on the cover / By Malcolm Terence

Klamath: Direct Action!

Frankie Joe Meyers, Charlie’s brother, told the crowd that the KJC began in 2002, right after the fish kill that lined the Klamath downriver with thousands of dead fish carcasses when upriver irrigators took too much water in a low-water year. The group had done many demonstrations in Scotland, Omaha and elsewhere so it was no stretch that they would now focus on a timber sale in Orleans.

Although “Farmer” was the principal presenter in the training sessions, he was joined by KJC members Chook Chook Hillman and his wife Annelia Hillman as well as a handful of veterans of many blocked timber sales.

Chook Chook, whose name means osprey in Karuk language, said non-violent direct action like tree sits and road blockades went hand-in-hand with tactics like lawsuits but he warned the crowd, “We can’t wait for a mythical Greenpeace to save it for us. Spontaneous combustion is also a myth.”

Annelia added, “Maybe we won’t have to block a road but we’ll know how. We’ll have the tools for a specific plan of attack.” She has the tattoo seen more and more often among tribal women: three long blue vertical stripes on her chin. She explained that hers were narrower than the wide stripes seen on many older women “because I haven’t accumulated as much knowledge yet.” She wore a sweatshirt that declared “USFS OUT OF INDIAN TERRITORY.” It was a common slogan as well on T-shirts and signs at the training.

While Chook Chook and Annelia Hillman spoke, Leaf Hillman, playing grandpa, comforted their toddler son Ishikiihara E-Kor by chanting Karuk melodies to him in quiet monotone. The child, whose name means “green sturgeon” in Karuk language and “warrior” in Yurok, seemed happy with the serenade and remained quiet, even attentive.

And then Leaf Hillman talked about the Orleans Community Fuels Reduction project, or OCFR, whose timber sale component was the particular target of more possible blockages — and which town clowns in the Orleans area were now calling the “OCFU.”

The OCFR was developed under a piece of Bush-era legislation called the Healthy Forest Restoration Act, which called for collaboration with community stakeholders but also reduced the legal options that environmental groups have used in the past to modify or halt timber sales. The project would treat over 2,500 acres in the Orleans area, including about 1,400 acres of hand thinning and nearly 1,200 acres of commercial logging expected to deliver 6.5 million board feet of logs to the Timber Products mill in Yreka.

Leaf Hillman said that nearly a thousand of those acres fall within the Panámniik World Renewal Ceremonial District. It is an area centered in Orleans and is one of three where Karuks hold annual Pikyávish ceremonies.

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