Marc Dadigan

This slideshow depicts the Winnemem’s trip to New Zealand this March to sing and atone to the salmon on the Rakaia River. The salmon are descended from the fish that once swam in the McCloud River, on whose shores the tribe lived before the Shasta Dam was built during World War II.

The slideshow is narrated by [...]

I found this NPR interview with Lynda Lovejoy, a New Mexico state senator who potentially could be the Navajo nation’s first female president, to be particularly fascinating, mostly for what wasn’t discussed.

Lovejoy explained how she, like Hillary Clinton did during her presidential campaign, has encountered some sexism and antiquated ideas about women’s roles during her [...]

Coleman is the only federal hatchery operated in California, and it’s also the closest to Tuiimyali, the Winnemem’s village.  Established in 1942, it was meant to help mitigate the effects of the Shasta Dam on the California salmon populations, but, like many hatcheries, it’s success has been extremely limited.

(Ironically, the tribe the dam most devastated, the [...]

The Shasta Dam, 600 feet tall, destroyed the McCloud salmon runs when it was built during World War II

“Why don’t they understand what keeps the rivers clean?”

Caleen, the spiritual leader of the Winnemem Wintu, asked me this last night as she drove us back to her village outside Redding.

We were returning from Sacramento where [...]

This Monday, I accompanied Caleen Sisk-Franco and her husband Mark Franco  (the Winnemem chief and headman respectively) to the University of Oregon’s Indigenous Solidarity Day, which was organized as an alternative to Columbus Day.

America is uniquely talented at bowdlerizing history so it more closely resembles myth, and the celebration of Columbus is one of the shining [...]