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As vice chairman of the Yurok Tribe, Frankie Myers often shows up to official events in a sport coat, jeans and traditional beaded necklace, whether he’s addressing the state Water Board, working with the governor on legislation to address the Missing or Murdered Indigenous People (MMIP) crisis or testifying before the U.S. House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis.

When he announced late last month that he’s running for the 2nd District seat in the state Assembly, most of the news stories included photos of him in this business-casual-tribal attire.

But when I caught up with Myers last week he was in a t-shirt and sweatpants, having just changed out of a Santa Claus costume, complete with fur-lined boots, gloves and a fluffy white beard. He’d shoved the costume into a plastic shopping bag and upon seeing me he offered a jolly smile and firm handshake befitting Father Christmas.

We met up on the campus of Weitchpec Yurok Elementary School, a tiny K-4th grade public school with a single teacher for the dozen-or-so kids that enroll each year. The schoolhouse sits in a clearing on a densely forested hillside above the confluence of the Klamath and Trinity Rivers. It’s the southeastern edge of the Yurok Indian Reservation, which straddles the lower Klamath River for 44 miles from here to the Pacific Ocean.

The day’s schedule was packed, though his duties were mostly Santa-related. He needed to pick up his wife Molli at home before driving 50 minutes northwest along the river to the far end of the road, where he would don the festive outfit again for the benefit of another dozen-odd students at the K-8th Jack Norton Elementary School before making the long drive back.

The Yurok Tribe’s land once spanned more than a million acres., and its lifestyle and culture are inextricably linked to the Klamath, which provides salmon (or ney-puy in the Yurok language), Pacific lamprey (ke-ween), sturgeon (Kaa-ka) and candlefish (kwor-ror). 

Growing up

As Myers navigated the winding contours of State Route 169, one of the most remote roads in California, he described his upbringing on the reservation, his life-altering excursions beyond its borders and his trajectory from fiery activist who crashed corporate stockholder meetings with “Undam the Klamath” banners to his current role in tribal leadership and his candidacy for state office.

The eighth of 10 children (one of whom was only recently discovered via Ancestry.com, living on the other side of the country), Myers spent his earliest years in the Yurok village of Sregon, going back and forth between his parents’ house and his grandparents’ house next door. Like most people on the reservation in those days, his family didn’t have electricity, though Myers said he didn’t feel deprived. 

“It was amazing,” he said. “It was absolutely amazing.”

The bus ride to and from school took about an hour and a half each way, and when he got home he’d often check in with his grandparents before hiking two miles to his friend Eli’s house.

“We’d go to the river, hike in the woods, run around,” Myers said. “Maybe we’d get up the gumption to go visit another friend [who] lived a couple miles away.”

His family didn’t have landline phone service, either, though his grandpa had a radio mobile phone that transmitted calls over the airwaves. Five or six other families on the reservation had one, too, which meant they could tune into the same frequency and eavesdrop on conversations. 

“Every once in a while, you know, people on the other end would forget they were getting broadcast,” Myers said with a smile. “Everyone was congregated and you’d hear some, ‘Hey, hey, hey! Don’t forget you’re on the radio phone!’ People would get in trouble if they cussed or whatever. … Oh man, you would hear all the gossip.”

When he was seven or eight years old, Myers said, his grandfather on his mom’s side suffered a stroke, and so he moved north with his parents and younger siblings to the Portland suburb of Oregon City to help care for him. 

“It was a culture shock,” Myers said. “Huge culture shock. I remember on the way up there we were driving through Crescent City and we stopped at the overlook to see the city and I was just like, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s so many lights. There’s so many.’ It’s a very vivid memory. I remember thinking, ‘How big is the generator to run all these lights?!’ 

Myers pulled his Jeep SUV into the gravel driveway of his property, where a trampoline was set next to the family’s brown prefab home. After a minute, Molli emerged and hopped in the car as the family dog, who they just call Puppy, wagged his tail. Molli said they need to get a new dog because Puppy doesn’t bark when bears come around, which is often.

