Indigenous Youths Finish Historic Journey Down Klamath River with Help of Aspen-Based Nonprofit After Dams Removed - Aspen Journalism

Indigenous youths finish historic journey down Klamath River with help of Aspen-based nonprofit after dams removed - Aspen Journalism

Listen to an audio version of this story, produced for Aspen Public Radio, here: KLAMATH, Calif. — In a thick forest along the remote northern California coast earlier this month, a group of mostly young Indigenous kayakers pushed off into the clear-emerald waters of the recently undammed Klamath River.  The 13- to 20-year-olds from more than six tribes in the Klamath Basin, along with several instructors, had been paddling for a month, covering…

Indigenous Youth complete first descent of undammed Klamath River from source to sea

Requa, Calif. – On July 11, several dozen Indigenous youth from the Klamath Basin and beyond completed a historic 310-mile, month-long source-to-sea “first descent” of the recently undammed Klamath River beginning in Oregon and ending at the mouth of the river on the Yurok Reservation.“As the youths, ages 13 to 20, approached the sand spit adjacent to the Klamath’s mouth in their bright-colored kayaks, tribal elders, family members, friends and …

Indigenous Teens Kayak Klamath River to Celebrate Dam Removal » Explorersweb

A group of young people from several Native American groups has completed a month-long journey down the Klamath River. The journey commemorates the removal of four dams, leaving much of the river to flow freely for the first time in a century. Years in the making Indigenous activists had been fighting for decades by the time the Klamath Basin Restoration Agreement was signed in 2010. The agreement promised to remove the four hydroelectric dams o…