By JULIE WATSON
California’s Yurok Tribe, which had 90% of its territory taken from it during the Gold Rush of the mid-1800s, will be getting a slice of its land back to serve as a new gateway to Redwood National and State Parks visited by 1 million people a year.
The Yurok will be the first Native people to manage tribal land with the National Park Service under a historic memorandum of understanding signed Tuesday by the tribe, Redwood National and State Parks and the nonprofit Save the Redwoods League.
The agreement “starts the process of changing the narrative about how, by whom and for whom we steward natural lands,” Sam Hodder, president and CEO of Save the Redwoods League, said in a statement.
The tribe will take ownership in 2026 of 125 acres near the tiny Northern California community of Orick in Humboldt County after restoration of a local tributary, Prairie Creek, is complete under the deal. The site will introduce visitors to Yurok customs, culture and history, the tribe said.
The area is home to the world’s tallest trees — some reaching more than 350 feet. It’s about a mile from the Pacific coast and adjacent to the Redwood National and State Parks, which includes one national park and three California state parks totaling nearly 132,000 acres.
The return of the land — named ’O Rew in the Yurok Language — more than a century after it was stolen from California’s largest tribe — is proof of the “sheer will and perseverance of the Yurok people,” said Rosie Clayburn, the tribe’s cultural resources director. “We kind of don’t give up.”
For the tribe, redwoods are considered living beings and traditionally only fallen trees have been used to build their homes and canoes.
“As the original stewards of this land, we look forward to working together with the Redwood National and State Parks to manage it,” Clayburn said. “This is work that we’ve always done, and continued to fight for, but I feel like the…
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