Visiting a Yurok Village

Our field trip to the Yurok Village was awesome. We were divided into 3 groups - basically the 3 classes - and each group did 3 activities: touring the village, hiking in the forest, and making necklaces.

On the tour of the village, we also saw one of their canoes. They're made out of a HUGE redwood log. You can see how long they are...and ONE person can easily steer! The canoe has a heart, lungs, nose, and kidneys.

Touring the village, we went into a traditional home. These are not like the homes we are use to. The door is round - do you remember why? Inside, there is a pit - type area, with a narrow ledge around the pit that is at the level with the door. Do you remember what the ledge area is used for? What about the pit?

In keeping with tradition, the women enter feet first and the men enter head first. We certainly wanted to keep with their customs.


After visiting a typical home, we went to the sweatlodge. Traditionally, this was only used by the men. Since this is for education, women can tour.


One of the activites was making necklaces. We used beads, dentilium shells and abolone. These always turn out beautiful!






















Once they were made, we loved wearing them and showing them to the camera!