Press release from Rios to Rivers:

On the Wood River, Oregon – Approximately 30 Indigenous youth kayakers today began a monthlong “First Descent” of the undammed Klamath River, enroute to the mouth of the Klamath in northern California. Accompanied by family members, friends and supporters during the first day of their 310-mile journey downriver, the group of 13-18 year-olds from the tribes living throughout the Klamath River Basin were given a ceremonial sendoff by their elders and tribal leaders.

“I think the most important part of this whole experience for the young people is the connection to not only our sacred lifeblood, our water, our ‘ambo,’ but also with the connections of people, both young and old, and the connections that we have as Indigenous people with one another from the upper Klamath River to the lower Klamath River,” said William Ray, Jr., chairman of the Klamath Tribal Council.

The youth have been training to run whitewater with kayak instructors from the Paddle Tribal Waters program operated by the nonprofit group Rios to Rivers. The program includes young kayakers from the Klamath, Yurok, Karuk, Quartz Valley and Hoopa Valley tribes.

“I was raised as a river kid, and I love where I come from. Since I was little, I drank ‘ambo’ from the spring where the Klamath River starts. And now I get to kayak from where I drink, following the water on the almost free Klamath River to the ocean, Coley Kakols Miller, 14, a Klamath tribal member.

“This is a historical opportunity to heal not only the waters of our basin, but the people too,” said Danielle Frank, 21, a Hupa/Yurok member of Rios to Rivers’ board of directors.

Four hydroelectric dams blocked the river for more than a century, impeding once-abundant salmon runs. The young kayakers have set out to reconnect the source of the Klamath – at Wood River north of Klamath Falls – with its mouth where it reaches the Pacific Ocean at Requa, CA, in Yurok territory. They are scheduled to arrive there on June 11. During the last days of the journey the paddlers will be joined by Indigenous youth and representatives from the Snake River and other river basins in the U.S., and representatives of kayak clubs and communities as far away as New Zealand, and Chile and Bolivia in South America, where dams also threaten the health of local rivers.

After a daylong celebration in the town of Klamath, Calif. on July 12, marking the end of the “First Descent,” an international Free Rivers Symposium will be held on July 13, also in Klamath. Tribal leaders, environmental activists, scientists and other experts from several nations are then expected to issue the Klamath Accord, calling for the removal of harmful dams around the world and the end of construction of new ones.

For more information on the First Descent, click here.

For more information on Rios to Rivers, click here.