The Spiritual Edge

An elder remembers indigenous life back before Shasta Dam was built. The legality of the proposal to raise Shasta Dam is considered. Meanwhile, Chief Caleen Sisk considers a new strategy to fight back: turning an adversary — the Westlands Water District — into an ally.

We go to Shasta Dam and learn about the history behind its construction in the 1930s and 1940s. We hear from Chief Caleen Sisk about how the federal proposal to raise the dam another 18 and a half feet opens old wounds for the Winnemem Wintu and further threatens their tenuous survival.

We accompany the Winnemem Wintu to sacred sites near the McCloud River. The federal government's Shasta Dam and Reservoir Expansion Proposal threatens these sites and the Winnemem Wintu way of life.

In a peaceful protest, the Winnemem Wintu call out the U.S. government for its refusal to acknowledge the destruction caused by Shasta Dam. The protest at the Shasta Dam Visitor Center reveals the Winnemem Wintu's ongoing reality. They are ignored and later a security guard threatens to forcibly remove them.

A Prayer for Salmon is coming soon! The series, which has been five-and-a-half years in the making, follows the Winnemem Wintu people as they resist a proposed Shasta Dam Enlargement Project that would flood their sacred sites, and fight to return Chinook salmon to their homeland on the McCloud River, a major tributary of the dam.

Over the course of the eleven episodes, A Prayer For Salmon investigates the Shasta Dam and Reservoir Enlargement Project, which gained traction during the Trump years and proposes to raise the 602-foot dam even higher, which would flood important Winnemem Wintu sacred sites. Episodes then take listeners on a journey with the Winnemem Wintu and allies who walk, run, bike and boat on a two-week, 300-mile Run Salmon ceremony that follows the migration of Chinook salmon from the Pacific Ocean to historical spawning grounds above Shasta Dam. The podcast also follows the Winnemem Wintu's nearly two-decade attempt to return Chinook salmon that originated in California, but now swim in New Zealand, to the heart of their homelands on the McCloud River where salmon have not swum for nearly 80 years.

A Prayer for Salmon is a new audio documentary series from The Spiritual Edge podcast that tells the story of the Winnemem Wintu people of Northern California and their clash with Shasta Dam. The dam's construction turned California into an agricultural powerhouse, but it left the Winnemem homeless and without say over their land. The series details the Winnemem's fight to resist a proposed Shasta Dam Enlargement Project. It also highlights the Winnemem's aspiration to return Chinook salmon to their homeland on the McCloud River, a major tributary of the dam.

We will investigate the Shasta Dam Enlargement Project, which gained traction during the Trump years and proposes to raise the 602-foot dam even higher. It's an alarming prospect for the Winnemem who worry they'll lose sacred sites critical for their way of life. We then travel with the Winnemem and allies on a two-week, 300-mile Run4Salmon ceremony as they walk, run, bike and boat, following the migration of Chinook salmon from the Pacific Ocean up the Sacramento River to spawning grounds. Along the way, we study the environmental and political issues that threaten the survival of salmon, whose numbers plummeted after Shasta Dam was built. The Winnemem believe caring for the salmon is their spiritual and moral obligation and that their two fates are linked.

This isn't necessarily going to be a piece of traditional journalism where you hear from one side and then you hear from the other. The way we think about is that colonial ideology is inextricably entwined with the American way of life. With it, comes assumptions about history, culture and property that most of us don't question. We all know that point of view. So we invite you to listen to A Prayer for Salmon with an open mind. Allow yourself to walk in the shoes of another culture. Our hope is that you will come away with an understanding of the Winnemem Wintu, who they are and what they're fighting for — and what all of us will lose if they disappear.

A Prayer for Salmon drops August 2022.

"Uncuffed is a show made by people behind bars in California prisons. We share intimate stories of our struggles and triumphs, and of the heartache and forgiveness taking place within these walls. Uncuffed is vulnerable and personal. If you can see the humanity in us, you can see the humanity in everyone."

In this special episode, we have two stories of indigenous people fighting to practice their spirituality while incarcerated.

How did Islam first arrive on the North American continent? Did enslaved West Africans bring it to America? Or did Muslims sail with Christopher Columbus first? Later, Islam spread in the United States, among various communities. How did that happen? In this BONUS conversation that's part of the Becoming Muslim series, host Hana Baba dives into the history of Islam in America with Dr. Edward E. Curtis IV, a scholar of Muslim American, African American and Arab American history and life.

Aaron Siebert-Llera and Raul Gonzalez both live in the Chicago area and both converted to Islam twenty years ago. And both have been trying to answer the question of how to reconcile their identity as Latinos — and Muslims — ever since.