The Story of the Modoc Nation: What Happens When Tribe Take Back Control of Their Ancestral Lands?

And I think this applies across Indian country really anywhere you go is that you're walking on ground that's been occupied since time immemorial and especially at the lava beds but in a lot of places you're walking on the bones of people's ancestors it's still sacred it's you know you it's like going into a church you weren't invited to or something and you're asked to go there to connect and learn the story so history doesn't repeat itself. Today we sit down with Ken Sandusky and Brian Herbert with the Modoc Nation, a Native American tribe whose ancestral homelands span northeast California and southeast Oregon. In this conversation we explore the Modoc Nation's deep roots stretching back thousands of years. The legacy of the Modoc War, Captain Jack and the as well as the ongoing work to restore ancestral lands while looking ahead at what it takes to preserve both the landscape and the stories it holds. This is Bay Area Innovators and I'm your host Steve Vispas. Ken and Brian welcome to Bay Area Innovators. Hello. Well great to have you here so tell us you know you are in the field you can see Mount Shasta in the background there and give us the first question is where are you right now give us a sense of where you are. Yeah we're in a very northeastern Siskiyou County at Lower Klamath Lake Wildlife Refuge. You can't see much of the lake from this side because it goes dry during drought. We're right at the base of Sheepy Ridge and along the Applegate Trail actually sitting right on the edge of what used to be the Applegate Trail at Sheepy Ridge. Also I'd like to add this is the heart of the Gabatwas Band of Modocs. This is their ancestral territory right here where we're sitting. Fantastic so we will talk about the Modoc Nation and how it's unique and all the stories and you know we can get as much information as we can but first Ken tell us a bit about your story. So you started in the forest service and then you moved to work full-time for the Modoc Nation. Tell us a bit about your background. How did you make that change? Why did you make that change? Yeah well I'm enrolled Oklahoma Choctaw. My grandma came out from Oklahoma. I'm descended from at least three Trail of Tears survivors. I was born on Lower Klamath Lake. Grew up in a neighborhood on a street called Riverside Drive right along the Klamath River on the opposite bank of Lower Klamath Lake from here. Went to school at Oregon Institute of Technology and was recruited into the student career experience program with the Forest Service. I was a intern during college and then converted to a full-time position at Mount St. Helens. The Giverpincho National Forest kind of moved around in Oregon and Washington and ended up on the Modoc National Forest which is just adjacent. You can see it in the background here. Worked for seven years as the public affairs staff officer and tribal liaison for the Modoc National Forest and then was recruited into the service of the Modoc Nation during my interactions with them as tribal liaison for the Forest Service. They needed a homelands director to oversee their properties here to facilitate government-to-government relationships and generally just advocate for the Modoc Nation's rights and just reconnection with their homelands. At the time when they hired me it was just short of 150 years. Early on in my career with the Modoc Nations commemorated the 150th anniversary of their removal after the end of the Modoc War and then have since then just been working to build the land base and restore the homelands and the Modoc Nation's reconnection to them. We'll definitely talk more about the Modoc War from 1870 to 1873 and Captain Jack and the stronghold and all of that but I want to ask Brian. Brian how about you? You grew up, you are a Modoc and there's not many of you over there but you're one of them. Tell us a little bit about you grew up in the area. You know anything that you want to tell us about yourself? Great question. You know I am a local Modoc and Paiute enrolled Klamath tribal member but I represent the Modoc Nation out here in the homeland. Really the thing that got caught my attention was the work that they were doing out here in the homeland. They bought some property and was looking to start up a buffalo ranch and do some restoration work in the homelands and really you know at that time I was pushing you know 50 years old and you know I let a lot of things go by the wayside but I saw the article in the paper and I knew automatically that I had to reach out to Ken you know to to ask questions and and see what this project was about you know and gosh you know we met up here at the ranch and that day I left Ken goes well I'll get with council and I'll get back to you. The next day or it might have been two days after but Ken called me up because I can get you on part-time and I was a great you know I mean I I got to be a part of this team. I got to be a part of this project. I got to you know do do the work that's not being done out here that that this landscape has been really screaming for you know restoration type work and all the thing that entails you know getting water back on the landscape and and four years later here I am full-time employee you know working under Ken as the homelands manager you know I I couldn't ask for a better life I couldn't ask for a better a better spot where I'm at and the people I work for I mean they're my relatives learned learned a couple years back doing my genealogy that I am directly related to not only chief of the Modoc nation but another council member Chief Berkey Bile and Councilwoman Jessica Mullen and it's just you know just to realize that they are they are my relations out there as the same as here locally and just means a lot to me to to represent them out here and do this work for them in the homelands. Got it now Ken you are managing 4,000 