YUROK RESERVATION — Their inner scars remind them of a not-so-distant past when their culture was raped and their families were robbed of their inheritance. But like the first harvest off a burnt field, the future generation of Yurok tribal leaders has a renewed spirit and a hope that their children will inherit a significantly different past.                                                                       

Watch interview              Watch interview       Watch interview with      with Ollie                         with Frankie                 Stephanie     photo by Ann Johnson-Stromberg   Honoring the Elders Every year during salmon season a group of volunteers organize to strip, smoke, bundle and distribute salmon for the elders to can for the winter. The volunteers usually package enough salmon to make a case of pint-sized jars. Bertha Peters,  gets involved every year. Troy Fletcher, acting executive director for the Yurok Tribe, said that throughout the season many tribal members donate a few fish from their catch for the elder program. "This year was probably the lowest (tribal) allocation since 1992,” Fletcher said. “The concerned volunteers provide a little bit of salmon to elders in certain communities. This year was a low because of water issues and battles.” This year Yuroks were allowed to catch 6,400 fall-run chinook salmon. In September, Peters and other volunteers were concerned that maybe the tribe wouldn’t even meet that quota. When considering the total tribal membership of 4,800, that works out to less than two fish per person.

Stephanie McQuillen, 28 Former Public Relations Manager, Yurok Tribe

Stephanie McQuillen, 28, is the acting public relations manager for the Yurok Tribe, a full-time Humboldt State University student and a single mom. This fall McQuillen re-enrolled in college and decided to give up her position at the tribe so that she could finish her degree in Native American Studies with an emphasis in federal Indian law. With two children in grade school, the decision to go back to school was a difficult one. For the first time in her life, she would have to leave the reservation.

She said that in a sense she is starting over, but McQuillen counts herself as one of the lucky ones. It wasn’t so long ago when Yurok tribal children — as late as McQuillen’s grandparents’ generation — were forcibly removed from their homes and sent off to boarding schools. The schools’ mission was to assimilate Indians into the white man’s world with the motto “kill the Indian but save the man.”

As children’s parents died and homes and property were left vacant, the government sold off tribal properties bit by bit to lumber companies and private citizens — substantially reducing Yurok territory to its current size of just more than 56,000 acres. While most of the boarding schools were discontinued by the mid-1930s, some endured through the 1950s. It also was only as recently as 1971 when gun-toting government police patrolled the Klamath River to quell Yurok fishing efforts on the reservation.

The plight of the reservation

Humboldt County has the largest population of American Indians in California, and the Yuroks are the largest tribe in the state. The tribe was federally recognized in 1993 and currently has 4,800 members representing around 6 percent of the county’s population. The Yurok Reservation starts at the ocean and is 44 miles long, 2 miles wide and follows along the Klamath River. To say that the river represents the heart of the Yurok people is an understatement. It has sustained them physically, economically and spiritually for centuries.

Highway 169 is the only one-lane, two-way highway in the state.

While the Yurok Tribe is the largest, it is also the poorest. U.S. Census data in 2000 revealed that 20.4 percent of the reservation is at or below poverty level and has one of the highest unemployment rates in the state. There are also other extraordinary stresses on the Yurok reservation. Lack of electricity, phones, inadequate water delivery and dilapidated sewage treatment systems are a few realities that continue to plague the reservation. Yurok territory is also home to the only one-lane, two-way highway in the state that serves as the main vein of transportation through the reservation. Known for its insufficient maintenance, blind corners and sheer cliffs, State Route 169 claims lives every year.

In discussions about the plight of her tribe, McQuillen has had people say to her, “That was a long time ago, why don’t you just get over it?”

For herself and other young Yuroks, the stories they tell are not from the 1800s but from their parents — an entire generation of depressed people.

“This is a recovery time ... after assimilation and trying to rid us of our culture (and) our identity has had huge psychological effects,” she said. “Many turned to drugs and alcohol to make it through.”

Despite the hardships, approximately 1,200 continue to live on the reservation and during the day another 200 to 300 work there and commute. Some of the non-natives have left, and some of the Yuroks who left to go to college and make a better life for themselves have returned to make a better life for their people.

