Smoke Signals 5
AUGUST 1,2013
Ynbe ceDelbiraties retiiu off ceded Dairods
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Photos by Michelle Alaimo
Tribal Council Secretary Toby McClary, left, and Tribal Council member
Cheryle A. Kennedy, right, gift a Pendleton blanket to Matt Benotsch,
Willamette Valley stewardship coordinator for The Nature Conservancy,
during the Ceded Lands Celebration held in the Governance Center Atrium on
Wednesday, July 17. The event recognized the acquisitions of the Rattlesnake
Butte and Chahalpam properties by the Tribe.
By Ron Karten
Smoke Signals staff writer
On Wednesday, July 17, the Tribe
rolled out stewardship agreements
that effectively place two areas of
the Tribe's ceded lands back under
Tribal control.
"This has been a long, long ef
fort," said Tribal Council member
Cheryle A. Kennedy during the
celebration held in the Governance
Center Atrium.
The first, Rattlesnake Butte, con
tains 100 acres of prairie habitat
and oak savannah and was cel
ebrated last September in nearby
Junction City. This success, that
at the time was called "monumen
tal," returned for a bow last month
with the Tribe's latest stewardship
agreement.
The Chahalpam property is lo
cated on the North Santiam River
in Marion County, just downstream
from Stayton in Santiam Kalapuya
territory. Though much of the
338-acre site has been farmed for
decades, about a third of it remains
riparian gallery forest, as it has for
millennia.
Purchased with Bonneville Power
Administration funding, with as
sistance from the Western Rivers
Conservancy, the property is val
ued at more than $3.5 million. The
Tribe also received several hundred
thousand dollars of Bonneville
Power funding for managing the
property.
"Equally, if not more significant,"
said Land and Culture Depart
ment Manager Jan Looking Wolf
Reibach, "is the value of recovering
our historical treaty lands for the
Tribal membership. This acquisi
tion will forever protect important
natural and cultural resources in
our ceded lands."
"Chahalpam," meaning "Place of
the Santiam Kalapuya," is within
the ancestral homelands of one of
the Grand Ronde Tribe's anteced
ent bands. Another feature of the
land is more than a mile of North
Santiam River frontage.
The conservation easement grant
ed to Bonneville Power by the Tribe
guarantees that the Tribe will man
age the property in perpetuity for
fish, wildlife and other conservation
values, with an emphasis on re
storing the land to a more natural,
indigenous condition.
Species benefiting from this
Tribal acquisition include spring
Chinook salmon, winter steelhead,
Pacific lamprey, Oregon chub and
red-legged frogs, and among trees,
the western red cedar and Oregon
ash.
Next, the Tribe will draft and
implement a management plan to
convert agricultural fields and an
existing home site into Native habi
tat. Natural Resources will take the
lead in maintaining the lands.
The Tribe's conservation hold
ings in its ceded lands now total
435 acres, said Reibach, and "this
total will certainly increase as the
Tribe pursues further conservation
projects in its ceded lands.
"We've been viewed as a defeated
people with no rights," said Kenne
dy, "but we always knew about our
homelands. Others did not. People
continue to think they have a right
to take land that is not theirs."
The Tribe ceded millions of acres,
Kennedy said, and "in those ceded
lands, the Tribe had control over
burial sites, rivers where we fished
and lands where we hunted."
The Tribe's strategic plan, she
said, envisions the Tribe continu
ing "to bring back land rich with
our culture."
"For thousands of years," said
Michael Karnosh, the Tribe's Ceded
Lands program manager and staff
lead for this project, "Tribes lived
quite prosperously on traditional
lands. They did not take from it.
They (continually) restored it.
There was actually a surplus of food
from these lands that the Tribes
used for trade."
As Native Americans suffered
over the last 150 years, Karnosh
said, so did habitats. Ninety-eight
percent of traditional oak savan
nahs have been replaced with farms
and buildings.
'The Willamette Valley," he said,
"is the fourth most endangered oak
savannah in the world. Third World
countries are doing a better (preser
vation) job than this nation is."
The Ceded Lands Acquisition
Team includes Reibach, Karnosh,
staff attorneys Ryan Sudbury and
Jennifer Biesack, Natural Resourc
es Department Manager Michael
Wilson, Hydrosystem Compliance
Specialist Lawrence Schwabe and
Tribal Realty Specialist Teresa
Clay. The Tribe's Public Affairs
and Legal departments also were
indispensable to the success of this
effort.
Kennedy called the Legal Depart
ment's efforts "the mainstay behind
this great effort," and also credited
Karnosh, Tribal Historian David
Lewis and Cultural Protection Pro
gram Manager Eirik Thorsgard.
Karnosh also credited Tribal
Engineering Manager Jesse White,
Facilities Maintenance Supervisor
Tyson Mercier, Cultural Education
and Outreach Program Manager
Kathy Cole and Volker Mell, Tribal
GIS coordinator.
Also making this possible was
a large coordinated effort by the
Tribe's Ceded Lands and Cultural
Protection programs along with
many other agencies public and
nonprofit: the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, Bureau of Land Man
agement, U.S. Forest Service, Or
egon Department of Environmental
Quality, Oregon Department of
Fish and Wildlife, North Santiam
Watershed Council, Nature Conser
vancy and Tribal Council.
Oregon Department of Fish and
Wildlife's Wildlife Mitigation Pro
gram funded the project through
Bonneville Power Administration.
"(The program) really relies on our
partners in the Willamette Valley
to make the program work," said
Bernadette Graham-Hudson, Pro
gram and Policy analyst for Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife.
"Today is about hope," said Kar
nosh. B
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Michael Karnosh, Tribal Ceded Lands program manager, speaks during
the Ceded Lands Celebration held in the Governance Center Atrium on
Wednesday, July 1 7.
Youth Center seeks
volunteers
The Tina Miller Community Center Thrift Store, 110 B. St., Willamina,
helps fund the after-school and weekend youth community center located
in the old Willamina High School gym.
The thrift store is seeking volunteers who can help run the store, in ad
dition to donated items and customers. The store accepts clothes, books,
knickknacks, etc., as donations. It is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday
through Saturday and closed Sunday and Monday.
Donations also can be left at the Wildwood Hotel and Restaurant in
Willamina. For more information on volunteering, call 503-876-7897.
The youth center and thrift store are nonprofit and 100 percent self
sustaining and volunteer-run. H
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