And I truly believe that that is healing for our people, too.” “It means a restoration and healing of the land there, and our relationship with a river and the falls. “The restoration of this special, powerful place at tumwata, Willamette Falls, means coming home to a place of our ancestors,” George told Tribal Business News. Tribal Council member Kathleen George said the reclamation plan has been a long time coming. The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde - composed of more than 30 bands and more than 5,500 enrolled members from western Oregon, northern California, and southwest Washington - purchased the land back in 2019.
The area was historically home to tribal people - the village of the Clowewalla (Willamette Band of Tumwaters) and the Kosh-huk-shix Village of Clackamas people - until the federal government forcibly relocated them and others in 1855 to the Grande Ronde Indian Reservation, about 70 miles southwest. The visioning document includes a river walk, habitat restoration, and mixed-use development with leasable space for potential hotels, offices or housing. The tribe recently released its plan for reclaiming and monetizing its ancestral homeland, a 23-acre shuttered industrial property at tumwata, or Willamette Falls, that formerly operated as Blue Heron Paper Mill.
The Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde is going home.