Frankie Myers, 24 Planner, Yurok Tribe

Frankie Myers, 24, has returned home. After a few years of working while going to college in Portland, Ore., his interest in part-time school waned and his passion to return home to help push along Yurok movements pulled him back into the fold. Upon his return Myers was hired by the tribe to work in fisheries and recently promoted and made a planner for the reservation. Until a few weeks ago Myers was living without the modern conveniences of electricity. A generator capable of washing a load of laundry or watching a movie was the extent of his power capabilities, aside from what could be run off of kerosene.

Although there are a large number of tribal employees who live in nearby towns like McKinleyville or Trinidad and commute to work at the Klamath offices, Myers never gave it a second thought. Myers, now jokingly considered an “uptown Indian” because of his new electrified status, said the sacrifices are worth the reward.

“One of the things that happens to an organization when they reach a certain size is they lose touch with where they came from — they don’t stay connected to the ground,” he said. “The reservation keeps me focused on the day-to-day tasks and what’s important to me and why we organized this tribe to begin with.”

As the son of a tribal council member, Myers knows his place is to be among the next generation of leaders for his people.

Tribe at a crossroads

Electrified house off power grid and powered by solar and generators.

There are multiple movements under way including efforts to bring back the tribe’s history and culture lost in assimilation, restore the health of the river, restake their claim to ancestral lands, launch entrepreneurial pursuits, and improve infrastructure and educational opportunities on the reservation.

Now all they need is money.

The majority of the Yurok Tribe’s $14.7 million operating budget comes in the form of federal grants and aid earmarked for specific purposes. Infrastructure improvements and legal battles over water rights are among the many items that must be paid for with discretionary funds that currently total less than $1 million. Estimated costs to rebuild Highway 169 alone are approximately $200 million.

Their answer — like in many tribes before them — is a casino. After the government takes its share, profits from a casino can be spent any way the tribe sees fit. In June the Yuroks received the break they were waiting for. In an unprecedented move, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Yurok Tribe reached the most favorable casino compact agreement since the governor took office.

A deal was struck to build a casino with 350 slot machines and an agreement to share between 10 percent and 25 percent of its net winnings with the state. Net winnings are the revenue taken in, minus the patron-paid winnings.

What was expected to take a few weeks to be signed off by the state Legislature, was held up and never got a chance to go to a vote. This time it wasn’t the government holding the tribe back, it was other California tribes. The concerns were that the Yurok compact agreement would set an unfair precedent for new compact agreements.

Yurok Tribe’s Executive Director Troy Fletcher said it was the great infrastructure needs and large membership that enabled the favorable agreement, and tribes with more money and fewer members were threatened. Months later tensions mounted as the Legislature session was nearing its Sept. 9 end and still the compact had not been put to a vote. At the eleventh hour Fletcher flew to Sacramento to lobby for the tribe, to no avail.

“We are disappointed and saddened that our issues were caught up in the larger politics that prevented (our compact),” Fletcher said. “But we are going to do our best to get on the same page and work together to have a united tribal front in California and not a divided one.”

The Assembly is expected to hold hearings sometime at the beginning of next year and Fletcher said he is hopeful that his tribe’s needs for infrastructure will not be put on the back shelf again.

“Are we going to become rich? No,” he said. “But we are hopeful to provide employment, and (a better quality of life) for our members.”

Mouth of the Klamath river.

Looking to the future

During the last tribal council elections McQuillen said she was asked to step up and declare herself a candidate. She declined to run for the prestigious position, despite community support, because she suspects that after college her insight and decisions will be better informed.

“The biggest thing is that I’ll be a role model for other young mothers and most of all for my daughter,” McQuillen said, adding that the key to their future success is in education.

“So many are disconnected and searching for their identity,” she said. “They know they’re native — but they don’t know what that means.”

Myers, who is looking forward to being a father in March, said he has high hopes his child will inherit a different reservation.

“I think the casino is a door to the next phase of our well being, and if we do it right we will keep a good mind about it and make sure we only have the interest of our people in mind, we will be able to fund the things that are really lacking in our communities,” he said. “As long as we hold fast to our traditions and culture and stay rooted in our past, the path will lead us down to be a prosperous people.”

Ann Johnson-Stromberg covers McKinleyville, business and general assignment. She can be reached at 441-0538 or astromberg@times-standard.com