A Prayer for Salmon: Chapter 11. The Return of Salmon

Spurred by drought, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service accelerates a plan to restore winter-run Chinook salmon to the McCloud River. Chief Caleen Sisk weighs whether to collaborate with federal officials. Salmon spotted on Dry Creek for the first time in 30 years are celebrated as an answer to the Winnemem Wintu’s Run4Salmon prayer. Read More “This is something that can actually happen. And those salmon already know it. I feel like they’re helping to explain this to the fish experts who think, well, they haven’t been there for 30 years, they’re not coming back. If we put those songs and prayers on the water. If we take that all the way to the ocean and we sing to the ocean and we dance to the ocean, they respond.” — Chief Caleen Sisk, Hereditary and Spiritual Leader of the Winnemem Wintu people Shasta-Trinity National Forest, CA—The granddaughter of Chief Caleen Sisk holds salmon eggs before dropping them into an incubator (the blue barrel) where they will hatch and juvenile salmon will swim out into the McCloud River. July 11, 2022. Tom Levy/The Spiritual Edge A Prayer for Salmon is an 11 part audio documentary series from KALW’s The Spiritual Edge that tells the story of the Winnemem Wintu people and their clash with Northern California’s Shasta Dam. The dam’s construction turned California into an agricultural powerhouse. It also left the Winnemem Wintu displaced and without say over their land. The series details their fight to resist a proposed Shasta Dam Enlargement Project. It also highlights the Winnemem Wintu’s aspirations to return Chinook salmon to their homeland on the McCloud River, a major tributary of the dam.