'It's bringing healing:' Methow Valley land returned to Colville Tribes

More than a century after the United States government took most of their land, the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation are getting small chunks of it back.

The nonprofit Methow Conservancy handed over the deed to 328 acres of forest, sagebrush, and salmon spawning grounds along the Chewuch River in the Methow Valley to the Colville Tribes on May 19.

The deal follows the return of 9,200 acres of ranch land just east of the Methow Valley to the Colville Tribes in October.

“It touches our heart," said Andy Joseph Jr., Colville Business Council Chairman, "that some of our people will be able to spend some time in their homeland on probably the very same place their elders’ footsteps once were.”

The business council is the governing body of the Confederated Colville Tribes.