acres or more of ranch land over there in the Modoc county and Siskiyou county give us a bit of a sense what are your goals what are you trying to achieve you talk about restoring so you're purchasing land and then you're restoring tell us more about exactly what you're you're trying to do. Sure the tribe had been purchasing parcels of very very rural remote land within the homelands around lower Klamath lake since about 2017. When they made their most recent purchase it was a large old ranch that needed a lot of cleanup to begin with a lot of old ranch trash just baling twine and kind of overgrazed landscape a lot of weeds that are coming in we need to work on soil health and things like that. Also in addition to the need to manage the land they just needed someone around here looking after their interest setting up meetings and things like that. We also have written a lot of grants and one of those grants was for the return of an additional 850 plus acres. We're working with California Department of Fish and Wildlife on another land return and that will put us in total up over 5,000 acres. Of course with these old ranch lands the buildings the infrastructure roads irrigation equipment all need attention and maintenance. We are also working on a co-stewardship on a landscape scale with the surrounding federal agencies a big co-stewardship project with the U.S. Forest Service to about 40,000 acres of federal lands. We're also surrounded we're on the Lower Klamath Wildlife Refuge now just adjacent to some of the properties the Modoc Nation owns so we're very much interested in partnering with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in managing these neighboring lands to the Modoc Nation bee lands and the Bureau of Land Management also has a very important holding the barn top grazing allotment that we are managing in co-stewardship with the Modoc Nation lands. So for our audience we can see Mount Shasta I would say in the back there I would say it's maybe 40-50 miles away we'll probably look on the map more careful to see exactly how far it is but it's amazing how far it is and how clear you can see it. The next question is where are the funds coming from is it grants or how how is the tribe able to purchase all this land what is it being given back or what's the logistics there? Well all the the bulk of the properties were all purchased with the Modoc Nation's money they are a very economically active small tribe of course they have a one casino in Miami, Oklahoma but dozens of other businesses across the country everything from construction to manufacturing you know a lot of government partnerships and contracts things like that so we're just a small part of a much larger economic engine and most of the funds our salaries all all the purchases up until just recently were from money that the tribe made in their their economic activities. We have recently been awarded a couple of large grants so the first big grant was from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation under the America the beautiful legislation and that was to do a environmental analysis in the mountain dome management area which is right behind us here it's a 39,000 acre analysis area to do sage step restoration with the removal of healthy wildfire the juniper encroachment invasive grasses and other plants have created a bad fuels regime we'll get into that I think later the other big grant that we got was from the California Tribal Nature Based Solutions funding and that was a land return grant from the state we had originally proposed a 17 acre 1,700 acre land return purchase but most of that got bought out from under us while we were putting the grant together so we ended up with just 850 acre purchase it's a piece of land almost just like what you see out here a old piece of lake bed it used to be a duck hunting club but it was just unable to get water for a very long time after the lake was drained a long time ago they figured out you know they have irrigation infrastructure to get water around and they were able to put water on that on these old duck clubs for a long time and then with the Endangered Species Act concerns recently there's just not been enough water to keep these areas wet so that we're that's the restoration the wetland restoration is occurring on the land recently purchased with funding from the California Natural Resources Agency under their Tribal Nature Based Solutions program now the Modoc Nation the Modoc tribe goes back I've looked it up 14,000 years there's documentation that it goes back that much and that is just so amazing for a country as young as we think the United States is 14,000 years can you either one of you either Brian or Ken can you give us a sense of what would you say is unique about the Modoc Nation well you know for me that's pretty easy we're we're standing on the edge of lower Klamath Lake and some of the archaeology around here is showing shown a long time ago that the Modocs developed their own lake culture or the people of the Klamath Basin developed a lake culture independent of the Great Basin lake cultures and so they they lived on and around these shallow areas as Lake Modoc receded you know since the last ice age it left a footprint of multiple large shallow inland seas with very rich resources fish and other wetland related resources they're all interconnected by this high desert plateau with just beautiful little valleys and rock canyons and springs and it's just a very in one sense austere landscape but then punctuated with these lakes and riparian areas replete with natural resources it's in the the middle of three of the identified cultural groups in the area and so the archaeology and ethnology shows a mixing of the three different the northern California the Columbia Basin and the high desert regions I'm not an expert on those on those ethnologies but I do know that the Modoc the people of the Klamath Basin represent a commingling of