For Grand Ronde tribes, reclaiming land is a way of healing

Walking between the battered, old industrial buildings that used to be the Blue Heron Paper Mill, Cheryle Kennedy stopped at one of the few places where you can still see Willamette Falls.

But something else caught her eye on top of a building across the river.

“American flag,” the chairwoman of the Confederated Tribes of the Grand Ronde said. “Almost like ‘keep out.’”

The Grand Ronde people lost nearly all of their land to broken treaties with the U.S. government and a termination policy that stripped the tribe of federal recognition in 1954.

“When I look at that flag, I see that I’m not welcome,” Kennedy said. “It’s a place of ownership to a nation that decided that they wanted to rid this land of me and my people.”

The land near Willamette Falls is a prominent example of how the Grand Ronde are reclaiming their place on Oregon’s landscape.