Cow Creek Umpqua Tribe Shares Culture, Services, Priorities with Governor Kotek

ROSEBURG — The Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians hosted Oregon Governor Tina Kotek and First Lady Aimee Kotek-Wilson last week for a historic meeting and tour of ancestral lands, designed to further strong working relationships between governments and for the First Family of Oregon to make a personal connection with the Nahánkʰuotana.

The visit was part of a Kotek initiative to make outreach trips to each of Oregon’s nine federally recognized Tribes. Cow Creek Umpqua leadership and staff organized the trip to educate the Governor’s office about culturally significant issues and priorities for the future of the Tribe.

“We were very proud to host the Governor and the First Lady to show our history and the culture of the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians. They were interactive, inquisitive and respectful of our role as a sovereign nation that resides within the State of Oregon,” said Chairman Carla Keene.

“The First Lady and I are incredibly grateful for the amazing hospitality shown by the Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians,” Governor Kotek said. “We had a great time learning about the forward-looking approaches the Tribal nation is taking when it comes to ecocultural forest management, wildfire prevention, child care, and supporting individuals and families facing food insecurity. It was a wonderful day, and we look forward to returning.”

The day began outdoors on the South Umpqua River behind Seven Feathers Casino Resort in Canyonville, at a fish acclimation site. Under the existing co-management agreement between the Cow Creek Umpqua and the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, staff share resources and work together to improve fish populations.

The tour progressed into the Cow Creek Umpqua forests and mountains above Canyonville, where Forestry Director Tim Vredenburg took Governor Kotek through the devastating Milepost 97 fire of 2019 and how it shifted the Cow Creek Umpqua Tribe’s perspective on forest management.

“We have a climate crisis and we have a wildfire crisis, but this is a management crisis,” Vredenburg said, referring to overstocked and overgrown forests parched by drought. “We are responsible for proactive stewardship through harvesting and underburning.”

Later in the morning, the group stopped in at Yimìsa’ Preschool in Myrtle Creek just in time for recess. The First Family played and laughed with the young students, asking them their favorite vegetables and making animal sounds.

“This day of immersing in our Tribal community and way of life is crucial to a meaningful and productive government-to-government relationship. It is also important to our Cow Creek Umpqua people – to know that the Governor sees them and hears them. We look forward to more idea-sharing and collaboration in the future to benefit all people in Oregon, Tribal and non-Tribal,” said Keene.

Upon returning to the Tribal Government Offices in Roseburg, Education Programs Officer Jesse Jackson sang and drummed an honor song for Governor Kotek before sitting down for lunch. The Cow Creek Umpqua Tribal Board of Directors joined the delegation for the meal, catered by Seven Feathers Casino Resort.

After lunch the Governor’s delegation and the Cow Creek Umpqua Tribal leadership exchanged gifts. Chairman Keene gifted Governor Kotek a necklace she had been wearing for the first half of the tour, a triple-strand pipe bead necklace in traditional colors. Keene made the necklace several years ago, and it was the first one she ever made herself. Keene said she wanted to keep with tradition to gift it to someone special. The Governor wore the necklace for the remainder of the tour. Jackson also gifted Governor Kotek a mahogany obsidian knife hafted in bird’s eye maple.

Following lunch, the group moved to Downtown Roseburg, where they toured Village Station, a complex of offices that house service-based departments and programs for Tribal citizens. Governor Kotek and First Lady Kotek-Wilson spent time in the Tribal Veterans Services Office, Cow Creek Public Health and walked through the offices of Land & Resources and Social Services, greeting staff and stopping to chat.

The tour progressed into the afternoon with a drive along the picturesque North Umpqua River to Rock Creek Fish Hatchery, an Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife hatchery that was destroyed in the Archie Creek Fire on Labor Day 2020.

They were met by Colby Gonzales, Cow Creek Umpqua Fisheries Manager, who spent the day working alongside ODFW staff in the hatchery pools and had exciting news to deliver to the Governor first-hand.

“You all are in for a treat,” Gonzales called to them from inside a waist-deep pool, clad in hip-waders. “Today is the first spawn at Rock Creek Hatchery since the Archie Creek Fire.”

Rock Creek Hatchery has struggled to rebuild infrastructure since the fire. With the help of the Cow Creek Umpqua Tribe, work was recently completed to cap the existing ladder at Rock Creek dam to keep hatchery fish from reaching native fish spawning grounds in upper Rock Creek.

“The Cow Creek Band of Umpqua Tribe of Indians takes an ‘all-fish’ approach to fisheries,” Natural Resources Director and Cow Creek Umpqua Tribal citizen Kelly Coates explained to Governor Kotek. “We are especially concerned about culturally significant fish species like Chinook and Coho salmon, steelhead, and lamprey, but we don’t believe the debate should be about hatchery versus wild fish.”

As the sun was setting and the group bid their goodbyes, a bald eagle looked on from a charred tree.

Contact Lindsay Campman, Communications and Marketing Director, (541) 529-9159 lcampman@cowcreek.nsn.gov  for further details.