRESTON: It feels like I’m doing my purpose in life. This is my job as a dancer and as a Winnemem Wintu man and human being to speak up for salmon and water and land and indigenous ways, indigenous lifeways and the spirituality of it all speak on behalf of all of that, the best we can, anyway.
To bring the salmon back, Preston says the Winnemem Wintu need a lot of help.
PRESTON: We need everything’s help. We need the salmon’s help. We need the bird’s help. We need the tree’s help. We need the rain’s help. .We need the wind’s help. We need Mother Earth’s help. We need the fire’s help. Everything. Basically, because that’s the time right now. The indigenous people have been saying that for a long time and not just us, but around the world about what time it is. And it’s not looking very great, and that’s not a non-optimistic point of view. We are very optimistic. That’s why we’re doing this.
He's optimistic, but Chinook salmon in this watershed are struggling. Scientists estimate the number of adults that to spawn is one-tenth OR less than what it was historically. To understand more about the habitat where we now walk, I consulted one of California's foremost salmon experts.
SILBER: Let me just check your levels. Do you want to go ahead and tell me your name and your title.
PETER MOYLE: Okay, this is Peter Moyle. I’m a professor emeritus at the University of California at Davis, working with fish.
Peter Moyle tells me the landscape in and around the Bay Area creates a special environment with a brackish mix of fresh and ocean water, ideal for migrating salmon.
MOYLE: See on the map, here.
MOYLE: This is Suisun Bay. Then you come down here, the Carquinez Straits. The Carquinez Straits are just so amazing because it’s this narrow canyon that then flows into San Francisco Bay and then the water goes out the Golden Gate.
MOYLE: So it creates an incredibly complex estuary.
Saltwater is denser than freshwater, so if you think about your chemistry class, they’re usually separated out. But these are tidal waters connected to the ocean. The moon’s gravity pulls them up and down. That creates a churning. It mixes the fresh and saltwater together. And that creates a kind of between space where salmon can transform to become either salt or freshwater fish, depending on whether they’re coming or going to the ocean.
MOYLE: So everything the organisms need to grow.
The mixing also helps to produce a rich food source for juvenile salmon.
MOYLE: So the whole system, you could argue, was set up to be a salmon production system. It just did everything it possibly could to make life good for these juvenile salmon.
But today, this estuary is not what it was. Development along the waterway and competing demands for where the water goes, has disrupted its natural balance. Still, the Winnemem Wintu and other walkers have faith that salmon can bounce back. They believe in the power of their prayer and their collective action.
Becca: Hi everybody. Can everybody hear me? I’m Becca, for those of you who don’t know me. We’re walking through this residential area for a little bit. And then this part of the walk is where we’re going to cross the bridge as well.
By early afternoon, we’re crossing over the Benicia-Martinez Bridge in the eastern section of the Carquinez Straits. The group steps onto a pedestrian walkway. The bridge shakes and hums from the force of cars. It’s unbearably loud. The walkers sing, but the noise drowns out their songs. At the center of the 1.2-mile bridge, they stop. They put faces to protective slats, look out at the murky gray water and say silent prayers for the salmon.
I’ve always welcomed the sight of the Bay Area’s waters from a bridge like this. Even with all the development around it, the water inherently gives you a sense of freedom. Like you’re touching something grand. But as I walk the ground next to the Bay, it starts to sink in — that salmon must somehow navigate their way through these less than pristine waters.
On the Benicia-Martinez bridge, Becca, the woman charged with keeping the Run4Salmon group moving, says it’s time to wrap up their prayers.
BECCA: Okay, wrap up your prayers. That’s a funny thing to say.
And then notes that’s a funny thing to say. We cross to the other side of the bridge and go down a small slope.
SILBER: Tell me where we are.
GARY THOMAS: We are in petroleum district of Martinez. We just crossed the waterway
Gary Thomas is a Pomo ceremonial song leader from Lake County, about two hours north of where we are now.
