Twenty acres of land at United Indian Health Service's health village will remain undeveloped. UIHS is restoring wetlands on the land that was long used for agriculture. But before European settlement, three Wiyot villages clustered around the Mad River, which flowed about 800 feet north of the site. Legend says a pile of logs brought by the winter floods diverted the river's course, and that this bend ran so shallow that salmon could easily be taken, making it a hospitable place for the villages. Eventually the logjam was burned, and the river righted its course. A channel of the Mad River now flows 4,000 feet from the site.

In 1995, when engineers first surveyed the land and mapped out the existing one-acre wetland, they realized it was a portion of the old oxbow. Familiar with the story of the log jam, UIHS director Jerry Simone and his board of directors became were determined to restore the surrounding four acres of agricultural land to unearth this bow shape -- in honor of the diverted river and the villages it nourished.

They hired Laura Kadlecik and her organization, Humboldt Water Resources, to do the job, and from there, plans for the conservation easement grew.

Eventually pathways will wind through the easement, and signs will point out medicinal plants and their uses. In the future, volunteers will plant a one-acre plot of beargrass and hazel that will be periodically burned to demonstrate traditional land management techniques and to render the grass fit for basket making.

Recently, the Indian community named the easement Kuwah-dah-wilth, "to bring back to life" in the Wiyot language.