“Lotta bears,” Myers confirmed.

“How’d it go?” Molli asked him, referring to his performance as Santa Claus.

“It was great,” Myers replied.

Molli tilted her head back to address me. 

“This is so Frankie’s jam,” she said.

Frankie and Molli have five kids of their own, ranging in age from not quite 10 to 20. 

Back on the rez and beyond

Pulling back onto SR 169, Myers said that after four or five years in Oregon City his grandfather passed away and the family moved back home, “which was another culture shock. You know, TV and electricity and phones and all of that I got very accustomed to, living up there.”

At Hoopa Valley High School, Myers excelled on the wrestling team, which gave him the opportunity to travel with the team to meets in cities such as Reno, Stockton and San Diego. Hoopa High was small, and only about 10 or 12 kids would go out for wrestling each year, but they competed against squads from big city schools. He remembers words of advice from his former coach, Sam Razzo.

“It was this philosophy that I think got ingrained in me that I’ve carried through the rest of my life,” Myers said. “He would just constantly tell us, ‘It doesn’t matter where you start. It only matters where you end up. You can go against these other kids and these other schools; it doesn’t matter. It’s always you on the mat.’” 

Asked how that translates to his current life, Myers said, “I think it applies almost every day. … Here on the reservation, I think we’re still pretty disconnected to every other place. … I think it’s still that same kind of mindset: I have something to offer, and regardless of the advantages that other people have and what they know, it doesn’t matter because it’s still just me at the end of the day.”

Myers embraced this philosophy when he joined the dam-removal campaign, in which tribal activists took on the federal government and multinational corporations such as Scottish Power and Berkshire Hathaway.

‘It didn’t matter how big the opposition was. It’s just people and individuals in charge. If you can … connect with them as just people then the rest of it doesn’t matter.’

“And it was always just that same philosophy that it didn’t matter how big the opposition was,” Myers said. “It’s just people and individuals in charge. If you can meet them face-to-face and have conversations and connect with them as just people then the rest of it doesn’t matter. … We apply that to our daily lives all the time and [convey] that to our kids.”

Myers attended Clackamas Community College for a couple of years, competing on the wrestling team while pursuing a degree in psychology, but he eventually got homesick and worried about his aging Gram (his dad’s mom). So he moved home and began working for the tribal fisheries program, doing surveys on the Klamath.

He was in his second or third year of that work when the devastating 2002 Klamath River fish kill occurred, wiping out tens of thousands of adult chinook as they returned to the river to spawn. It was the largest recorded salmon kill in the history of the Western United States.

“I was out on the boat doing surveys when the fish kill happened,” Myers recalled. “It was devastating. It was absolutely devastating.”

He remembers not just the sight but the smell of so many dead and dying fish washed up on the banks. It felt like an existential disaster, and not just for the fish.

“I grew up with stories that my dad [and] my grandma told me about the connection between us and the salmon,” he said. “And one of the stories that became really relevant is the story that if there ever comes a time when there’s no more salmon in the river, there’ll be no more need for your people on Earth. So to see, you know, 100,000 salmon dying, it felt like the end of our way of life completely. It was a real visceral sensation.”

‘Un-dam the Klamath’

Around that time the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission was preparing to relicense the four Klamath hydroelectric dams, which tribal scientists had identified as one of the primary factors leading to the mass fish die-off. 

“There’s a whole bunch of things that are wrong with the system, but none of it matters if the dams are there warming the river at the top of the headwaters, right where salmon go to spawn,” Myers said. 

Members of the Klamath, Yurok, Karuk and Hoopa Valley tribes launched a campaign to get the dams removed, and Myers remembers getting dismissed a lot during those early days, even being told to sit in a corner during meetings. 

By who?

“By everyone,” he said.

“Even ourselves sometimes,” Molli added.

“Yeah, our own community, absolutely, would be like, ‘This is too big. It’s impossible.’ It’s the federal government [and this] huge corporation, Scottish Power,” which at the time owned PacifiCorp, the electric power utility that owns and operates the four dams on the Klamath.

