Ruby Williams’ birthday was not your average 18th. She celebrated it on the Klamath River, with a group of young people making a historic journey paddling from the river’s headwaters in southern Oregon to its mouth in the Pacific Ocean, just south of Crescent City, California. It marked the first time in a century that the descent has been possible, after the recent removal of four dams allowed the river to flow freely.
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Williams, together with fellow paddler Keeya Wiki, 17, spoke to CNN on day 15 of their month-long journey, which they are due to complete on Friday. At this point, they had just 141 miles (227 kilometers) of the 310-mile (499 kilometer) journey left to go and had already passed through some of the most challenging rapids, such as those at the “Big Bend” and “Hell’s Corner” sections of the river.
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Both were exhausted and hadn’t showered in days — although they promised they “aren’t completely feral.” However, despite tired minds, they were steadfast in their commitment.
“We are reclaiming our river, reclaiming our sport,” said Williams.
“We are getting justice,” Wiki, who is from the Yurok Tribe, added. “And making sure that my people and all the people on the Klamath River can live how we’re supposed to.”
The Klamath River runs deep in the cultures of the native peoples living in its basin, who historically used dugout canoes to travel along it. They view it as a living person, a relative, who they can depend on — and in turn protect.
“It’s our greatest teacher, our family member,” said Williams, who is from the Karuk Tribe, which occupies lands along the middle course of the Klamath. “We revolve ceremonies around it, like when the salmon start running (the annual migration from the sea back to freshwater rivers to spawn), we know it’s time to start a family.”
Historically, it was also a lifeline, providing them with an abundance of fish. The Klamath was once the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast of the US. But between 1918 and 1966, electric utility company California Oregon Power Company (which later became PacifiCorp), built a series of hydroelectric dams along the river’s course, which cut off the upstream pathway for migrating salmon, and the tribes lost this cultural and commercial resource.
For decades, native people — such as the Karuk and Yurok tribes — demanded the removal of the dams and restoration of the river. But it was only in 2002, after low water levels caused a disease outbreak that killed more than 30,000 fish, that momentum really started to build for their cause.
Twenty years later, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission finally approved a plan to remove four dams on the lower Klamath River. This was when Paddle Tribal Waters was set up by the global organization Rios to Rivers to reconnect native children to the ancient river. Believing that native peoples ought to be the first to descend the newly restored river, the program started by teaching local kids from the basin how to paddle in whitewater. Wiki and Williams were among them — neither had kayaked before then.