The cold, crystalline waters of Blue Creek — a refuge for salmon and a place of cultural importance to the Yurok Tribe — cut through bedrock and over tumbled-smooth gray stones until they empty into the Klamath River in Northern California. Last summer, 14,000 acres encompassing the Blue Creek watershed were returned to the tribe. This transfer concluded the last phase of the largest tribal land return in California history, amounting to 47,100 acres of land previously used by timber companies. Twenty-three years in the making, it was achieved in partnership with Western Rivers Conservancy, which bought the land in phases and turned it over to the Yurok Tribe. The return more than doubles current landholdings for the tribe, which was dispossessed of more than 90% of its ancestral lands by colonizers.

Other Klamath River news:

• Moscow-Pullman Daily News (Ida.): Indigenous teen kayaks the entire Klamath
• ABC10 (San Diego): Video: Restoring the Klamath River — inside the world’s largest dam removal project