The Yurok people are an Indigenous people of California, whose territory is along the Klamath River, from Trinidad south of the Klamath's mouth almost to Crescent City along the north coast. Their Yurok language is an Algic language.
Today, Yurok people are enrolled in the federally recognized tribes: Yurok Tribe of the Yurok Reservation Pulikla Tribe of Yurok People Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad Rancheria Big Lagoon Rancheria Yurok descendants may be enrolled in other tribes.
The Yurok people live primarily within the exterior boundaries of Yurok Reservation and surrounding communities in Humboldt, Del Norte and Trinity counties. Although the reservation comprises some of contiguous land along the Klamath River, only about of scattered plots are under partial tribal ownership. Most Yurok land is owned by timber corporations or is part of national parks and forests. This forest management has significantly disempowered the Yurok people and disrupted their ability to access natural resources, land, and practice Indigenous lifeways. In June 2025, land purchases from timber companies by conservationists groups to create the Blue Creek Salmon Sanctuary and Yurok Tribal Community Forest were completed and transferred to the Tribe in what is said to be the largest land back conservation deal to date.
Name
The Yurok refer to themselves as ʼOohl ("person") or ʼOʼloolekweesh ʼoʼl / ʼOolekwoh (lit. "ʼoʼloolekw [= "village"] dwellers"). Nerʼernerh / Nertʼernerh ("Coast people, i.e. Coast Yurok") refers to Yurok on the coast and Hehlkeeklaa ("Klamath River people, i.e. Klamath River Yurok") refers to Yurok who live along the Klamath River. Pueleeklaa / Pueleeklaʼ or Puelekueklaʼ / Puelekueklaaʼ ("down river/downstream people, i.e. River Yurok") is used to distinguish themselves from the upriver (Klamath River) living Karuk (Pecheeklaa / Pecheekla = "up river/upstream people, i.e. Karuk people"). Saaʼagochʼ / Saaʼagochehl ("Yurok language") is one of two Algic languages spoken in California, the other being Wiyot, and it is currently undergoing a successful revitalization effort.Romney, Lee. (2013, February 6). Revival of nearly extinct Yurok language is a success story. The Los Angeles Times. Retrieved February 7, 2013
The Yuroks' name for themselves is , meaning "the people." Some historic documents, like the Yurok Tribe's unratified treaty with the Government of the United States (GoUS), refer to the Yurok Tribe as the Lower Klamath, Pulikla, or Poh-lik IndiansKaruk Tribe of California v. Ammon, 209 F.3d 1366, 1371 (Fed. Cir. 2000) to distinguish the people of the Yurok Tribe from the "Upper Klamath" or "Peh-tsick" Indians, who are now known as the Karuk Tribe.Super v. Work, 3 F.2d at 90–91 (1926). The name Yurok is derived from the Karuk word , meaning "downriver people; i.e. Yurok Indians".Andrew Garrett, Susan Gehr, Erik Hans Maier, Line Mikkelsen, Crystal Richardson, and Clare Sandy. (November 2, 2021) Karuk; To appear in The Languages and Linguistics of Indigenous North America: A Comprehensive Guide (De Gruyter Mouton), ed. by Carmen Jany, Marianne Mithun, and Keren Rice American ethnologist George Gibbs first recorded the term as 'Yourrk' while traveling with Col. Redick McKee in 1851, and mistakenly used it as the name of the tribe in his book, Observations on the Indians of the Klamath River and Humboldt Bay, Accompanying Vocabularies of Their Languages, published in 1887. These names all developed from the way the river was, and still is, centered in the worldview of the people of the Yurok Tribe. Traditionally, the people of the Yurok Tribe would refer to villages downriver as (meaning 'Down River Indian'), villages upriver as (meaning 'Up River Indian'), and villages on the Pacific coast as (meaning "Coast Indian"). However, all these terms were merely practical descriptions of how to get to or from a village location within the Ancestral Land of the Yurok Tribe; the , and were, and are, all still .
History
Precontact Native Americans have been living along the Klamath River for 10,000 years, with a lifestyle closely linked to the once abundant salmon. Some Yurok villages date back to the 14th century CE.Pritzker 159
16th century There are descriptions of some contact being made with Californian Indians as far back as June 1579 by Francis Drake and the crew of the Golden Hind.
19th century Fur traders and trappers from the Hudson's Bay Company came in 1827. Following encounters with white settlers moving into their aboriginal lands during a gold rush in 1850, the Yurok were faced with disease and massacres that reduced their population by 75%. In 1855, following the Klamath and Salmon River War, the Lower Klamath River Indian Reservation was created by executive order. The reservation boundaries included a portion of the Yurok's territory and some Yurok villages.
