The Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe created the California Heritage: Indigenous Research Project (CHIRP) in 2014 to preserve, protect, and perpetuate Nisenan culture. The Nisenan, whose name means “from among us” or “from this side,” are the Indigenous people of the Sierra Nevada foothills. Their territory once extended from the crest of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and the north fork of the Yuba River, to the west side of the Sacramento River and the middle fork of the Consumnes River. Today CHIRP is working to return a portion of the Tribe’s ancestral homelands to its traditional caretakers, thereby creating stability and healing for the Nisenan people, the environment, and the Sierra Foothill community.