California tribe that lost 90% of land during Gold Rush to get site to serve as gateway to redwoods

By JULIE WATSON
Associated Press

The Yurok Tribe will be getting back a slice of its ancestral land dotted with redwoods and a key creek for salmon spawning. The tribe signed a memorandum of understanding Tuesday with California and the National Park Service that 125 acres near the tiny community of Orick in Humboldt County will be transferred to the Yurok in 2026 after completion of the restoration of salmon habitat. Officials say the tribe will be the first Native people to co-manage land returned to them with the National Park Service. The arrangement with the Redwood National and State Parks and Save the Redwoods League, a nonprofit, is part of a growing Land Back movement to return Indigenous homelands to the descendants of those who lived there for millennia before European settlers arrived.