THOMAS: I am a descendent of the Elem Indian colony as well as the Habematolel people, which is my mother’s people, which is north of here in Lake County, which we call Kayab Kabatin, which is big water.
He’s here with his son Gerald. They met Chief Sisk a few years back. The first Run4Salmon, they came for just a few days. Now they stay and help out the entire two weeks. They often walk at the front of the group where they sing song after song from Pomo country.
SILBER: What were you thinking when we crossed the water?
THOMAS: Well, the beauty of the ceremony and the song carries us, but then you can’t just help but see the devastation. You know, the tankers in the water and the, all the contaminants that’s going into the Bay.
Contaminants that he knows are harmful to salmon. We see black smoke floating into the air. It’s from the nearby Shell refinery, one of five in the Bay Area. Together, they make up about a quarter of California’s total refining capacity.
THOMAS: It’s like America needs to wake up because this is really what’s making us sick. Indigenous people as well as every human being on the face of this earth is suffering some kind of a sickness result of all of the petroleum extraction and everything that’s here in this area. It’s kind of depressing.
Later, I will turn to local indigenous leaders to learn more. They will speak to me about the oil spills and polluted water that make their way into the Bay. It’s clear none of this is good for anyone, including salmon.
The next morning, we continue to head east, doing our best to follow the salmon’s migration path. There’s no trail along the water. So we walk inland a bit. If this were two hundred years ago, we would see herds of deer, antelope and elk, along with the Ohlone and Bay Miwok people who fished and hunted on this land.
Instead, We pass strip malls, gas stations and tract housing. At different points, the nearly 4,000 foot-high Mt. Diablo comes into view. In Spanish, Diablo means devil. But this was a sacred mountain to the Native people of these parts, held as the birthplace of the world.
The sun low, a small convoy of support cars encourages us with honking and yelling as we finish out the day.
We walk through downtown Pittsburgh. Here, you can feel the layers of history that helped shape California's path, where the needs of settlers took priority over those of nature — and salmon. During the Gold Rush, fortune seekers passed through this town on their way to the mountains. Behind us, In the foothills of the sacred Mt. Diablo, companies started mining coal.
At a small park on the water’s edge, Chief Sisk gathers the group in a circle. We can see the meeting place of the two great rivers — the Sacramento and San Joaquin. Here, salmon canneries operated for more than 80 years. Chief Sisk reminds us that through this confluence passes the water from seven major rivers, plus all of their tributaries.
CHIEF SISK: Behind us is the river right now that we’re gong to go up tomorrow, it’s the river of 7 major rivers plus a lot of tributaries that create this water behind us. And of those rivers, are many different people’s...
CHIEF SISK: And of those rivers are many different tribes, beliefs, songs, dances, all the way down to here.
To the person next to her, she passes a wooden salmon, a symbol of what they’re here for. As it goes around the circle, people speak about their experiences on the walk. Lisjan Ohlone leader Corrina Gould takes the salmon in her hand.
GOULD: I’m so thankful that in my lifetime, that we are able to see this happen.
GOULD: That we’re able to see many different nations come together and tribes come together, the Winnemem and the Ohlone, creating that relationship, recreating that relationship, the ongoing relationship together, bringing the salmon people together all along the waterways.
The salmon continues to make its way around the circle. Those who touch it express sadness, sorrow, dreams and hope. The salmon will carry those emotions the whole 300 plus miles to the Winnemem Wintu homelands on the McCloud River.
CHIEF SISK: whew. That’s a lot. So much goodness that’s coming through you and coming up through this grounds.
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A Prayer for Salmon is a project of The Spiritual Edge at KALW Public Radio. Support comes from the Templeton Religion Trust, California Humanities, the Kalliopeia Foundation, Save Our Spirits and The Water Desk, an independent journalism initiative of the University of Colorado Boulder. We are produced on Ohlone and Coastal Miwok land.
Thank you to the Winnemem Wintu and the Run4Salmon community for welcoming us, our microphones and cameras into their midst. To contribute to the Winnemem Wintu’s nonprofit, go to sawalmem.io.
