- Details
- By Chez Oxendine
- Real Estate
A small stretch of Oregon’s central coast is returning to tribal stewardship after more than a century and a half as part of a long effort to restore lands once taken from the Siletz Indians.
The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians will assume ownership of the Rocky Shores parcel south of Yachats, a steep and biodiverse area that fell into private hands after the federal government shrank the original coast reservation in the 1800s. The 6.8‑acre property includes cliffs, dense coastal vegetation, and a freshwater stream that partners say make it both ecologically valuable and unsuitable for development.
Angela Sondenaa, the tribe’s natural resources director and a Siletz elder, said the Yachats acquisition fits into a broader effort to reclaim biologically diverse and culturally significant parts of the tribe’s homeland. She said the tribe’s landback work now includes both direct purchases and donations, ranging from small coastal parcels to large open‑market acquisitions.
“Every time we reacquire a parcel of land, it’s like bringing a relative home,” Sondenaa told Tribal Business News.
The Rocky Shores transfer follows other acquisitions by the tribe. In October 2024, the tribe purchased 2,000 acres within the original Table Rock Reserve, using tribal funds, Sondenna said. That year, the tribe also reacquired a 27‑acre section of Cape Foulweather after purchasing it from the McKenzie River Trust with a federal coastal resilience grant.
The Yachats land was purchased for $120,000 through a collaboration between Eugene, Ore.-based McKenzie River Trust, a conservation land trust, and View the Future, a grassroots land trust based in Yachats.
Donations raised by the two organizations funded the entire purchase, according to Joanne Kittel, co-chair of View the Future, which contributed $55,000 of the total cost.
Kittel told Tribal Business News the former owners initially planned a bargain sale but believed the property was worth more after receiving an initial appraisal. She said The Nature Conservancy and other partners funded a second appraisal she described as more accurate. The project took a year, she said.
The property in the Yachats area is important in terms of its ecology and coastal conservation values, Kittel told Underscore Native News. “We knew it had to be protected and we knew it had to go to the tribes.”
Kittel said the organization’s involvement grew from decades of cultural stewardship, including archaeological site protection, interpretive signage, and the creation of the Amanda Trail under tribal supervision. She said the return of Rocky Shores fulfills a long‑held goal.
Kittel said she had wanted the property preserved since 2009 and viewed the transfer as a logical next step in the organization’s work.
In an email, Siletz Tribal Council Treasurer Robert Kentta said each new acquisition was an “act of justice” after the tribe lost land in unhonored treaties and broken promises.
“Our goal for generations will be the piecing back together of that permanent home - which was promised to be ours forever in several treaties, and then taken and withheld from our use. Injustices deserve to be righted,” Kentta wrote. “Each parcel that we re-acquire within our 1855 Siletz Reservation boundaries is a significant event in itself.”
