California redwoods gateway is returned to Indigenous tribe

Now, as the land heals from the scars of a long-running lumber mill, it has been returned to its original stewards, who will operate it as a public gateway to Redwood National and State Parks about 50 miles south of the Oregon border.

Save the Redwoods League in June conveyed the 125-acre property to the Yurok Tribe following a yearslong project to restore the degraded industrial site to a diverse riparian habitat. It opens to the public Saturday as ‘O Rew Redwoods Gateway, which features interpretive exhibits and trails leading to old-growth redwood groves.

The announcement comes as California’s most populous Indigenous nation works to reclaim its homelands, a mission inscribed in its constitution. The Yurok Tribe has so far regained 60,000 acres — about 12% — of its 500,000-acre ancestral territory, which stretches along the North Coast and the Klamath River, according to a spokesperson. The majority was returned in a series of transactions that culminated last year in what is thought to be the largest “land back” deal in state history.

The gateway’s ‘O Rew name doesn’t have a direct translation in English, said Rosie Clayburn, director of the Yurok Tribe’s Cultural Resources Department. The land is known as a place where trails come together, she said. It sits at the confluence of Prairie Creek and Redwood Creek, important fish-bearing streams where Yurok people once caught steelhead and salmon.

But the Yurok lost 90% of their land, including ‘O Rew, during the Gold Rush. Although many families stayed — Clayburn calls it an “attempted colonization” — they endured massacres, boarding schools and other atrocities as invaders sought to extract abundant stores of salmon and old-growth coast redwoods.

Some of those trees were milled at ‘O Rew when it operated as the Orick Mill for more than 50 years, starting in 1954.