But the activists persevered, advancing their cause with help from environmental allies and the Ruckus Society, a nonprofit organization offering training and consultation for activists working on causes such as social justice, human rights, workers rights and environmental justice. 

The group had recently launched the Indigenous Peoples Power Project, and Myers said they taught Klamath activists how to strategize, build their campaign, assess their opposition, work with the media to tell a story and more.

Frankie and Molli met each other during this campaign. They were among about a dozen Yurok members in a contingent of tribal activists who flew to Edinburgh, Scotland, to crash a stockholder meeting and demand dam removal. To their surprise, the Scottish people were very welcoming and understanding.

“Turns out they’re salmon people,” Myers said, “and they know a thing or two about having an oppressive regime over them.”

However, Scottish Power was in dire financial straits, and shortly after this 2004 shareholder meeting it sold PacifiCorp to Berkshire Hathaway’s MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co. for $5.1 billion plus the assumption of $4.3 billion in debt.

And so the dam-removal campaign simply shifted its focus to Berkshire Hathaway stakeholders and its billionaire owner, Warren Buffett. Frankie and Molli recalled taking a couple dozen activists to an event at Oakland’s Oracle Arena, where Buffett planned to take questions from people at podiums that were set up around the stage.

“They had it set up so it was first-come, first-serve, and whoever got to a podium got to ask a question directly to Warren,” Molli said.

‘We took a couple dozen people and took over every single podium and spent an hour and a half asking Klamath questions.’

“So we took a couple dozen people took over every single podium and spent an hour and a half asking Klamath questions,” Myers added.

Asked when he felt that their movement started to gain traction, Myers said, “Maybe two years ago?” But then he chuckled and said, “No, there were a lot of milestones.”

Those included the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement (KBRA), which was actually a series of agreements between various water users and other stakeholders in the Klamath River Basin. The effort began in earnest in 2005 and came together with a signed agreement in 2010, only to stall out in Congress. 

“I think it was just too big, tried to accomplish too much, and it failed,” Myers said.

He and others were crestfallen by the setback, but one component of the KBRA, called the Klamath Hydroelectric Settlement Agreement, was salvaged and, in 2016, renewed, offering another path forward for dam removal.

But progress was slow and incremental, often coming via unexpected channels. For example, Yurok activists had made connections over the years with the Ho-Chunk Nation, even building an economic sustainability plan based on that tribe’s model. One day, in a casual conversation, Ho-Chunk/Winnebago Tribe leader Lance Morgan mentioned to the Myers that his father-in-law was none other than Warren Buffett himself. 

“And we were like, ‘What?! What are you talking about?’” Myers recalled. “He said, ‘Yeah, that’s my kids’ grandpa.’” Morgan offered to help the Yurok, and when dam-removal negotiations stalled out, Myers asked Morgan if he would personally deliver a letter to Buffett. 

“We got it in front of him; he read it and was like, ‘Get this done. This is enough,’” Myers said. “It was the first time — over the whole time that we had worked on the campaign — that Warren Buffett himself said ‘the dams are coming down.’ And that was pretty amazing,” Myers said.

Years of analysis, studies and negotiations followed, culminating with a landmark accord involving the Oregon and California state governments and, remarkably, a promise from Warren Buffett-owned Berkshire Hathaway to cover any cost shortages that may arise from what will be the largest dam removal project in U.S. history. One of the four dams, Copco No. 2, was completed in September, and the rest are scheduled to come down before the end of next year.

“The company that ended up really coming through for us at the end was the same folks that we had fought for the better part of the whole campaign and my adult life,” Myers said. “And it boiled down to what I was talking about earlier — getting to know people on an individual level [and] recognizing that people are people, regardless of their positions or who they represent.”

As he was driving, Myers kept pointing out things of note as we passed them: Over there was Myers Lane, where he grew up. Along the river bank we spotted the local herd of wild horses, nibbling grass and lounging in the unseasonably warm sunshine. Around one bend Myers spotted his brother-in-law, a “phenomenal carpenter” who was rebuilding the tribe’s traditional jump-dance house in preparation for the world renewal ceremony.

