Join the Bear River Band and the Mattole Salmon Group and residents to welcome home the returning Chinook salmon to the river.
Gather at noon at the north end of the BLM Mattole Campground at the end of Lighthouse Road.
The ceremony honors and thanks the fish for their return, providing us with their oceanic richness.
These are the adult fish hatched and reared in the Mattole 3 years ago, now making their final journey home.
The Mattole Salmon Group has worked for 47 years improving spawning and rearing habitat, fulfilling our pledge to nurture the salmon’s young to the best of our abilities.
Soon the river will swell with rain and burst the sandbar at the ocean, allowing the adult Chinook, coho and Steelhead to make their run upriver.
Creating floating shade structures for Juvenile Salmon June 6, 7, & 8th, 10am-3pm
The Bear River Band of Rohnerville Rancheria and the Mattole Salmon Group are hosting a salmon restoration event for fish lovers of all ages – the creation and placing of floating willow structures to provide needed shade and cover for young salmon as grow in the lower Mattole River near the ocean. The young Chinook and steelhead spend their summer in the estuary area waiting for the mouth of the river to open in the fall so they are larger and more able to survive predation in the wide Pacific. This year the event is co-hosted with the Bear River Band of Rohnerville Rancheria.
The Floating Shade Structures are made by lashing 4-8” diameter dry driftwood, available on the gravel bar, into triangles using sisal twine. They are floated next to a bare bank. 6-10’ long willow cuttings from the bountiful native willows in this area are harvested and placed in the floating triangles so that the cut end is under one side of the float and extend down 2-3 feet, while the leafy sections lap over the float and arc over into the water. The stems begin to send out roots and provide underwater structure which juvenile fish use to avoid predation and from which they can dart out to feed. The top leaves remain green, provide shade while dipping into the water creating more structural habitat.
Participants from ages 6 to 80 have come together for this event over the past 35 years. Families are especially invited.
Bring swimsuits (although not everyone has to be in the water), towels, warm layers in case of wind, work gloves, sunscreen. The organizers will provide lunch and snacks, snorkles and masks to see the fish flock to the structures as soon as they are placed, loppers, twine and all materials needed.
The work site is found about 3 miles west on Lighthouse Road, Petrolia. There will be salmon signs to show you were to go. Lighthouse Road leads to the King Range Conservation Area Mattole Campground and is on the southern end of the Mattole Bridge near Petrolia.
Buy a ticket for the Mattole Salmon Group’s first Raffle for the Fish! Win the use of a select and private launch site with overnight accommodations during the 2027 fishing season! Or a piece of the finest outdoor gear available for cold outdoor sports.
Your ticket purchase enrolls you in the continuing restoration and protection of the Mattole’s wild native salmonids. Participation not only offers a chance to win, but supports our ongoing mission to restore the Mattole’s native fish to self sustaining levels.
The Mattole River is unique in California being remote with no dams and no hatcheries. Each ticket you purchase directly contributes to our ongoing efforts on behalf of this river and its native salmonids.
Drawing will be held at 6:00 PM PST on December 1, 2026. Winners will be contacted by phone or email.
It’s been a good spawning year in the Mattole! The salmon group surveyors, led by Nathan Queener, were in the river as soon as the rains allowed fish to swim upstream to spawn and continued until the end of January. Given the high to moderate river flows, fish were able to choose their spawning gravels as far upriver as the Whitethorn Valley headwaters. They were not confined to the mainstem of the mid-river (like in years where the rains cut off or are intermittent).
From Nathan:
Chinook returns seem to be above-average, and while there have been some truly impressive numbers of fish on individual surveys, the high flows from Mid-December through early January, prime spawning time, prevented us from surveying in many reaches and then when we were again able to survey in these larger reaches in January, all the redds had been obscured by sediment deposition, and most carcasses that remained were already in fairly advanced states of decay.
In general, Chinook had great flows for access way up into smaller and steeper water than we often observe them in.
