The Spiritual Edge The Spiritual Edge

We apologize — the previously uploaded Chapter 11 has an audio glitch. It's now been corrected. To make sure everyone can access the corrected audio, we are uploading it again, here. 

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.

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.

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.

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.  

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.  

In Part III, we follow the Winnemem Wintu's fight to return salmon to their river, the McCloud. That fight is predicated on strong spiritual and cultural ties to the fish. In the old days, they lit fires alongside the river to help them find their way. But with salmon no longer swimming in the McCloud River, the Winnemem Wintu feel a moral and spiritual obligation to bring them back. The journey is full of ups and downs and includes war dances. border crossings. trucks carrying fish. and ultimately, to everyone’s surprise, salmon eggs hatching in the McCloud River for the first time in about 80 years.