In the tribe’s creation story, the Nur were the first to speak. But when they saw that humans would need guidance, they gave their voice to the people—so that humans could always speak for them and take care of them and all life on Earth. This spiritual relationship of kinship and care remains the foundation of Winnemem Wintu life. As the Elders say: when the salmon disappear, so too will the people, for their destinies are interwoven in the same flow of life and water.
The Nur—the Chinook salmon—are the largest of all Pacific salmon species, sometimes growing more than four feet long and weighing up to 120 pounds. The winter-run population is especially rare: unlike other salmon that spawn in autumn, these Nur return to freshwater in winter and spawn in late spring or early summer, depending on the cold, clear waters of the McCloud, Pit, and upper Sacramento Rivers. Their eggs and young can survive only where water temperatures remain below 56°F (13°C), a condition once naturally sustained by the sacred mountain springs of the Winnemem homeland.
That balance was broken in 1945 when Shasta Dam flooded the tribe’s villages and ceremonial sites, blocking the Nur from reaching their spawning waters. Once numbering in the hundreds of thousands, the winter-run Chinook dwindled to near extinction. Today they are listed as endangered under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, threatened by warming rivers, habitat loss, and altered water flows.
Yet the Nur continue to embody resilience and generosity. As an anadromous species, they journey from mountain streams to the Pacific Ocean, and then back again—passing through San Francisco Bay and the Delta, swimming hundreds of miles to complete their sacred migration. In doing so, they carry ocean nutrients inland. When they die after spawning, their bodies feed forests, soils, insects, and countless other species. Scientists have found salmon nutrients in redwoods, mosses, and wildflowers hundreds of miles from the sea. Their abundance once nourished orcas, humpback, and blue whales—giants of the ocean who follow salmon migrations along the coast. The Nur are a living thread that binds mountains to sea, forests to whales, and people to the Earth itself.
Despite generations of loss, the Winnemem Wintu have never forgotten their sacred relatives. Guided by Chief and Spiritual Leader Caleen Sisk, the tribe created Run4Salmon—a 300-mile journey of prayer, ceremony, and renewal that retraces the Nur’s ancestral migration from the Pacific Ocean, through San Francisco Bay, the Delta, and the Sacramento River, to the McCloud. Each year, participants walk, cycle, canoe, and ride horses, offering songs, cleaning rivers, and teaching that healing the Earth begins with healing relationships—with water, with spirit, and with the living world. Run4Salmon is not a protest; it is a living prayer for the Nur’s return and a reaffirmation of the ancient spiritual relationship that teaches humans to live as guardians of the waters.
In a remarkable turn of fate, the Winnemem Wintu discovered that descendants of their original McCloud River Nur still live in Aotearoa (New Zealand), where eggs were sent more than a century ago. The tribe dreams of bringing these salmon home—a “salmon repatriation” that would reunite long-separated relatives across the ocean, restoring both a species and a spiritual relationship that has never been forgotten.
Even the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), one of the United States’ leading scientific institutions, is deeply moved by the Winnemem Wintu’s enduring bond with the Nur. NOAA scientists now work alongside the tribe to restore cold-water habitats and return winter-run Chinook eggs to the McCloud River. The agency has recognized that “the Winnemem Wintu are original salmon stewards,” whose millennia of care, observation, and ceremony hold a depth of understanding that humbles modern science. In this collaboration, western science bows in respect to ancestral wisdom—acknowledging that this spiritual relationship between people and salmon carries lessons essential to restoring balance on Earth.