A California native tribe is standing their ground.
Members of Northern California’s Wailaki tribe say plans for the Great Redwood Trail — a 307-mile nature trail stretching from from the San Francisco Bay to Humboldt Bay, would allow tourists to walk right over the graves of their ancestors.
The project, which is 40% complete, was exempted from from the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA), which requires public agencies to notify and consult native tribes about projects that impact them, further upsetting the local tribe.
Wailkai tribe member Perry Lincoln says that when locals first heard of the trail a few years ago, after plans were well underway, they felt blindsided.
“You’re just kind of shoving it down our throats,” he told the LA Times.
The scenic trail is being built along the long-defunct Northwestern Pacific Railroad and the Eel River. State Sen. Mike McGuire has shown support for the trail.
“What this trail will do is open up some of the most spectacular landscapes on Earth,” McGuire told the LA Times. “Folks will be able to traverse past giant ancient redwoods to mighty rivers … through lush vineyards, golden rolling hills.”
Some environmental groups also support the trail, saying it will have a positive environmental impact on the area.
“It just is basically infeasible to imagine that this scale of restoration could happen” without the state handling it, Alicia Hamann, executive director of the nonprofit Friends of the Eel River told the newspaper.
The Pacific Northwestern Railroad closed in 1998 after severe El Niño storms impacted the railroad. After years of talk about a possible trail along the defunct railway, the Great Redwood Trail Agency, which controls the land along the railway, was created in 2021.
More than 1 million people walked, hiked or biked the southern segment of the trail last year, according to McGuire.
“I’m a big advocate for rail trails,” Bruce Silvey of the Humboldt Trails Council told the LA Times.. “They’re beautiful and they’re fun and they’re easy to ride. You can do 30 miles because they’re basically flat.” But not all officials are thrilled about the project. Steve Madrone, a Humboldt County supervisor, left the trail agency earlier this year, partly because of the project’s exemption from CEQA review.
“Think about the trauma that these tribes have experienced,” he told the LA Times. “That did not help remove that mistrust. It reinforced that mistrust.”
But ultimately, Madrone supports the trail, believing it will bring business to small towns along the route.
Elaine Hogan, executive director of the Great Redwood Trail Agency, told the LA Times that attempts to contact the tribe have been made, but Lincoln says he nor any tribe member he knows has heard anything.
The tribe, who do not live on their ancestral land, say they rarely have access to it themselves.
“We’re barely getting access to these areas ourselves, but we’re going to allow outside communities to have full access to these places?” Lincoln’s daughter Tisanche Warren told the LA Times. “That doesn’t seem fair.”
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