ON THE KLAMATH RIVER, Calif. (AP) — As a youngster, Barry McCovey Jr. would sneak through metal gates and hide from security guards just to catch a steelhead trout in Blue Creek amid northwestern California redwoods.
Since time immemorial, his ancestors from the Yurok Tribe had fished, hunted and gathered in this watershed flanked by coastal forests. But for more than 100 years, these lands were owned and managed by timber companies, severing the tribe’s access to its homelands.
When McCovey started working as a fisheries technician, the company would let him go there to do his job.
“Snorkeling Blue Creek … I felt the significance of that place to myself and to our people, and I knew then that we had to do whatever we could to try and get that back,” McCovey said…