This campaign will bring attention to the emergent and urgent threats of the Trump Administration to indigenous lands, waters, forests, and lifeways in the Pacific Northwest. 

The two-week campaign in September of 2025 will hold events in tribal communities, public venues and places of worship in the Pacific Northwest and Northern California.  It will make the case for a narrative that accentuates the interrelatedness of Treaty rights and inherent rights, Indigenous ways of knowing nature and environmental justice, healthy rivers and salmon habitat, spiritual and ecological balance, and ancient forests and climate resilience. Ten cedar masks exemplify the spiritual meaning of  xaalh: the sacred balance of life will be carved for the campaign and gifted to event hosts.

The Way of the Masks  campaign  is dedicated to, and honors, our ancestral Indigenous knowledge that all things are related to, and through, Xaalh: a sacred trust with the balance of life. The Indigenous Salmon Nations from Alaska to northern California understand that our salmon relatives (scha’enexw) are also forest animals.

The mature and ancient Western red cedar and Douglas fir forests shade their streams and rivers, and in turn these forests are nourished by our salmon relatives, with trees near salmon rivers containing nitrogen isotopes from salmon. These forests caretake for our salmon relatives water quality and quantity, are critical to biodiversity, and promote climate resilience.