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An elder remembers indigenous life back before Shasta Dam was built. The legality of the proposal to raise Shasta Dam is considered. Meanwhile, Chief Caleen Sisk considers a new strategy to fight back: turning an adversary — the Westlands Water District — into an ally. Read More
“For us, taking care of each other, taking care of the village, making sure that people have what they need is important. But to sit on millions of dollars, it would be silly. I couldn’t even imagine me living at the village sitting on a million dollars and not doing anything, but just more destruction.”
—Caleen Sisk, Spiritual and Hereditary Leader of the Winnemem Wintu
A Prayer for Salmon is an 11 part audio documentary series from KALW’s The Spiritual Edge that tells the story of the Winnemem Wintu people and their clash with Northern California’s Shasta Dam. The dam’s construction turned California into an agricultural powerhouse. It also left the Winnemem Wintu displaced and without say over their land. The series details their fight to resist a proposed Shasta Dam Enlargement Project. It also highlights the Winnemem Wintu’s aspirations to return Chinook salmon to their homeland on the McCloud River, a major tributary of the dam.
