Sacred Groves Kneeland Update

Honoring the Indigenous History of the Land

Dear supporters of Sacred Groves,

Over the past year we have been developing plans for a conservation green burial and spreading site on a beautiful ridgetop prairie and oak-conifer woodland in the small community of Kneeland. Kneeland sits at 2100+ feet in elevation, 12 miles east of Humboldt Bay, and is roughly equidistant from Eureka and Arcata. 

Our 50-acre site shares a private access road/driveway with our wonderful neighbors at Karuna Animal Rescue & Sanctuary, who recently hosted a compelling history talk with historian Jerry Rohde. We learned that the road we use daily is itself historic, originally built by the Kneeland family. The junction where our access road meets Kneeland Road approximates the historic Pack Trail Junction, where routes from Eureka and Union (now Arcata) once converged.

Rohde explained that this land is part of the traditional territory of the Mawenok, one of seven Northern Humboldt County Indian tribes that he writes about in his about-to-be-published book, Northern Humboldt Indians.

According to Rohde, springtime was when the Mawenok tribe would journey up from their winter homes in the lower valleys of the Badawa't (Mad) River to these mountain prairies and woodlands currently called Kneeland. Here they would hunt elk and deer with bows and arrows and gather foods like tanoak acorns and edible bulbs, including Brodiaea and Blue Camas. 

Sadly, information about the Mawenok is scarce, and there are no known descendants. What is documented primarily comes from field notes taken in 1906 by UC Berkeley anthropologist Pliny Goddard. We know that when John A. Kneeland and his sister Mandana established a homestead here in 1850, the Mawenok resisted this intrusion onto their territory by burning down structures and killing livestock. John and Mandana retreated back to town, and then John returned to the site three years later with his brother G.B. Kneeland to rebuild.

As we continue this journey towards responsibly stewarding this land in perpetuity as a conservation burial site, we find ourselves leaning into what it means to honor the people who lived here from time immemorial. Sincere gratitude to Karuna Rescue and Jerry Rohde for the great opportunity to deepen our knowledge.

Local historian and author Jerry Rohde presents on the Indigenous and settler history of the Kneeland prairie at a history talk and walk hosted by Karuna Rescue on May 18, 2025.

Making County Permit Progress

Our heartfelt gratitude goes out to Aldaron Laird for his assistance over the past several months with drafting a robust CEQA document for our Sacred Groves Memorial Woodland project. He truly showed his dedication to this project. The submission of this document to the Humboldt County Planning Department on May 20 took us one big step closer to obtaining our conditional use permit.

To celebrate Aldaron's contribution to this project, we are giving away a free copy of his beautiful and informative book to someone this month, randomly selected from our mailing list: A Photographic Exploration of Wigi (The traditional indigenous name for Humboldt Bay). For more details, please read the sidebar. Thank you Aldaron!

Sacred Groves Advisor Aldaron Laird submits CEQA document for the Sacred Groves Memorial Woodland in Kneeland to Humboldt County planner Andrew Whitney on May 20, 2025.