Winnemem Wintu

Since November 2021, in tandem with our movement collaborators at the Sustainable Economies Law Center, we have been providing real estate strategy support for the long term project of rematriating the lands of the Winnemem Wintu in the area currently known as Shasta County, CA.

This support stands in solidarity with the vision and spiritual leadership of Chief Caleen Sisk, the restoration of the waterways of the salmon, and the lifeways of the Winnemem People. With great reverence and honor, we navigate the current legal fiction of private property in solidarity with the cosmology of the Winnemem Wintu as expressed in an unbroken oral tradition. In Fall 2023, 1170 acres were successfully rematriated to the Winnemem Wintu! Check out the Vox article for more details.

The Winnemem Wintu are indigenous people whose identity and sacred responsibilities are deeply connected to salmon and the waters flowing from Mount Shasta. Through Sawalmem (meaning "Sacred Water"), an unincorporated association with church status, they are rematriating their ancestral homelands and governing themselves according to their traditional cultural practices and lifeways.

In solidarity with the Winnemem Wintu organizers, legal team, fundraisers, and advisors, we are honored to provide ongoing real estate strategy accompaniment in different contexts, including off-market and on-market real estate transactions, a probate process, and support for a significant land re-acquisition along the McCloud River.