Trinity County Office of Education
Sarah Supahan – County Superintendent of Schools
www.tcoek12.org • (530) 623-2861

Trinity County Office of Education, Column for October, by Sarah Supahan

In the winter of 2021, the Trinity County Office of Education (TCOE) received a grant from the North State Equity Fund, which is, in turn, funded through a collaboration between the Northern California United Way and the North Valley Community Foundation. The TCOE grant application was to create Native American-based classroom curriculum and resources for schools to utilize county-wide. The TCOE held a workshop in the summer of 2021 to give volunteer teachers throughout the county an introduction in how to create such curriculum and the goals of the project. Curriculum drafts were due to TCOE during the fall of that year. Unfortunately, that was the fall that several different fires broke out in our county, schools and homes were evacuated – and so was TCOE - and the work was stalled and had to be reduced in scope. We did have a few curricular units completed and more resources purchased or obtained such as primary sources, informational books, children’s books, other sample curriculum, and other information. These resources have been added to TCOE’s growing Native American reference library held at TCOE for all teachers to access.

An additional project for the grant was to create a map of the tribal areas of Trinity County as a reference for classrooms. Before starting on the project, TCOE believed that there were four tribes represented in our county: Chimariko, Nor Rel Muk Wintu, Tsnungwe and Wilacki.

The Yurok Tribe’s well-known Information Technology Department, located near Weitchpec, California, was engaged to create the map. That department researched through every published map as well as all tribal information they could find to create a beautiful map that could be distributed to local schools and tribes as well. Through their extensive research, it became known that within our county boundaries are the ancestral territories of NINE tribes: Chimariko, Hupa, Lassik, Nongatl, Nor Rel Muk Wintu, Shasta, Tsnungwe, Wailaki, and Yuki. Our county also encompasses a small portion of the Round Valley Reservation which is made up of a confederation of small tribes: the Yuki, Wilacki, Concow, Little Lake Pomo, Nomlacki and Pit River - all the tribes who were forced onto the land originally occupied by the Yuki Tribe. While many of the tribe’s territories encompass a greater area outside of our County, all nine tribes have traditional land within the borders of Trinity County.

During the TCOE-sponsored American Indian Day celebration, observed on the fourth Friday of September in California as well as in many other states, TCOE presented the maps to Paul Ammon, Tribal Chair, Tsnungwe Tribe, and John “Sonny” Hayward, Tribal Chair, Nor Rel Muk Wintu Nation. They received the maps on behalf of their tribes. Both, laughingly, organized themselves to stand on the correct side of the map – the left side showing the Tsnungwe land and the right side indicating the Nor Rel Muk territory.

If you have more historical information about the school, please contact Sarah Supahan, County Superintendent of Schools, at 530-623-2862.