Eventually we pulled up in front of the entrance to Jack Norton Elementary and Myers turned off the engine.

“Hey,” Molli said. “Aren’t you supposed to sneak in here?”

Myers grabbed the plastic bag containing his Santa outfit and scampered off to the bathroom to change. A few minutes later he walked through the doors of the school gym as Kris Kringle.

After handing out gifts and posing for photos with each of the Jack Norton students, including his two youngest sons, Myers changed back into his casual attire and we filed back into the family vehicle to head back upriver. 

Tribal leadership

Discussing his entry into tribal governance, Myers said he was heavily influenced by Troy Fletcher, whom he described as a personal mentor and a “foundational” member of the tribe who worked as the lead negotiator in the dam-removal campaign and helped shape the tribe’s governance.

“He took me under his wing,” Myers said. “He saw me as a feisty, arrogant young kid who was willing to fight and not back down.” Fletcher taught him how to channel his passion and anger in productive directions, Myers said, and when Fletcher died suddenly from a heart attack in 2015, it left a huge void. 

Myers was among the tribe members who sought to fill that void. He switched from operating an excavator on watershed restoration projects to working as the Yurok tribal historic preservation officer, which allowed him to get more involved in policy and consultation with outside government agencies.

After a couple of years, current Tribal Chairman Joe James encouraged Myers to run for tribal council. 

“He had an economic and cultural vision for the tribe,” Myers said. “He was a dance leader as well, and I had a bit of knowhow, so we ran for a leadership role because we wanted to transform the tribe and move it ahead.”

Together, they worked to move the tribe beyond its dependency on natural resources and grants to create true economic development.

“Throughout the years we had tried a couple of ventures and nothing had really grown and we were … .”

“Poor!” Molli interjected.

‘The fact of the matter is the tribe was in a position to really grow and have an influence. … People were paying attention and actually listening to what we had to say.’

“Yeah,” Myers said. “We were poor. … The tagline we would use for Yurok was ‘The largest, poorest tribe in California,’ and I hated it. I hated that ‘poorest’ part because I never felt like we were necessarily poor, but we were. … And the fact of the matter is the tribe was in a position to really grow and have an influence. Because of the work that we’d done on the ‘un-dam the Klamath’ campaign, people were paying attention and actually listening to what we had to say. But we didn’t have the infrastructure to really get out and do all the work that was actually possible for us to do.”

James and Myers have helped to develop businesses on and off the reservation, diversifying away from tourism into more industrial, technological and commercial endeavors.

This includes the Yurok Tribal Corporation’s 2019 acquisition of Mad River Brewery along with the development of two tribe-owned construction companies, a LIDAR and high-res aerial photo business called Condor Aviation, the Yurok Agricultural Corporation, a hemp seed company and the Yurok Telecommunications Corporation, which last year received a $61 million federal grant to expand broadband access in Yurok and Hoopa Valley tribal communities.

Myers rattled off a few other tribal business ventures — the Bigfoot Golf Course in Willow Creek, the Weitchpec Nursery, which is being transformed into a food sovereignty program. 

“I’m sure I’m missing a couple,” Myers said.

“You are,” Molli replied.

Regardless, he said the Yurok Tribe’s financial outlook has transformed dramatically.

”In the past five years we’ve moved from 98 percent of our revenue being generated by grants to about 60 [percent], and that’s right where we want to be,” Myers said. “And we have enough businesses diversified throughout different sectors that we take advantage of this global economy that we live in.”

The tribe has quadrupled its revenues and is now spending roughly $4 million per month on employee salaries alone, and its housing projects across Humboldt, Del Norte and Trinity counties have increased tenfold, Myers said. He believes that the boost in tribal self-determination has gone a long way toward alleviating a pervasive lack of hope that contributed to a devastating youth suicide crisis on the reservation a few years back. 

