WW/ What does RACE have to do with it?

Attending the NOAA meeting regarding the Winnemem and Maori interest in introducing salmon into the McCloud above the dam, something NOAA is interested in also was eye-opening. Around the table sat scientists, fish biologists, people responsible for the national salmon recovery plan, people responsible for carrying out the nation's environmental preservation programs, lawyer, Winnemem leaders, Maori leaders, a New Zealand fish and wildlife person. The focus was the New Zealand Winnemem partnership to bring back the McCloud River Salmon back to the Home Waters. John Wilkie, Waitaho Maori of South Island made it clear that this was a tribe to tribe venture, that the salmon would be given from New Zealand to the Winnemem. It was the decent thing to do since the fish came from the Winnemem run hatchery to the rivers of South Island back in the late 1800's in the first place.

The concern of the American biologists, administrators, and advocate was genetics, something which made the New Zealand Fish and Wildlife expert, Dirk ________, bristle. He is a passionate voice for the salmon of New Zealand. He had spoken up at the first NOAA meeting at ceremony when the NOAA people first said that the genetics may be a problem because there were more than one introduction of salmon eggs to the rivers. He interrupted, "You're talking about statistics, aren't you? the bad runs?" The NOAA people nodded.

Then Dirk passionately spoke, "these so called good runs and bad runs -- it's all about numbers, isn't it. A certain number and it's considered a bad run. But I know this fish. The California Chinook Salmon is very strong, and with these low numbers of return, they will never give up. They are survivors. I have seen lower runs and the next year and the next year, the numbers go up by great numbers. We know that the New Zealand salmon is from here. These fish are hardy. They are the same fish as swam in the Mc Cloud in the 1800's."

At this second meeting Dirk was still willing to speak to the genetics issue which stumped the American biologists and administrators in charge of the salmon restoration projects.

I think our jaws dropped as did his when the scientists began to describe the runs -- winter, spring and fall runs -- as Races of Salmon, and saying they do not want the races to mix.

They asked Dirk what races were the salmon in New Zealand. Dirk said, we say that they are all salmon. He explained to them that the coloration which Americans use as a marker for race depends on many factors, all environmental. He explained that even in the same batch of eggs, some of the salmon will be fall and some will be winter and some will be spring. The salmon determines the run. In New Zealand and the tribes both in New Zealand and the US distinguish the runs by when they arrive to spawn. Therefore, the fish who travel farthest will be another run than the fish who spawn closer to the ocean. The US label them by when they enter the river system.

Dirk then said, Isn'the important thing that the salmon you put in the McCloud are salmon which have the ability to return to the McCloud, not what run you think they are?

Good point. Light bulbs flash in the minds.

To be fair, NOAA did not make these regulations. This is about money. Funding. There is funding for winter and spring run but not for fall for NOAA. Some other agency takes on the fall run. NOAA is stuck with these regulations. However, NOAA is also responsible to reintroduce above the dam on the McCloud and we believe, and it will be borne out that the salmon in New Zealand have the DNA, tenacity and strength to make it back. No guarantees that any salmon in the Sacramento now can do that.

New Zealand common sense and tribal knowledge eventually became the directors of the conversation. NOAA's openness and commitment to the goal was framed by the woman heading the environmental protection direction. She said that she welcomed being at the table with people who also wanted the salmon to come back. NOAA over and over again faces people who do not want the salmon and the protection laws they bring reintroduced anywhere. Bottom line, NOAA is ready to work with us, to see the proposal.

But back to that pesky little word . . . that pesky little concept Made in the USA -- RACE -- and the prohibition of mixing. It has nothing to do with species or fish because the Salmon is Salmon. This separation of runs is wholly for the purpose of accessing funds. We can see how silly miscegenation laws regarding salmon is as wrong headed as miscegenation laws regarding human beings. It is a human construct, not a natural one and it is manipulative. Interesting, aye?

Common Sense. Knowledge of Nature. And possibilities bloom.

