Since time immemorial, the Wiyot people have lived in the Humboldt Bay region, with their traditions and ways of life intricately linked to the land and waterways surrounding them.
Now 350 acres of those ancestral lands on the Samoa Peninsula, a place the tribe knows as Digawututklh, are once again under their care — “an important step in honoring the Wiyot Tribe’s heritage and commitment to environmental stewardship,” according to an announcement of the land’s return.
On Nov. 13, the tribe gathered at the site for a private ceremony and celebration to mark the occasion.
“To the Wiyot people our traditional lands have a sacred spirit, Digawututklh connected Shou’r (the Pacific Ocean) to Wigi (Humboldt Bay) where Tuluwat is the heart, and Digawututklh is the lungs, it breathes life into our ceremonies,” Wiyot Historic Preservation Officer Ted Hernandez said in the announcement. “Digawututklh provided for Wiyot people, and Wiyot people cared for it, plants like huckleberries that grow there were tended by Wiyot people and the dunes protected the villages from harsh weather due to the dunes being so large, they provided shelter.”
Wiyot Tribal Chair Brian Mead echoed those words.
“This place has traditionally been used for food harvesting, such as clams and surf fish. It was also a ceremonial place where the Red Woodpecker Dance was held. Now that the land has been returned these cultural practices can return,” Mead said. “Digawututklh was also part of a vast traditional transportation system. This village was a place where people came from the north to catch redwood dugouts to get to other locations such as Tuluwat, Jourijiji and other sites.”
For the last four years, the ecologically diverse property of “open dunes, an extensive coastal forest, seasonal wetlands and estuarine habitats” hosting an array of rare plants and providing a home for the region’s wildlife has been managed by Friends of the Dunes as the Samoa Dunes and Wetlands Conservation Area.
“We are so grateful to be a part of the conservation story for this very special place, and I couldn’t think of a better way to begin the next chapter,” Friends of the Dunes Executive Director Suzie Fortner said in the announcement.
A large swath of the site now in the hands of the Wiyot Tribe, known to many as “Dog Ranch,” was formerly owned by Robin P. Arkley II, who in 2005 undercut an effort by the nonprofit and the Humboldt Bay Harbor, Conservation and Recreation District to purchase and preserve the 200 acres located just west of the Samoa Bridge with a last-minute bid.
“They got in second place!” a Journal report at the time quoted the Eureka businessman and billionaire as saying, with one of his stated intentions being to fence off the land from public access. “And it’ll never, ever, ever, ever be sold to them. I’m not going to give it to the government agencies. I believe there’s far too much government land.”
That changed in 2020 when Friends of the Dunes, the harbor district and a coalition of agencies were able to acquire Dog Ranch — which had gone back on the market six years earlier — from one of Arkley’s business holdings.
According to Friends of the Dunes, the nonprofit’s oversight of the Samoa conservation area’s 357-acre total was always meant to be temporary, with the ultimate goal of finding a pathway for long-term protection of the unique property that is now back under the care of the Wiyot Tribe.
“This land back is a small but powerful act of justice, acknowledging that the land was unjustly stolen and rightfully belongs to the Wiyot people. Indigenous stewardship has always been integral to the health of ecosystems,” said Friends of the Dunes board member Carla Avila-Martinez. “Returning ancestral lands is the most impactful climate action that can be taken. This milestone is just the beginning, and much more must be done. We are committed to supporting the Wiyot Tribe’s ongoing efforts to restore their ancestral lands.”
Like other local tribes and Native peoples across the state, nation and world decimated by the government-sanctioned theft of their lands and atrocities including institutional violence, human trafficking and attempted genocide, the Wiyot Tribe is actively engaged in reclaiming cultural connections with its ancestral lands after those were, as the tribe describes, “disrupted by settler colonialism and exacerbated by decades of extractive practices.”
Tribal Councilmember Hazel James noted the “deep connection” the Wiyot people have with Digawututklh, saying, “The Tribe had villages throughout the Samoa peninsula. This place is incredibly special to us.”
A California #LandBack Special Report — published in June by the nonprofit Save California Salmon and a product of the Northern California LandBack Symposium held at Cal Poly Humboldt last year — demonstrates such efforts have a wide-reaching benefit.
The report details how research shows that “Indigenous nations across the U.S. have lost nearly 99 percent of their historical land base over time,” and that “it’s not just the quantity of land that matters, but the quality too: Tribes were displaced to areas that are now more exposed to a wide variety of climate change risks.”
But, the report says, research on areas across the world also found “the total numbers of mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles were the highest” on lands cared for by Indigenous tribes and communities using traditional land management practices.
“Land Back is one of the most important things we can do in our state and beyond. We know that land back leads to amazing outcomes like the protection of biodiversity and the building of climate resiliency,” one of the authors, Cutcha Risling Baldy, an associate professor in Native American Studies at Cal Poly Humboldt, said in an announcement of the peer-reviewed report’s release. “It is also addressing some of the most egregious historical wrongs and uplifting Indigenous communities.”
The 61-page document serves as a blueprint for continuing and facilitating land-back work in the future while also highlighting land returns that have taken place in California in recent decades — which the report describes as “stories of hope.”
Those include the historic 2019 return of Tuluwat on Humboldt Bay — the Wiyot Tribe’s center of the universe and site of its annual World Renewal Ceremony to bring balance to the world — nearly 160 years after white residents raided a village on the island during the ceremony, massacring as many as 300 members of the tribe, mostly women, children and elders.
Most recently, the Wiyot Tribe’s land back efforts are being facilitated through Dishgamu Humboldt, a tribally controlled community land trust formed in 2020.
“We use the Soulatluk word for love as the name of the Tribe’s land trust because the work we are doing is steeped in Wiyot values of commitment, responsibility and caring for this place,” Tribal Administrator Michelle Vassel said in the announcement. “The Tribe has plans for ecocultural restoration, returning the land to good health through the environmental restoration of the land, as well as the return of cultural practices which are intrinsic to the health of the land as well as the people of the tribe.”
Kimberly Wear (she/her) is the Journal’s digital editor. Reach her at (707) 442-1400, extension 323, or kim@northcoastjournal.com.
This article appears in Bitten.