those three large ethnic groups I could go on about the things that make Modoc and Modoc people and their homelands unique but it's all based in just this amazing piece of land that they stewarded since creation Brian anything you want to add about what's what's unique about your your tribe and your ancestry and also in addition to that maybe you can talk about the ancestral run that's something that the Modoc nations has been organized in the past maybe you can talk about the resiliency that the Modoc people had resiliency meaning that you know under you know they they were up against they were up against it pretty much before the war during the war and after the war second chief Gina McGehee tells a great story I don't want to butcher it so I'm not going to get into it but she tells a great story about how they survived and and through through all the hardships that were were put in front of them but you know resiliency is a big word that that comes to my mind you know when it comes to talking about the Modoc people here and my ancestors and what they endured and had to go through the ancestral run so that is uh very special very powerful very meaningful to not only the the people that are joining the run the Modoc people and the tribal people that that come to join in that run but this landscape itself needs needs that run you know just just to have them footprints on the ground you know from from the runners you know when they carry them staffs they're they're putting prayers on the ground you know at the same time and Monica Super is the the lady her and her family are the ones that put this run on every year Modoc Nation does a great job in in uh bringing bringing membership out to be able to be a part of that run every year it happens in October usually the second week in October it's it's just a route that Monica chooses it comes to her she goes out on the landscape and how that land speaks to her is amazing that's how she maps that run out for that for that year is is how that land wants to tell her and speak to her and get that run put together so we won't know where the run is this year until uh Monica gives us a heads up on on the run route then we'll go map the run route for the runners and stuff and uh it's an amazing journey it's amazing to attend like I said it's very powerful very meaningful I think her ultimate goal is to at some point make the run from Fort Klamath where the Modocs got sent some of them were hung some of our leaders were hung but then they shipped the rest of the Modocs that were part of that renegade band of Modoc they they loaded them up on the rail cars and made the trip from Fort Klamath to Oklahoma Indian Territory where they now reside so Monica wants to make that run from Fort Klamath to Oklahoma wow wow that's amazing now let's talk more about the the Modoc war because there was uh there was a big deal so it was a Captain Jack and there was a stronghold in that area and the U.S. Army I guess attacked and then Captain Jack was able to hold them for like months right and can you tell us about more of that story and and and the story and then the teachings and lessons that you think the Modoc Nation got from that when uh when the Applegate Trail came through the Modoc homelands it had a very deep impact from just the first days because it went right through some very critical hunting and gathering grounds when was that when was that so the 1860s era you know obviously 1849 yeah there was that big gold rush push there was a few folks coming before during and then directly after that the war began in that 1872 1873 and then 1874 was the was the violent removal Brian mentioned the Modoc people had been asked to during the the treaty of 1864 to move up to the Klamath reservation and live on Klamath tribes lands and that didn't go really well for Captain Jack's band they tried twice to move up there and live at at peace and make a the federal government took a long time to ratify the treaty and was not providing the supplies and protection that the Modoc people needed to exist on Klamath tribes land and so Captain Jack not he didn't represent all the Modocs but he led his band back to the and that's what led to the war there was a letter from uh sent to the local army leader who that said bring them back to the reservation peaceful if you can but by force if you must and that was a basically a letter to go to war for the local uh farmers here and you know the the local militia type folks as well as the the U.S. army they went to Captain Jack's camp uh one night and were there in the morning at first light demanding their guns and and that they come with them back to the reservation they didn't trust the army at that point they'd been burned one too many times and they they were willing to go back but it just got violent due to some actions of individuals who didn't want to see a peaceful outcome and that kicked off the war the first battle there it was much more like a a you know a secret attack a surprise attack uh but they the people who survived that the Modocs who survived that got in their boats and head across the lake they were on the north end of Tule Lake and the lava beds the Captain Jack strongholds at the south end of Tule Lake most of the Modoc people who held out at the stronghold paddled across the lake after that first battle uh there were uh four Modoc men who went around the lake and uh killed men who had uh taken part in the in the first battle they had the Modocs had went around to their neighbors and asked them to stay out of whatever may come uh and some of them didn't do what was asked of them they came and participated in the battle uh and then the the most some of those Modocs they thought you know that was all part of the war now but they they didn't kill any women or children even at that time that Modocs have always uh you know avoided some of the nasty tactics that the army and settlers pioneers had used against them they always