“Whiplash, indeed.”

For centuries, Tulare Lake occupied the cultural and spiritual center of the Tachi Yokut tribe of California’s Central Valley. The lake was foundational to the tribe’s creation story and provided the resources needed to thrive. Between the late 19th– and early 20th–centuries, a rather direct form of anthropological climate change saw the lake drained completely dry, devasting the Tachi Yokut way of life. Upstream waters were dammed and diverted with abandon, and the region was largely converted to prime agricultural farmland. Since that time, elders of the tribe tell stories of the lake’s mythical role in their people’s former way of life, passing down the belief that it would someday be returned to them.

In 2023, salvation arrived in the form of “the greatest year-over-year water gains in two decades.” Throughout California, historic drought has been beaten back by a string of monstrous precipitation episodes, leaving the media rather confused as to whether this is something to be celebrated. For the Tachi Yokut tribe, the recent turn of events is nothing short of a miracle, as Tulare Lake has indeed reappeared as the elders had prophesized. They are now fighting with state authorities to keep the lake the way it was before settlers interfered. Here’s how the Los Angeles Times describes the surprising turn of events…