Grant Gilkison had a dream of Karuk canoes returning to the Klamath River. This weekend, his dream will come true. Redwood News spoke to members of his family and the Karuk Tribe about this historic event.
Adrian Gilkison, Grant’s Mother: Well, my grandpa, who is long passed, always a canoe up and down where we live now because we didn’t have bridges or roads or anything. And he used it to cross the big river and walk up the hill. That was his way of transportation. i’m 88 and the youngest of eight kids. So my grandpa’s been gone a long, long time.
Maymi Preston-Donahue, Grant’s Neice: The Karuk people we don’t have any reservation, the Karuk rancheria was taken away so there’s a lot of unique barriers that we face in creating and getting wood for canoes
Crispen McAllister, Karuk Canoe Carver: It’s going decades to multi-generations now, the suppressive behavior without being allowed to go up and harvest these resources that we would use to produce things, canoes. There’s not that there wasn’t the knowledge in country to be able to make the canoes. We were just being held back from being able to do it. And that part is a pretty significant impact when generations are excluded from their own culture based on oversight from a different entity that we have no control over.
Charles Houston, Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous People: we now have the full green light and permits to go up and gather whatever, you know, wood that we need for, you know, housing structures that we want to build and also canoes. So, you know, Crispin and I have been chipping away at just going through that, you know, different legal loopholes that we have to go through. And we finally, you know, finally got that today at lunch. So I’m really excited about this.
Amber Shelton, Nature Rights Council: we have three canoes that are already underway as a culmination of the three separate weekend long workshops that we did in Orleans, Happy Camp and then Eureka. And so the Orleans Kenny was the one that’s been launched and it’s finished. These workshops were for a vision of the late Grant Gilkison, And, and he had this idea back in 2020, but he passed away just shortly after
Te-geen Albers-Gilkison, Grant’s Son: I’m really glad and lucky to be working on the project. And to continue Grant’s project. and that it’s going to be done and for the future generations
Sherlee Preston, Grant’s Sister: yeah, it feels good to help
Amber Shelton, Nature Rights Council: And it just so happened that by the time we were able to procure the shorter pine logs from the Six Rivers National Forest with the blessing of the tribe and go through that whole process, it was, you know, the spring and it happened to coincide with, you know, the world’s largest dam removal and restoration project.
Maymi Preston-Donahue, Grant’s Niece: I don’t feel like it was a coincidence. I feel like a lot of times when people talk about saving the environment and environmental ism, they forget that we as native people are part in this environment and that our land, our environment, it needs us. And when it’s sick, we’re sick. as Native people have more are able to take back being on their lands again and revitalizing our lands that it’s all part of our healing
Crispen McAllister, Karuk Canoe Carver: The ceremonial leaders have been so excited about the idea of being able to have a boat accessible that again, doesn’t have to be borrowed.
Sherlee Preston, Grant’s Sister: This generation is getting back to the way we used to live, closer to the way we used to live. That’s the only way we’re going to, you know, get out of this abuse of the environment.
Adrian Gilkison, Grant’s Mother: getting our own canoe is a really step in the right direction, and Grant’s eldest got to work on it, and I think that’s important.