WW/ "Life is good in so many ways""

I haven't written on my blog for quite awhile. Something has rocked Will and my world to its foundation. But it would not be cool to talk about it. We just have to endure it. In crisis is opportunity, though, as sages have said. And it seems that in this crisis, which has to do with a crisis in leadership, our Chief has stepped up to the challenge, and takes one day at a time, doing what needs to be done, keeping her vision clear, and her spirit connected to the Old Ones and the Sacred Places.

The opportunity is that the Winnemem lineage reveals what their women Chiefs are made of. It is not difficult to imagine Granny, alone in her leadership, going through the killing time, going through boarding school assimilation, going through Shasta Lake Dam and the drowning of her people's homes, sacred lands, and the extermination of their salmon, going through the criminalization of her ceremonies and medicines, and yet keeping it together, bringing her people through. I imagine she did the same thing, took every day as it comes, go step by step. There seems to be almost an instinctual way of knowing what needs to be done -- much like their beloved salmon, a sort of navigational device imbedded, which helps them even if they meet a crisis which is an anomaly to their people. Dams, hatcheries, bounties, boarding schools, racist laws, influenza and today, dams, assimilation policies, federal unrecognized status, privatizing of water, cremation remains in the sacred spring,Harmonic Conversions, 2012 crazy madness, and on and on it goes.

Because of their active relationship, the unbroken historical tie to sacred land, to leadership by lineage, a tradition of spiritual doctoring, holding on to language, songs, ceremonies, even bringing them back with the help of the ancestor spirits and the sacred lands, they endure.

Will and I are so lucky to know how because we are under the wing of the Winnemem.

Did you know that everything does not come from a human being? knowledge, songs, language, ceremony, medical knowledge? If you pray and you've kept that relationship strong with the sacred places and your ancestors, you can get it all back through communication, through faith, through walking step by step behind them. Did you know that even if there is scientific finality that a species is terminated, you may find out if you are still tied to the land, if you are still tied to the ancestors, if you bring back the ceremonies, Olelbis will hear you, the salmon will hear you, the bear and all the Sacred Mountains will hear you, the Oceans will become one to turn that extermination, that killing time around? The ancient ones anticipated great disasters and losses and took care of it, laying their faith that far in the future when it was safe, when it was ready, the Winnemem will still remain, and then, the work can begin with that new Chief to restore what was exterminated, like the Nur, the sacred Chinook salmon which the Winnemem follow still, 70 years after they last swam up the McCloud, a good 20 years before Chief Caleen Sisk Franco was born.

Thank you Great Olelbis, the great Mt. Shasta, that our current Chief still carried on so that she could be there when the salmon was ready to come back to their Home Waters, before time on the wild salmon ran out. Thank you Great Olelbis that she carried the faith and hope of her ancestors over that time so that there will still be Winnemem. She made things ready. She brought her people back to the village, she taught the next generation, she listened to her dreams, her spiritual people listened to their dreams, and they made everything ready for the miracle of the Nur's return to happen. They did not lose one step.

I have seen it. I have listened, witnessed, felt, touched an been touched by the Winnemem way of life. This is how it happens, these everyday miracles. No scientist, inventor, President, or Parliament, no lobbyist, no strategist, no CEO can restore as the Olelbis would restore except the faithful and humble who know their place and responsibilities no matter how hard it is, no matter what crisis is thrown in front of their path. Step by step. Prayer by prayer.

We are witnessing the legacy of Caleen Sisk Franco through her hardest time, her biggest crisis, OUR hardest time and biggest crisis, and we'll just continue the old way and get there a day at a time, a prayer at a time, one everyday miracle at a time. As she says no matter what has happened, "Life is good in so many ways." We can't give in to grief and loss.

Dedicated to the Waitaho Maori family, the Kingdom of Hawai, the Hoopa Tribe the Kiwi allies for standing with us, 100 percent and to NOAA who is drawing up their papers to seal the relationship. We will bring home the Nur.