Love begins upriver, at Katamiin, the Karuk center of the world. Here creation was danced into existence; here “the might of a bulldozer does not equal the will of ten thousand years.”
Shaunna Oteka McCovey is a river guide to these places, a cartographer of that which is created, lost, and regained. The old ways are at war—with alcoholism, heroin, and poverty—using ancient weapons, maidenhair, mussel shells, and beargrass. Their heroes are the Brush Dance Boy, Wovoka, and the Smokehouse Boys.
Anchored in the mountains and forests of northwestern California, yet at the same time transcending boundaries, The Smokehouse Boys is timeless poetry from a timeless people.
Shaunna Oteka McCovey (Yurok/Karuk) wrote her first poem at the age of six while growing up on the Yurok Indian reservation in northern California. She holds master’s degrees in social work and environmental law and a juris doctorate from Vermont Law School. Her poems have appeared in 