took the high road as even at that last opportunity they didn't kill the women or children that they came across they all ended up down at the stronghold and really held out over that next winter and into the following year against really what most people call the full might of the U.S. Army they thought the army folks thought they would be able to run the Modocs out of those lava beds very quickly they soon found that they weren't going to be able to do that there was a lot of loss especially among the private local residents the volunteer forces who left their guns behind on the battlefield and things like that but eventually they were able to cut the Modocs off from their water source and when that happened the Modoc people Captain Jack's band had a plan they just disappeared into the lava flows the army didn't know where they went and then that next battle was the last kind of big battle that the Modocs won when a search party was resting and they got caught by surprise by the Modocs who at the end of that battle they one of them stood up and said we don't want to kill you all the day so even at that point they could have inflicted greater losses to the U.S. Army but chose to let the survivors leave after the battle was had been won it wasn't soon after that where they just they lost the next battle and then disbanded and there was a bunch there was some people who helped the army find Captain Jack and the other leaders and that's what led to their capture and the ultimate hanging and violent removal on cattle cars to Oklahoma. To Oklahoma yeah of course now can you can you describe to us what what is it like what is it like for you and and Brian to stand around the trenches at the stronghold or to be around Captain Jack's cave just to be that area what what does it feel like what what feelings come to you when when you are there? Well I think my first feeling when I when I'm there or in that in the vicinity you know I mean is pride pride you know pride of my people pride for them fighting you know for what they believed in and and what they stood for as as Modoc people you know they they fought they fought tooth and nail and they fought hard um you know and to say that they're not fighters I don't think anybody says that I don't think that can be an argument but you know I I think that's the first thing that comes to my mind you know especially when I'm out there on that at the lava bed there and you know and you take you take that walk around you know you you come across Captain Jack's cave you come across you know the goat there's a circle there they had where they held ghost dance and stuff like that and you know it's very powerful out there and you know to be a part of that and enjoy it is is is awesome you know and and I just can't I I and I got it in my backyard I I just can't believe that you know I'm able to access that every day and and I just hope that some of the the Modoc Nation membership can come out here and and feel that same feeling that I do when I when I visit them lava beds and and just any any site out here in the homelands is I feel that same way like out here where we're at today I you know there's a couple areas out here that that are very special to me just for the fact that we know those are all cremation burial sites and and to get them protected is you know uh a top priority for us as tribal people and and to know that they're out here and that they're unprotected and and the way this landscape looks is doing a lot a lot of damage to them unprotected sites you know it means a lot you know and and to sit out here I feel that sense of pride you know every time I come out here so how many Modoc survived the the war yeah the I think that it was 133 I believe was what was uh kind of remaining after what what who was captured um I don't have the exact numbers but that's about what they put on the cattle cars to send out to Oklahoma it was a very difficult trip but they all made it to the first stop at Baxter Springs or the the place where they got off the train and then um it there was disease they they had to build their own quarters once they finally found them a place in Indian Territory uh you know there was the Quaker ring I won't get into that but we thought we could trust the Quakers and that wasn't the case in Indian Territory they really took advantage of us forcefully removed tribes and that led to a lot of disease and malnutrition and at one point they were down to I think 62 total survivors before they started rebuilding and that's what Brian mentioned about Second Chief McGahee what she says is those survivors they were all really just the kids some of them had been here for the war but you know didn't have a really great memory of it and many of them had been born in Indian Territory by the time that they had had that level of attrition and so it was about 62 at its lowest and then rebuilding from there and they're at about 365 today now looking forward what are some of the priorities for the Modoc Nation and also for for you Brian especially and Ken what would make you happiest to see you know you talk about restoration of the land but what would make you you know most content as far as the land that as far as your your nation I'm gonna I'm gonna start that you know there's a lot of Modoc people who are not Modoc Nation members and I think one of our biggest goals is to benefit all Modoc people so the work we do is to reconnect the Modoc Nation but in in its essence it is to address the disappropriation that accompanied the genocide and the ecocide the Modoc people were removed from this landscape because it was destined to be or it became a very modified landscape you know you you see the dry lake bed behind us but what you don't see are the ditches the holes through the mountains the the dewatering on a landscape scale that occurred after their removal and so for us to be able to bring back some of what was sacrificed for the great agricultural production