Oohl

The Yurok, who call themselves Oohl, meaning the people, are an Algic-speaking people of the lower Klamath River and the adjacent Pacific coast of northwestern California. The name Yurok comes from a Karuk word meaning downriver people, marking them off from the upriver Karuk. Some Yurok villages date to the fourteenth century.

Life centered on the salmon runs of the river, and because they held the mouth and the coast, the Yurok traded salt and dugout canoes upriver to the Hupa, receiving acorns and baskets in return. Their language, together with Wiyot, is one of the two Algic languages spoken in California.

The crew of Francis Drake may have met coast Yurok in 1579, but sustained outside contact began only in 1827, when trappers of the Hudson's Bay Company reached the Klamath.