The Washoe Tribe’s historic landback purchase near Lake Tahoe - ICT
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The tribe acquires more than 10,000 acres of ancestral land in the Sierra Nevada from which the Washoe people were forcibly removed

Kalle Benallie
ICT

An acquisition four years in the making, the Washoe Tribe completed a historic landback purchase of ancestral land in the Sierra Nevada.

In early February, the tribe, located in Nevada and California, obtained more than 10,000 acres of land in the Sierra Nevada. Formally as Loyalton Ranch, located northeast of Lake Tahoe, the land was renamed the WélmeltiɁ Preserve. It’s the third largest land acquisition by a tribe in California.

*“*The history, the archaeology and the entire Sierra Valley is just full of Washoe ancestors, and it just means a lot all the way around, not just even physically having the land, but having a space of our own, that we can practice our culture, in our traditions, the way that our ancestors used to, as well as managing lands, the way that our ancestors used to,” Chairman Serell Smokey said.

Washoe Chairman Serrell Smokey on the WélmeltiɁ Preserve. (Photo courtesy of Northern Sierra Partnership)

Plans for the land include conservation, restoration, reinstating traditional cultural practices and connecting youth back to the land and their Native language.

The tribe collaborated for four years with other partner organizations like the Northern Sierra Partnership, Feather River Land Trust and the Wildlife Conservation Board to secure funds. In total the partners raised $6.9 million which included $5.5 million given by the California Wildlife Conservation Board and private donations as a grant.

Smokey said they built great relationships with their partners and he learned a lot.

“We’re all willing to share and help everybody out because this is something that we think every tribe should be doing,” he said. “It’s a bit of a shame that we have to buy our lands back, but if that’s what we have to do in the modern world, then that’s what we have to do and we’ll get it done.”

Corey Pargee, executive director of the Feather River Land Trust, said this is the first time the organization has partnered with a tribe for land acquisition. The partnership began by the trust working on creating a nature center in Beckwourth, California and asked the Washoe Tribe if they would like to share their history and connection to the landscape.

Conversations about conservation ensued.

“We see this really as just the beginning and the next phase of what we hope will be a long and lasting partnership with the Waší·šiw Land Trust. Both for conserving additional land if they continue to do that. And then just helping them if they get established as a new land trust in managing this property and being part of the land trust community,” Pargee said. “So we’re here to continue to support them and provide technical assistance in whatever way is more helpful to them.”

In 2025, the Tribal Council of the Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California formed the Waší·šiw Land Trust to facilitate the land return. They plan to acquire more land in the future. The Tule River Indian Tribe and the Yurok Tribe reclaimed thousands of acres of land in 2025 as well.

A map showing the homelands of the Washoe people and the WélmeltiɁ Preserve in Nevada and California. (Photo courtesy of the Northern Sierra Partnership)

“We do have phase 2 in line, which is just north of the area. That land comes for sale, then that’ll add another, just over 3000 acres, it all depends,” Smokey said. “There are also a lot of lands that have been looked at by the tribe for years in the Pine Nut Mountain range on the Nevada side that would fill the gaps of Washoe tribal allotment lands that are checkerboarded throughout the entire area.”

A portrait of the pronghorn, an animal that lives on the WélmeltiɁ Preserve. (Photo by Andrew Wright/Lighthawk, Northern Sierra Partnership)

WélmeltiɁ is a traditional word for Northern Washoe People. The WélmeltiɁ Preserve is bordered by public lands managed by the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, the U.S. Forest Service, and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. It spans the mountain range from Long Valley in the east to Sierra Valley in the west and includes wildlife habitat made up of sagebrush scrub, grasslands, conifer forests, aspen groves, meadows with pine and juniper woodlands, springs and perennial creeks. Animals like pronghorn, mule deer, mountain lion and gray wolf migrate throughout the land.

“It is exciting to know that the Washoe people will be caring for this spectacular landscape going forward,” Lucy Blake, president of the Northern Sierra Partnership, said in a press release. “It has truly been an honor to work with the Washoe Tribe and our partners at the Feather River Land Trust on this historic land back project.”

The land is culturally significant to the Washoe people. Pinyon Pine, a plant found in the area,  is used as a traditional food source which has been damaged from the 2020 Loyalton Fire that burned nearly 50,000 acres. The tribe plans to and is actively reforesting the pine trees.

“I don’t want to see our history, our customs, our practices,  just in the history books. Because if we didn’t actually take the step to intervene and do something unfortunately, those trees will not grow back on their own. 
And all of our youth, for generations, would never know, even how to harvest or even see them and so that’s what I didn’t want to happen,” Smokey said

Other problems with the land are overgrazing in the lower areas and dirty waterways.

“[The Waší·šiw trust board] really want to see what it will do if we just leave it alone and let it heal. Then we’ll go from there, but we still do have to put in modern practices for fire mitigation, fuels reduction, and so we’ll be working on those projects as well because we don’t want this area to burn,” Smokey said.

Smokey said the tribe is working on a bill for Congress to allow the Washoe Tribe to manage, have access to management funds and purchase lands in the Tahoe Basin.

The land acquisition is also personal. Smokey said his great-great-grandparents had an allotment near the preserve.

“It’s not just a land purchase, a big part of this for the people is really a healing; it’s a healing from historical trauma because of the, again, the forceful removal of Washoe people from these lands,” he said.

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