Indigenous teens to make first descent of entire undammed Klamath

[Glenn MacGrady]

43 native American youths are currently paddling the 310 miles of the now free-flowing Klamath River from source to sea. They departed on June 12 and plan to finish by July 11. Here are a press release along with a newspaper article and the website of the organization.

Indigenous youth prepare for the first descent down the Klamath River after dam removal

On Thursday, dozens of young kayakers from a variety of Indigenous tribes will embark on the first source-to-sea descent of the Klamath River since the country’s largest dam removal project was completed last fall.

www.opb.org

Paddle Tribal Waters — Rios to Rivers

www.riostorivers.org

They apparently will be using kayaks for the class 3-4-5 whitewater, but the group also builds and paddles native canoes.

 

[Penns Woods]

Good Luck to everyone involved. Glad to see it. It is nice to see young people getting involved.

 

[MyKneesHurt]

It's good to see young people on the water, and great to see kids reclaiming their space outdoors.

 

[memaquay]

Great story! I'm not even going to be bitter about the kayaks. lol. I noticed something very peculiar this spring. I live beside a bridge over the Kenogamisis Lake. Every spring when the walleye come back from their spawning grounds, the bridge is a hotbed of activity. For the past 30 years, there has always been 20 to 30 kids every night fishing from the bridge, even though a clear sign says "No Fishing From the Bridge". This year, there were no kids fishing from the bridge. It wasn't due to sign enforcement. It was due to the evil take over of electronic screens, video games and social media. Efforts like the one described in the story are extremely important for the youth of today, as the number of kids getting into the outdoors has rapidly nose dived. Our Outers club leaves next week, good turnout this year, 20 kids, which is almost 15 percent of our student population. I'm not sure the general population has noticed this trend, of kids not playing outside anymore, but it is happening.

 

[ppine]

The Klamath is a mighty River with an amazing fishery. The recent dam removals will change everything. It is amazing that so many people are skeptical about improvements to the river by dam removal.

We last ran the Klamath R in 2023 in drift boats during extreme snow melt. We met with the fish hatchery workers up by Irongate Dam. They were not trained fisheries biologists, but technical guys. They lamented the loss of the warm water bass fishery behind the dams. I was in disbelief. They were against the dam removal.

The River has relatively warm water for a salmon and steelhead fishery partly due to the flow from large and shallow Klamath Lake in the headwaters. The river is runnable all year. It has some difficult rapids like Dragon's Tooth, the Ikes and Ishi Pishi Falls. Most of the rapids are Class IIIs or a little more in high water. The Falls has to be portaged. There are a handful of Class IVs.

The wildlife is spectacular along the River. It is common to see 10 bald eagles in a day or more, osprey and Great Blue herons all the time. River otters are common. Kingfishers, water ouzels, and mergansers. We have had bears in camp several times. Lots of wild turkey and huge deer herds. Stay tuned for more progress on this great river.

The Yurok Tribe deserves some mention. They have some reservation lands along the River. They have been instrumental in supporting the dam removals. Their culture is intertwined with the salmon. They have a salmon festival. Few of the California Native tribes have survived in tact. There were once over 100 different Native languages spoken in California. During the time of the Gold Rush starting in 1849 there was a bounty on Natives. Some of the miners hunted them for sport.

 

[Glenn MacGrady]

I didn't realize until the article linked in the OP that two of the six dams on the Klamath remain in place. Emperor AI tells me that they are needed for flood and agricultural water control, while the four dams that were removed were hydroelectric dams.