In July 2022, the Winnemem Wintu Tribe as well as several fish and wildlife agencies celebrated the reintroduction of Chinook salmon to the McCloud River in far Northern California for the first time since World War II. That was when federal officials removed Winnemem Wintu people from their ancestral homes along the river and erected the 602-foot Shasta Dam, blocking the salmon’s migration path and flooding 27 miles of the lower McCloud. Because mother salmon couldn’t swim up the river to dig their nests, called redds, agency staff trucked and helicoptered fertilized salmon eggs from a Sacramento River hatchery to the remote, mountainous site on the McCloud River.