Cannery on Yurok Reservation Planned: Funding Campaign

Weitchpec , CA , March 14, 2012 — Efforts are being coordinated to create food security and livelihood for families on the Yurok Reservation. The project involves building a cannery and food processing center.

The great grandparents of the Yurok families living in Weitchpec and their great grandparents before them lived off the land and thrived. They were so resource rich that they had time to do fine basket weaving; to create regalia for their ceremonial dances; and to develop a sophisticated society.

In the years after the Allotment Act (Dawes Act), the great grand parents of the current residents became farmers and ranchers. The land is fertile, many crops thrive here and food is abundant for cattle. The fruit trees still remain from that time. The farmers and ranchers created sustainable lifestyles, both by harvesting their own labors and gathering, fishing and hunting.

This all sounds like the Yurok people should have continued to thrive, but many families lost their lands to taxes, their children moved away under the Relocation policy to the cities, and innovations in food processing drove prices down and food became plentiful and relatively inexpensive from the market place or as a government commodity and the farms and ranches died away. The folks who stayed in the area, worked in the booming lumber industry, but when that dried up too, the families struggled from day to day, month to month. They no longer thrived and this has been the case for nearly 40 years.

Those involved in this venture believe the families living there today can both create sustainability for themselves and thrive. The mountains, hillsides and rivers hold an abundance of resource that can support the food needs of the community’s families; provide to the local market locally processed foods; and provide hand crafted, alder smoked wild salmon for the gourmet market.

Food processed at the cannery will ensure the people living here have a food supply that is compatible to their genetic make-up and that will begin to combat the illnesses suffered resulting from nearly 40 years of an inappropriate diet.

The coordinators need your support to build the cannery and food processing center. In exchange, or as a reward for your support, they are offering cannery processed, hand-crafted, traditionally prepared, smoked salmon and blackberry and blackberry/huckleberry jam and jelly gift sets. Additional rewards include Yurok stories abstractly illustrated on postcards and greeting cards complete with the associated story and use of Spey-gee Point Resort.

For more information about the project and the rewards go to http://www.kickstarter.com and enter “Yurok’ in the search bar then select the project. To pledge to the project, click the green “Back This Project” button on the project page. You will be asked to enter your pledge amount and select a reward. From there, you will go through the Amazon checkout process. Note that you must finish the Amazon checkout process for your pledge to be recorded; the pledge amount will be debited from your account when the project is successful on April 2, 2012. When the project is funded, a questionnaire will be sent to confirm reward selection and shipping information.

Yurok tribal members, Tom and Morneen Willson, the owners of The Source Food Company and Spey-gee Point Resort and Guide Services in collaboration with Billee Willson, MBA, launched this funding campaign using the Kickstarter crowd funding platform. The funds raised will be used to build an FDA approved cannery in Weitchpec.

For additional information, Contact:
Billee Willson
The Source Food Company
530 852 1949
530 272 1114
thesourcefoodcompany [at] gmail.com
http://www.thesourcefoodcompany.com

The funding campaign features the smoked wild salmon and the black berry and huckleberry jelly and jam gift sets. These will be the first products produced by the cannery.

The Source Food Company’s objectives are to build an FDA approved cannery; to develop a food distribution practice within the community; and to create a market for the surplus foods. The company was established in December 2011.