In 1978, the United States Congress passed the American Indian Religious Freedom Act (AIRFA) which legalized Native American worship practices which had been banned for over a century. While Native Americans tried to use the Act to protect sacred places where they pray, in every instance they lost. In 1988, the Supreme Court overturned two lower court rulings that sided with northern California Indians who were trying to prevent a logging road from going through their sacred "high country" in the Siskiyou Mountains, east of Eureka. It is a place of vision questing and medicine gathering. The Forest Service sought to build a road, or "G-O Road" to gain access to old growth timber.
