Potawot Health Village

Jerome Simone has been Chief Executive Officer of UIHS since 1974. During that time UIHS has grown from a staff of less than a dozen into a comprehensive health care program with a staff of over 150. But to better understand UIHS and the evolution of the Potawot Health Village, he carefully notes that it is best to glimpse a history that far precedes his arrival.

"You have to go back. This really does go way back."

The challenges faced by UIHS date to the westward expansion of the United States. No treaties signed by Indian people in this region were ever ratified by the federal government. Consequently, land was taken and the rights treaties granted were denied. With the discovery of gold in the mid-nineteenth century and consequent rapid influx of miners and settlers, Indians faced massacre, loss of land, marches to distant reservations, and placement in boarding schools. All of these conspired to decimate the cultures of people who had lived on the land for thousands of years.

The twentieth century is replete with additional obstacles Indian people have faced. Out of this context, local Indian people came together in the late 1960s to address these many challenges, including the absence of health care. One result was the formation of United Indian Health Services in 1970. By 1974, through fundraising, donated materials and labor, UIHS was able to open the Tsurai Health Center on the Trinidad Rancheria.

When Jerome Simone first came to UIHS in 1974, there were only three recognized groups of Indian people with a population of less than 200 in the UIHS service area. Although there were over 10,000 Indian people living in the area, the vast majority did not have official federal "recognition". Today, as a result of concerted effort on the part of Indian people, there are nine tribes with over 15,000 recognized members.

UIHS, it's board members and the community it serves actively supported this cultural renaissance, reviving dance, art and story-telling, promoting education in indigenous languages, and teaching indigenous knowledge and skills.

By the 1990's UIHS had outgrown its Trinidad office. There was also a desire to be closer to more of the community it served and to house services closer to the Mad River Community Hospital, the major provider of in-patient care. UIHS had always sought to provide culturally appropriate and diverse health care services, and past experience flavored expansion. As Jerome puts it, "Good health goes beyond the individual. It must include the health of the entire community including its culture, language, art and traditions, as well as the environment in which it exists."

In keeping with this perspective, yet realizing the need to expand, UIHS looked for more than a building in a parking lot. A 40-acre pasture in Arcata showed particular promise for a new location. The pasture was situated on an old oxbow of Potawot (Mad River) near several historic Wiyot villages. The land was previously used for hunting, fishing and gathering traditional foods and medicines, and the opportunity to restore the site was apparent. It was also adjacent to the Mad River Community Hospital.

The owner was willing to sell, but the land was agriculturally zoned and subject to development restrictions as established by the city of Arcata. These restrictions threatened to stop the project in its tracks.

At about that time, Jerome called Laura Kadlecik. Laura, an environmental restoration engineer, believed the project held special merit. She put together a team that eventually became Humboldt Water Resources (HWR), an environmental planning and design consulting group. HWR contracted with UIHS to proceed with a plan to develop the site utilizing a conservation easement. A conservation easement is a legally binding landowner agreement that restricts certain uses of property in order to protect cultural or, in this case, natural values. HWR and UIHS believed that an easement was the right tool to both satisfy the city's desire to protect agricultural land and UIHS desire to build a new clinic.

After a two-year planning and permitting process with the city of Arcata, an acceptable conservation easement was created, solidifying a good relationship between UIHS and the city, allowing the project to move forward.

According to Laura, "The easement had to show that the development of the agriculturally zoned land would allow the land to remain Œproductive'. In order to accomplish this, half of the 40 acres was dedicated to wildlife habitat and restored wetland and prairie. These lands would also be used for education, recreation, and community events, for food and medicinal production, and for spiritual purposes." The remaining property was designated for current and future development.

The resulting easement is held and monitored by the city of Arcata. A UIHS Conservation Easement Management Advisory Committee (CEMAC) comprised of tribal elders guides consultants and UIHS staff in program and restoration activities on the site, and helps ensure that the long-term vision for the land is secure. As construction of the Potawot clinics began, UIHS also began to implement the conservation easement management plan. The area managed under the easement is now known as the Ku'wah-dah-wilth Restoration Area. Ku'wahdah- wilth means "comes back to life" in the native Wiyot Indian language, and describes the revitalization of the site's natural environment and the effect this has had on the local Indian community and culture.

In 1999 Humboldt Water Resources received a Special Recognition Award from the Ecological Society of America for the design and implementation of this innovative project that integrated elements of human, cultural and ecological health.

Today, at Potawot Health Village and a network of satellite clinics, UIHS provides services to American Indians with Yurok,Wiyot, and Tolowa ancestry. These people are affiliated with nine federally recognized north coast tribes, including the Table Bluff Reservation - Wiyot Tribe (Wiyot), Bear River Band of the Rohnerville Rancheria (Wiyot), the Blue Lake Rancheria (Wiyot), the Trinidad Rancheria (Coastal Yurok), Big Lagoon Rancheria (Coastal Yurok),Yurok Tribe (Yurok), Resighini Rancheria (Yurok), Tolowa Nation (Tolowa), Smith River Rancheria (Tolowa) and Elk Valley Rancheria (Tolowa). UIHS also serves Indian people from other regions now living in the area. Services include complete primary medical care, encompassing obstetrics, vision, dental, public and community health, nutrition, child and family services, a pharmacy, and nationally recognized tobacco awareness and diabetes prevention programs.

The building and grounds now reflect the realization of the dream of Potawot. Thanks to a unique concrete "tilt-up" construction process, Potawot's exterior walls have the look and feel of a redwood plank house once familiar to local Indian people. Interior walls are lined with regional native art and glass-lined hallways linking clinics look inward upon a shared central courtyard that features a simulated spring and rock gardens. Away from the buildings, restored wetlands and native grasses are beginning to flourish, providing wildlife habitat and pleasant surroundings for bird-watchers and walkers. Newly planted gardens thrive, providing traditional foods, medicinal plants, and organic fruits and vegetables to the UIHS clients and staff.

According to CEMAC member Leona Wilkinson, "This garden and health village are not only a place for healing, but a place to remember the people who walked this land before us. It will once again be a gathering place and a loving village with voices that can be heard through each of us."