Ancestral Guard
The Ancestral Guard is run by young members of the Yurok tribe, and intends to inspire a “restorative revolution” in its future generations through a rekindling and transmittal of traditional Yurok fishing practices. Their work involves both a reaffirming of the rights of all Indigenous peoples to continue their traditionally sustainable hunting practices and a resistance to the overfishing of settlers and the fishing industry. Another major component of the work done by the ancestral guard is the community’s focus on keeping Yurok youth from straying down paths of substance abuse and reckless behavior, a problem that has emerged in several Native communities as a coping mechanism for the ongoing traumas of settler colonialism. In Gather, one member of the guard refers to Yurok people as “salmon people,” saying that if the salmon disappear then they will too. The guard understands their struggle for cultural continuance as bound up in the struggle for restoration of salmon populations.