A Prayer for Salmon - The Spiritual Edge

In a peaceful protest, the Winnemem Wintu call out the U.S. government for its refusal to acknowledge the destruction caused by Shasta Dam. The protest at the Shasta Dam Visitor Center reveals the Winnemem Wintu’s ongoing reality. They are ignored and later a security guard threatens to forcibly remove them.

We accompany the Winnemem Wintu to sacred sites near the McCloud River. The federal government’s Shasta Dam and Reservoir Expansion Proposal threatens these sites and the Winnemem Wintu way of life.

We go to Shasta Dam and learn about the history behind its construction in the 1930s and 1940s. We hear from Chief Caleen Sisk about how the federal proposal to raise the dam another 18 and a half feet opens old wounds for the Winnemem Wintu and further threatens their tenuous survival.

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.

The Winnemem Wintu and supporters start a two-week Run4Salmon prayer to call salmon back to the waters above Shasta Dam. The Run follows the salmon’s migration path from the ocean to the mountains. It starts in the Bay Area where the Winnemem Wintu and supporters encounter environmental devastation first set in motion 200 years ago.

As the Run4Salmon continues to travel upstream, the Winnemem Wintu and supporters witness more obstacles faced by migrating salmon. Once a vast marshland, the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta was an important haven for juvenile salmon, but now is a gauntlet of human engineering. Chief Caleen Sisk stands up for salmon and water health at a bureaucratic meeting of Sacramento Valley water districts.

The Run4Salmon bikes through rural areas in the upper Sacramento Valley where Euro American settlers changed the land to better suit an agrarian economy. The Winnemem Wintu and supporters remember the indigenous people who were forcibly removed and killed. An apology in Redding for the genocide may be well intentioned, but Chief Caleen Sisk insists action must accompany words.

At a sacred spring high up on Mt. Shasta, the Winnemem Wintu recount the beginnings of the world when salmon gave up their voices so that humans could speak. They now feel a special obligation to defend salmon in return for this gift. A biologist details Chinook salmon’s catastrophic decline since the arrival of Euro-American settlers to California and the Northwest.

When plans for the Shasta Dam Enlargement Project accelerate, the Winnemem Wintu decide to hold a war dance, their first in more than 100 years. Members of the community dream into existence songs, dances and regalia. News of the ceremony, and the tribe that declared war against the U.S. government on top of Shasta Dam, goes around the world. That leads to an unexpected message from Down Under.

The Winnemem Wintu board a plane bound for Christchurch, New Zealand. With the help of the Maori people, they hold a ceremony on the Rikkaia River and sing to the salmon there. Once back in the United States, Chief Caleen Sisk meets with every government agency she can to push the idea of bringing the New Zealand salmon back home.

Spurred by drought, the U.S. National Marine Fisheries Service accelerates a plan to restore winter-run Chinook salmon to the McCloud River. Chief Caleen Sisk weighs whether to collaborate with federal officials. Salmon spotted on Dry Creek for the first time in 30 years are celebrated as an answer to the Winnemem Wintu’s Run4Salmon prayer.

A Prayer for Salmon is a new audio documentary series from The Spiritual Edge podcast that tells the story of the Winnemem Wintu people and their clash with one of California’s most important infrastructure sites: Shasta Dam.