Women of the Hoopa Valley Tribal Community

In 2021, American Farmland Trust's Women for the Land Initiative began a partnership with the Klamath Trinity Resource Conservation District, based in the Hoopa Valley Tribal Community. This unique collaboration has enabled the Women for the Land program, along with other resource providers from government agencies and non-profits, to host Learning Circles with women food producers and land stewards in Hoopa. As a result, Indigenous producers and land managers are better poised to access services and support.

This Story Map is a culmination of the first three years of the partnership. Told from the perspective of women in Hoopa, it provides a brief history of their tribe's foodways and land-based ethics. It highlights how Hoopa women and their families have been resilient throughout shocks to their food system over the past 170 years, and how they are embracing the power of growing crops, traditional food gathering, preserving, educating youth, and forging creative partnerships, with AFT and others, to create healthy futures on their land.

Food is at the heart of communities everywhere. In Hoopa, we joke “cook it and they will come.” Or gather it, fish for it, grow it! Not long ago, we were self-sufficient, with an abundant, healthy food system based on salmon from the river and acorns from carefully tended groves of tan oak trees. There have been disruptions along the way, including those that brought agriculture to us. But salmon and acorns remain staple foods at the center of our Food Sovereignty.

Read on to learn how families of the Hoopa Valley Tribe are carrying on the resilience of our elders to provide food for our community now and generations to come.

Hoopa Valley Reservation Location

Historic Context

There have been some sad and hungry times. But ever resourceful, we have adapted.

Growing Food

Raising Livestock

Teaching Kids

Fishing

Gathering and Processing Wild Foods

Conclusions