In Between Worlds

“Whatever happens to the salmon, happens to us.” So says Chief Caleen who leads the Winnemem Wintu tribe in fulfilling a promise her people made at the beginning of time: to forever speak up for the salmon.

Violently dispossessed from their lands, federally unrecognized & reduced to 126 members living in trailers outside of Redding, CA, Winnemem Wintu’s deliberate eradication tracks closely with devastating salmon declines dating from the Gold Rush & construction of state’s largest – Shasta Dam in 1945. For decades, the tribe fought for salmon enduring hunger strikes, broken treaties, lawsuits, police threats & empty government apologies, yet the winter-run Chinook salmon is all but extinct today & the largest waterway in California, the Sacramento River is insidiously polluted & almost entirely devoid of life.

Hope comes from unexpected sources. Through resurrecting an ancient war dance, the tribe re-discovered their salmon thriving halfway across the world, in glacier-fed rivers of New Zealand. This astonishing fact is proven by genetic testing & foretold by a 150 year old prophecy. Now, Chief Caleen & her son, Michael are on the frontlines of a historic struggle to bring our salmon back home, amidst the devastation of salmon runs collapsing globally from California, to Alaska, to Hokkaido, Japan, all-while over 157 species like bears, orcas, redwoods & humans depend on them for survival.

If successful, the tribe will spend months implementing the pilot program on a tiny stretch of the McCloud River, helping the salmon babies hatch & nurturing them to maturity. It is here, in the shady intimacy of the river, we are invited to witness a new friendship forming between fish & humans. As Michael & Caleen pass the responsibility of speaking up for the salmon to the youngest members of the tribe, we have an opportunity to unearth our mutual dependency & redefine what a meaningful relationship with nature looks like.