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The Klamath River hadn’t freely flowed for more than a century after the first of a series of dams was installed in 1918. However, on October 2, 2024, a $500 million project – the largest in U.S. history – was completed, removing four dams to restore the river’s natural course. Now, with the water mostly flowing freely, a group of Indigenous youth has set out to be the first to descend the river in kayaks from source to sea.
On June 12, about 13 students and six instructors departed from the Klamath’s headwaters near Chiloquin, Oregon. They estimate the trip will take 30 days, descending the river more than 300 miles from the mountains of Oregon to the Pacific Ocean of Northern California. Dozens more youth will join them towards the midway point of the journey.
Ríos to Rivers, an advocacy group focused on river conservation and Indigenous empowerment, spearheaded the initiative that gave rise to Paddle Tribal Waters. The program’s mission is to help the Indigenous tribes of the region – namely, the Yurok, Karuk, Hoopa, Shasta, and Klamath – to “celebrate the removal of the Klamath dams” and ensure that “more of their youth have a voice in the dam removal process.”
For the past three summers, Paddle Tribal Waters ran whitewater paddle camps for Indigenous teens to prepare them for the first descent, which includes rapids up to class IV (class V is considered expert, class VI is unrunnable). The camps also included courses on activism, ecosystems, and cultural knowledge. The group partnered with Rush Sturges, a professional whitewater kayaker and filmmaker, who is part of the team descending the river.
“(The Indigenous youth) use kayaking to galvanize a movement while reconciling a stolen history and building a future of hope and healing,” reads Paddle Tribal Waters’ website. “For centuries, dams have displaced Indigenous communities, submerged ancestral territory, and eliminated traditional food sources. Damming free-flowing rivers is detrimental to bio and cultural diversity, and contributes to climate change through the release of under-reported methane.”
The environmental benefits of dam removal are already visible. Salmon, which once ran the full length of the river and served as a vital food source for local tribes, were spotted for the first time in more than a century in upstream tributaries just 11 days after the final dam came down. In total, more than 400 miles of river and creeks have been reopened to migrating salmon.
The movement to remove the dams dates back decades, but it gained momentum in 2002 when steelhead and salmon perished by the tens of thousands on the lower reaches of the river. Stakeholders determined that the relatively little energy created by the dams, particularly in such a rural area, did not offset the environmental impacts on the land.
As a result, the four largest dams in a 45-mile stretch of river on both sides of the Oregon and California border were removed. Two smaller dams remain upriver near the headwaters, which the kayak group had to portage.
The group is nearing the halfway point of its journey. You can follow the daily updates on the Ríos to Rivers Instagram page.