that we have in the Klamath Basin to balance what was sacrificed for that you know it's it's a matter of national security to be able to grow a lot of food and we have some of the best soils in the nation here because they are drained lake beds but a lot was sacrificed for that value and so we find uh ourselves often like Brian mentioned earlier advocating for the microclimatic benefits of water on the landscape to provide a landscape an ecosystem that the ancestors would recognize as we try to lay them back to rest in different areas and and landscapes to protect the ancestral resources like to have water on the landscape so that there's not erosion that just has those resources blowing away even the petroglyphs the dust that blows off the lakes can erase those through erosion. Can you explain a little bit how how what was sacrificed when you said you the yeah what was I mentioned you know as Lake Modoc receded it left behind a very just a bountiful wetland environment shallow large water bodies the I always say the Klamath Basin was basically drought and flood proof because of the giant flood plains and choke points on the river that stored and filtered immense amounts of water when it was available and then released it over time both underground in through evapotranspiration through infiltration and through the choke points on the river to really level out the swings that we see now where we're diverting a lot of always diverting the flood waters away from these giant flood plains that would have naturally stored filtered and fed that water back into the system. You're talking about the dam right? Yeah well no the dams were separate this is largely about the levees that disconnect the waterways and dry out the farmland that keep the water from flowing into Tule Lake it shunts the water out to the river during flood during times when nature would have stored that water in the upper basin now we just divert it into the river and keep you know never let it build up like it did naturally before those changes that all is the high level thought around microclimate and ecologic integrity but everything underneath that is just as important about the unavailability of the traditional cultural resources first foods and medicines and just the you know ability of MODOC people to do MODOC things on MODOC land that there's not a lot of upper Klamath Lake retains a lot of that natural character but lower Klamath, Tule Lake, Goose Lake, Clear Lake the lakes that the MODOC centered their world around they don't it just doesn't have that same uh remaining character where those traditional cultural practices can be maintained so we're looking for postage stamp restorations that can lead to something bigger hopefully in the future but we take what we can get now so we can create a place where is owned by the MODOC nation where MODOC people can go and harvest those materials practice their traditional cultural rights and and just kind of be MODOCs on MODOC land a lot of that goes on up up on the reservation all that uh that has been maintained that that heritage and culture is strong up there but that's not on the MODOC land and it's not the MODOC nation doing that so that's our ultimate goal here is to give them a foothold give them a place to be but then recreate some of what was sacrificed of the MODOCs just amazing homelands it can't say enough about how this area was it was it was perfect the way it was created and we're talking mostly about the northeast corner of California which is MODOC county right yes sir yeah we're just a bit into Siskiyou county here but if you draw a square around the northeastern corner of California and round it into Oregon just a little bit that'll be the core of the MODOC homelands the Goose Lake really the western shore of Goose Lake would be the eastern most boundary of the MODOC homeland got it now tell us a bit about goat herding to uh to uh to avoid fire uh that's something that I heard before and I think it's very interesting how effective it is tell us about that I mean we're talking about regenerative grazing practices and goats are my chosen animal I like goats because they'll eat the brush but regenerative grazing can be employed by any grazer and it's really just high intensity low duration grazing practice that helps with soil health uh regenerates the graze uh and and kind of generally allows the ecosystem to retain water and function at a little more healthy level when we're talking about the de-watering of the area the microclimatic impacts drying out the surrounding landscape and also the exclusion of wildfire so really from coast to coast and pole to pole uh the native peoples of the Americas actively managed basically the entire both continents with fire use as their main tool and that kept the fuels from building up it maintained a vegetative mix that was uh what was found here upon contact uh soon after that contact you know European western culture set about removing fire from the landscape and that allowed the wildfire fuels to accumulate in our case uh encroaching juniper is the main issue and encroaching juniper you know juniper is a sacred plant to MODOC people and basically every uh native tribe that had it in their home range it's a strong medicine a very uh powerful wood for making bows and just too many uses to name but it was maintained on the landscape at a much lower level than it is now and that made its medicine even stronger where only the big old trees were the ones that survived natural occurring wildfire and you know prescribed fire by the indigenous peoples of the area and so the the goats will help keep the juniper down when they're young from getting established because not only is juniper a wildfire fuel issue it also evapotranspirates water out of the ground and into the air so you don't get as much infiltration and you get springs drying up and additional groundwater depletion uh there's a number of other issues that come along