Forests Are Indigenous Resources

On exhibit in the Mill Building in Paul Bunyan’s Forest Camp

Paul Bunyan’s Forest Camp is a place to explore all aspects of the forest, including the pre-colonial Indigenous uses of the forests right outside our doors. Turtle Bay is in two different Wintu territories, Elpom on the south side of the Sacramento River and Dawpom on the north side. People lived here for millennia before Euro-Americans arrived at this bend in the river. 

Today, everyone is dependent on forest plants to provide many of the raw materials for the manufactured products we use every day. Everything from lumber to paper to cancer treatments comes from our local forests. Now, imagine what it would be like to rely on local plants for not just food but nearly everything you to need to live and to thrive. Using Indigenous belongings from Turtle Bay’s Permanent Collection, this exhibition demonstrates how some of our local native plants are used to create the tools of everyday life.

Prior to Euro-American colonization in the 1840s, the Wintu people lived throughout western Shasta and Trinity counties; a land of diverse ecosystems including many types of forests. While the Wintu did trade for raw materials that are not available locally, most of the plant resources they used were harvested in the region. Two hundred years ago, the Wintu people here at Turtle Bay lived in a riparian forest, an oak savanna, and chapparal, but they were not limited to these resources. They used their deep knowledge of regional ecosystems to harvest plants seasonally from a larger territory. For example, the bear grass used in basket-making does not grow at this elevation and must be harvested at higher elevations.

This territory around Turtle Bay looks very different today. Early post-colonial resource extraction and processing, such as mining, copper smelting, unsustainable logging practices, and even farming and ranching rapidly changed the landscape. We know from the historical record that fumes from copper smelting killed many of the confers in and around Redding. Pollen samples from the McConnell Arboretum and Gardens suggest that there were more conifers, including the incense cedars used for homes, on the surrounding hills in prehistory. Euro-American concepts of land ownership also disrupted Wintu territory and their seasonal round, forever changing the land and the people.