Dedicated to acquiring, preserving, and protecting sacred Native land, the Native American Land Conservancy recently celebrated their twenty-five-year anniversary. In the wake of acquiring their most recent land back—a shaded creek deep in Morongo Valley— I volunteered to tend to their land last Friday and while on a break, chatted with NALC Education and Stewardship Program Manager Liz Paige.
There is an unexpected soothing creek running through the former Sherman Shady Springs, a private property hidden deep in Morongo Valley, whose previous owner reached out to the NALC to sell the land once he learned it was sacred tribal territory.
“This is a Serrano area. Each of these locations where you have a lot of water, good coverage, and resources, are areas where any Native indigenous group—Serrano, Cahuilla, Chemehuevi—would be traveling through this shared traditional territory. These places are identified in songs and stories over generations,” said Paige.
Originally from the Coachella Valley where her Cahuilla roots run deep, Paige got involved with the NALC after years of leading guided hikes to educate people on ancestral lands, which led her to volunteering with Friends of Desert Mountains, Whitewater Preserve, and the MDLT—the latter which got her more comfortable working in the high desert, leading her to her current position as NALC’s Education and Stewardship Program Manager, currently focusing on the future of the Morongo Valley shaded creek bed. When asked what the objective for the land is, Paige replied:
“Making it more productive for our food and medicine. There’s mesquite, a lot of different medicines available here. We want it to be a gathering area for not only Native folks, but an educational area. The cabin you see here is going to be an educational center where we’ll host workshops, lecture series, events. But this will come with a couple years of work rehabilitating the area… I’m a basket weaver, so I want to have a resource here to bring my fellow weavers here for weaving circles. Everybody is really excited. My community just got a little preview of the area, and they were really taken aback how beautiful it is.”
Paige reminds us of the importance of planting native species, as part of the work in the spring will remove the non-native orchards planted by the previous owner.
“These non-native species drink a lot of water, and native plants don’t—they just take what they need. We’ll be removing all the irrigation lines too.”
The NALC have been taking volunteers at the spring every other Friday, the next dates being May 17th and May 31st from 10 AM to 3 PM and will continue into the summer at a possibly earlier time on Saturdays to beat the heat. To RSVP to volunteer contact the NALC through their Instagram at @nalcorg or email: [email protected].