with juniper encroachment around erosion around native plants they're allopathic they secrete a chemical that kills plants around their base and when you have a landscape covered with them you end up with a monoculture of juniper and all the other food plants and grazing species things like that they just can't survive and then eventually it burns and everything is gone at that point now i want to go back to the stronghold uh if one of our audience is able to uh you know if they would be to go there what would you tell them if they if they know nothing about the stronghold where captain jack was what would you tell them to reflect on or think about or look for as they're walking the trails over there what would be most significant there to look for well you know that's you know at the stronghold everything's pretty well marked uh you got a short path and a long path i would encourage the people going there to take a long path i guess it depends on that person you know if they feel like the shorter the long but everything is well marked out there you know what would come to mind what would come to mind when what would you think that it's most significant for them to think about when they're there about the war or about the captain jack or i would say the first thing that you know they should probably think about is there used to be water all the way up to the stronghold so that was called tule lake so you know when you when you first pull in there realize where their parking was probably water so uh that landscape was totally different from how it was back in the 1800s uh so as they're taking that walk you know realize of think about some of the terrain that they're walking through and and think about you know where maybe that modoc or we're setting up you know in a gunner position waiting to uh maybe have a have a shot at one of the army you know uh lieutenants or generals or whatever soldier i guess is what i'm trying to say but you know just as you're walking along you know take you know think about you know what part of that landscape you're in you know i mean so when you i don't know if it's the the beginning of the the walk but they you'll you'll come into i think it's an oven lava rock oven so that was built by the army so that that's not modoc built so that was built by the army so you know you got army presence there then as you get back up into the end of the hike you know you'll see where your captain jack's cave is you'll see a rock circle where they call that the ghost dance circle and and uh you know encourage you know non-natives not to go in there to kind of stay out of that circle it should be marked off but i don't think it's marked off right now but you know just you know there's certain things you know and just be mindful of where you're at if you see something on the ground just think about you know whether or not i should pick it up or leave it nine times out of ten i would just leave it uh and just you know i i guess think about it that way i don't know if ken wants to add to some of that yeah what i want people to remember is and i think this applies across indian country really anywhere you go is that you're walking on ground that's been occupied since time immemorial and especially at the lava beds but in a lot of places you're walking on the bones of people's ancestors and so you know brian's talking about that that dance circle yeah don't don't go in that it's still sacred it's you know you it's like going into a church you weren't invited to or something and those caves are people died there people suffered and barely survived and some of them didn't make it out and so you know you're not just walking on the ground it's not an amusement park where you're welcome to go wherever you want you're we're you're asked to go there to connect and learn the story so history doesn't repeat itself but it's not a it's not a playground it it needs to be respected and looked at and not not experienced like that there's a trail stay on the trail don't go in the cave stay off of the sacred features and then they'll be maintained into the future just like they have been since time immemorial yes thank you so much ken and brian uh respecting the land respecting the the nation and and the tribes and and the the stories and everything that goes with it i think it's very important we thank you so much for your time and uh any any concluding thoughts anything you want to add i mean we didn't talk about our projects very much but uh you know i guess in conclusion i would say that you know tell us about the projects you're working on yeah i can do it i can do it in a in a conclusion i think yeah in conclusion i would say the the modok nation is back in their homelands to stay uh brian and i are their vanguard they're they're paid help to to help them build the foothold that they recreated for themselves to help uh lay out some plans and create a situation where the modok nation can be present and engaged in their homelands for generations to come we're doing that with landscape scale restoration in partnership with all the federal uh state and neighbors in general and uh you know we we just can't do any of this without the partnerships so the the federal government has the trust responsibility to consult with all federally recognized tribes but they also have that same responsibility to work with those tribes in co stewardship that does not exclude the modok nation and we are focused on the entirety of the modok homelands to provide the same stewardship that modok people provided since time immemorial but has been absent from the landscape for about 153 years now okay brian and ken thank you so much for your time appreciate it thank you both okay thank you for watching another episode of bay area innovators if you enjoyed this episode and you know someone who should be on our show please send us an email at sfbay at epochtimes.com we would love to hear from you thank you and see you next week