20th century
The Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act of 1988, an acted passed by the 2nd Session of the 100th Congress of 1988, declared that Yurok descendants who have chosen to remain citizens of recognized tribes other than the Yurok Tribe of the Yurok Reservation - primarily the Resighini Rancheria, but also the Cher-Ae Heights Indian Community of the Trinidad Rancheria and Big Lagoon Rancheria - "shall no longer have any right or interest whatsoever in the tribal, communal, or unallotted land, property, resources, or rights within, or appertaining to, the Yurok Indian Reservation or the Yurok Tribe." The Resighini Rancheria attempted to challenge the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act in 1992 case Shermoen v. United States, 982 F.2d 1312, 1314 (9th Cir. 1992), but the court ruling in the case found that "In the Hoopa-Yurok Settlement Act, Congress sought to resolve the legal conflicts by: (1) partitioning the reservation into two reservations, designating the Square as the "Hoopa Valley Reservation" and the Extension as the "Yurok Reservation," 25 U.S.C. § 1300i-1; (2) distributing the escrow funds, 25 U.S.C. § 1300i-33; (3) confirming the statutes of the Hoopa Valley Tribe, and designating the Square or Hoopa Valley Reservation as the reservation to be held in trust for the Hoopa Valley Tribe, 25 U.S.C. § 1300i-1(b) 7; (4) recognizing and organizing the Yurok Tribe, and designating the Addition or Yurok Reservation as the reservation to be held in trust for the Yurok Tribe, 25 U.S.C. § 1300i-1(c) 8." Shermoen v. U.S., 982 F.2d 1312, 1316 (9th Cir. 1992)
Fishing, hunting, and gathering remain important to tribal members. Basket weaving and woodcarving are important arts. A traditional hamlet of wooden plank buildings, called Sumeg, was built in 1990. The Jump Dance and Brush Dance remain part of tribal ceremonies.Pritzker 161 The tribe's involvement in condor reintroduction, along with traditional burning, environmental restoration, wildfire preparedness, the drought, and juvenile fish kill, was discussed with Governor Gavin Newsom when he visited in June 2021.
The tribe owns and operates a casino, river jet boat tours, and other tourist attractions. The Yurok Tribe Construction Corporation has several projects that it is taking part in at the moment, including Orick Mill, Coffee Creek, Heliwood, Oregon Gulch and Condor Aviation. In 2023, the construction company carved out new channels for the Chinook salmon along the Sacramento River. They introduced vegetation into the channels to act as cover for juvenile salmon to hide in.
Environment
Carbon sequestration Through oral tradition and archaeological records, it is estimated that the Yurok lands were originally some half-a-million acres. In 1855 they were confined to a reservation of around : by 1993, this had declined to around 5% of the original reservation. Carbon sequestration has enabled the Yurok to own approximately by 2021. Because of this effort, the Yurok have been awarded the Equator Prize by the United Nations Development Program. Using the cap-and-trade scheme, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) issues one offset credit ($12) for each metric ton the Yurok can prove its forests have sequestered.
After starting negotiations in 2010, the Yurok have paid off loans, supported schools, youth programming, housing, road improvement and off-reservation businesses through carbon sequestration. Land reclamation using the cap-in-trade revenue has allowed them to take control of land management and to sustainably harvest timber. Tribal Vice Chairman Frankie Myers said: "the most beneficial thing we're doing with our land is giving members access to it". Through working with companies and organisations such as New Forests and The Trust for Public Land, the Yurok will employ a blend of Traditional Ecological Knowledge and western science to re-create the environmental conditions that existed in this region.
The participation by the Yurok in the scheme has been met with concerns and criticism. "I'm not happy with it" said Jene McCovey, a tribal elder. "It's not viable. It allows polluters to pollute". Tribal member Marty Lamebear agreed that the carbon project had brought in money but said: "They buy our air, so they can, you know, pollute theirs." Angela Adrar, the executive director of Climate Justice Alliance, said: "The Yurok should have their land regardless of some program... The fact that they have to sell their forest to get back their land seems really backwards."
Wind power In February 2024, the Yurok had its first Tribal Offshore Wind Summit to help native communities gain more understanding about offshore wind power and how the ever-growing clean energy developments could impact on the food, culture and income for Native communities. A central point emerged from the Summit that there could not be responsible offshore wind development "in tribal areas without tribal consent" and that tribal leaders were concerned about their role in the decision-making process. A major topic of conversation were the two Humboldt area wind farms and how the industrialization involved might impact the local ports and surrounding areas. Robert Hemstead, vice-chairman for the Trinidad Rancheria said that people from the tribes had come together "to move forward in a good way on renewable energy". Yurok Chairman Joseph L. James said that the tribes did not want to see other industries "take advantage of our natural resources and contribute little or nothing to the local community."
In 2023, Frankie Myers of the Yurok tribe wrote that since colonization began, natural resource extraction had devastated indigenous communities. This has led to a great mistrust of industry, so that when the offshore wind industry tells people about the great opportunities it will bring, native peoples remain sceptical. Further, during Yurok sacred ceremonies, mountain peaks are often used "which offer an unobstructed view of the ocean" and some of the last places that they can see the world as their ancestors had seen it. Yet the Yurok, traditional managers of their local ecosystem, had a lack of outreach from the corporations involved. In the future, tribal nations may decide to support offshore wind development, but that they "must be in leadership positions through every phase of the process". While offshore wind can help provide the clean energy America needs, unless the industry "truly engages with the Native American tribes that suffered the impacts from previous natural resource extraction, it will be as dirty as the rest of them."
On 6 March 2024, the Yurok Tribal Council voted to oppose offshore wind developments near the Yurok Coast. The Council gave several reasons on their Facebook page for this stance: "The 900-foot-tall offshore wind turbines will indelibly tarnish sacred cultural sites from the coast to the high country."