The campaign

Asked why he decided to run for Assembly, Myers said he’d like to take what he’s accomplished for the tribe and expand it across the North Coast region. 

“I came from a unique place,” he said. “I have a unique perspective, and I think what we’ve done is absolutely amazing. I see the continued work that could happen in the larger community.”

But another big motivator is representation.

“In the 140 years that this county has been established we’ve never had one single tribal person even file for [state] office — and that’s too long,” Myers said.

Institutional racism has played an obvious role in this lack of representation, Myers said, and he was disappointed to encounter it again recently, when he was the only state Assembly candidate not invited to a ribbon-cutting ceremony in Covelo. The event took place around the same time as the annual Nome Cult Walk, a 100-mile trek from Chico to Covelo that commemorates the Native Californians who were forcibly detained and marched onto reservations in 1863.

Myers said the snub felt intentional, even if it wasn’t, especially in light of Covelo’s history and the way it overlaps with his own story and expertise. (The ribbon-cutting was related to an alternative energy project.)

“And it hurt,” he said. “It really did hurt. … You want to know why I’m running? This is why I’m running. Because it’s enough. Enough.”

That said, Myers added that he’s seen “huge steps forward” on Native American issues in local politics in recent years, whether it’s the Arcata City Council’s vote to remove the McKinley statue from the Plaza or the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors commemoration of Indigenous Peoples Day.

“The list really does go on, on and on, and we do have really good relationships with a lot of our local government … ,” Myers said. “I think there is this awakening to the idea that when you bring tribes into what your communities are doing you have this opportunity to capture federal, state and tribal funding and local funding, to make phenomenal projects take place. That is something I want to bring to the forefront with the work we’re doing now for Yurok and what we could be doing across the entire district, because it’s there. We’ve proven it and we’ve seen it. You can see it happening to other communities.”

Asked how he’ll make his case to voters in Santa Rosa, Healdsburg and other population centers to our south, Myers said his message about bringing resources and diverse partners together applies as much down there as it does up here.

He would also like to take lessons learned in the Klamath dam-removal fight and apply them to the ongoing negotiations over the Potter Valley Project on the Eel River, he said 

”We have to start at the community level, understanding that we all have very similar passions for being here in this place. … Tribal people have a very deep-rooted connection … but that’s not to say that the irrigating community and the farming community isn’t also connected and has a sense of family and a sense of community and a sense of belonging and sense of purpose in the place. … Ensuring that there is an equitable solution that keeps the communities whole is what we try to fight for.”

Other priorities, should he get elected, would include fighting for local protections and incentives during the development of offshore wind energy and working to find meaningful solutions to the MMIP crisis. 

“That has huge impacts on our communities up and down the coast,” Myers said. He believes that the crisis is worsened by factors that affect the entire region, including mental health management, housing and the high number of children in the welfare system. 

“Those are community issues,” Myers said. 

And his pursuit of representation reached at least one influential supporter for his campaign. He and Molli have set up an online campaign donation system and get updates whenever someone contributes. Myers said he gets excited seeing donations come in from Humboldt, Mendocino and Del Norte counties and beyond.

But the other morning, as he was helping get the kids ready for school, Myers checked his phone and saw that a donation had come in from a Washington, D.C., address. 

“And so I’m, like, kind of groggy. I’m looking at it.”

In the “occupation” field he saw, “Department of Interior, secretary.” 

“I look again. I’m like, ‘Deb Haaland! Oh my god! Oh my god!” 

The U.S. Secretary of the Interior, a member of the Pueblo of Laguna and the first Native American to serve as a presidential cabinet secretary, donated to Myers Assembly campaign.

Myers was ecstatic. “I go back, I wake up Molli. I’m like, ‘Auntie Deb donated!’ …  That hit pretty hard. She’s such an inspiration.”

Myers dropped me off at my vehicle, not far from where the day’s journey had begun, and after posing for a couple of photos in front of Martin’s Ferry Bridge, with the sun setting behind the Bald Hills, he piled back into his SUV with his family and his Santa suit and headed up the road.