The surprising and exciting news is the coho spawning – we saw the best adult returns since the winter of 2005-2006. All the coho have been in the uppermost reach of the mainstem Mattole. We’ve had 65 live coho observations (which might include some fish counted twice on different surveys). This is still a very impressive number that seems far beyond anything we’ve seen in many years. For context, during the 14-year period from the 2010-2011 season through last winter, we only saw 45 live adult coho in total. Last year, we surveyed 5 or 6 times over the winter season and did not see a single coho or redd.
Below are links to three videos taken on the mainstem Mattole River on December 24th, courtesy of Flora Brain. This coho abundance seems to be a regional phenomenon, as the Eel, the Mendocino Coast streams, the Russian, and Lagunitas Creek in Marin County are all having exceptionally abundant coho returns.
If you would like to know more information, have questions, or can add your observations to the community’s notice, please contact me or the Mattole Salmon Group.
Event date and time: Arts Alive, Saturday April 6 from 6pm to 9pm
Location: Humboldt County Visitors Bureau, 422 1st St, Eureka
Event organizer: Humboldt Area Peoples Archive
The Humboldt Area Peoples Archive announces the grand opening of its exhibit Salmon Ceremony Oral Histories at 6:00PM, April 6th at the Humboldt County Visitors Bureau at 422 1st St in Eureka. This exhibit invites visitors to delve into the intricate interplay between activism, environmental stewardship, and cultural collaboration. The evening will commence with special speeches by Nicole Riggs, Executive Director of the Humboldt Area Peoples Archive, and Ruth Wortman, Cultural Coordinator with the Bear River Band, promising an unforgettable experience for all attendees. This exhibit explores the revitalization of the Salmon Ceremony by the Bear River Band at the mouth of the Mattole River in Petrolia. The Bear River Band consists of seven federally recognized tribes: Wiyot, Nongatl, Whilkut, Sinkiyone, Lassic, Bear River, and Mattole.
The exhibit includes the voices of Ruth Wortman and Barry Brenard, Cultural Coordinators for the Bear River Band, speaking about the meaning of the Salmon Ceremony which existed for generations before falling away in 1958 during the termination era. In recent decades, the Bear River Band has taken steps to revitalize its culture.
Since 1980, the Mattole Salmon Group, a local environmental nonprofit, has been working in the river to restore salmon habitat and populations which were negatively impacted from exploitative land management. They realized early on that in order to bring the salmon back from the brink of extinction for all peoples, there was a need to combine the spiritual connection of the indigenous people with Salmon together with science-based habitat and population enhancement activities they conducted.
In 2021, a collaborative effort developed between the Bear River Band and the Mattole Salmon Group, leading to the revitalization of the Salmon Ceremony. Every year in the fall, wild Mattole chinook and coho salmon migrate into the river to spawn when the river breaches the sand bar, generally in November. In April, steelhead salmon come in to spawn. At both times, juvenile salmon make their way into the ocean to mature for several years. Both events are celebrated in the Bear River Band Salmon Ceremony.
The Humboldt Area Peoples Archive developed the interactive exhibit in collaboration with the Bear River Band, Stacy Schaefer PhD, Ai Iwane, the Mattole Salmon Group and the Humboldt County Visitors Bureau. The exhibit will be open to the public Tuesday to Friday 12PM-4PM until the end of June at the Humboldt County Visitors Bureau, 422 1st St in Eureka. The Humboldt Area Peoples Archive (HAPA) collects, preserves and makes accessible the histories of counterculture and back-to-the-land in Humboldt and Northern California from the 1960s to now. Learn more at https://humboldtareaarchive.org/
The Mattole Salmon Group and the Bear River Band are assembling driftwood and willow structures this Saturday, August 26, 2023, at 10 AM to help protect juvenile salmon hanging out at Stansberry Creek. Come join us – no special skills needed. If you have loppers bring them to cut 1” willows shoots.
For more information, call 707-eight three 4 – five 34 zero.
