Undammed: The Klamath River Story
The history of water in the West has been shaped by conflict, greed, and scarcity, but in a remote pocket of Southern Oregon and Northern California, a different Western water story is taking shape. The largest dam removal in history is on the verge of completion on the Klamath River. This moment is the result of a historic decades-long Tribally-led campaign to free the Klamath River and restore salmon and steelhead populations, which are core to Native traditions and foodways. This is a huge triumph. Today the river is a living thread that connects communities who each have their own version of the Klamath, and all of these communities will have to work together to reimagine what this watershed could look like as the river they all rely on transforms. In this podcast, we’ll follow that connective thread between the people and creatures that know the Klamath best to understand how they encounter this transformative moment and envision what the future might hold.
New episodes drop weekly on Mondays.
This podcast is made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.
Undammed: The Klamath River Story
Passing on the Paddle
What if I told you the first people to paddle the length of the undammed Klamath River will be a group of high schoolers who had no whitewater experience a few years ago. In this episode I visit the Paddle Tribal Waters Program, which is teaching Indigenous youth to whitewater kayak so they can make the first descent of a freed Klamath and become educators and advocates for the river. It's an audacious plan--the undammed Klamath is unknown territory with some serious rapids. But it turns out the next generation is a group of incredibly capable, hopeful, uncommonly determined young people who are bringing their knowledge of and love for the river back to their communities and out into the world. It's enough to make the future seem a little more encouraging.
This podcast was made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.
