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.

In this episode we hear from residents of the Copco Lake community who are missing one thing....a lake. The lake was created when the Copco One dam was built and it was drained in January prior to dam removal. I visited Copco Lake in February of this year to find a community reeling from this dramatic transformation to their town and experiencing a lot of grief, frustration, and uncertainty about the future. In this episode we give space to this sense of loss that exists amongst all the celebration and consider if a change in perspective could offer new opportunity for the town of Copco Lake.

This podcast was made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.

In this episode we get nerdy about salmon. I speak to Tommy Williams, Research Fish Biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and Rob Lusardi, Assistant Professor at the University of California, Davis in Freshwater Ecology, about why salmon are such fascinating creatures and so important to river ecosystems, how dams take away their evolutionary strengths, and why dam removal could offer them their best shot at survival.

This podcast was made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.

In honor of Indigenous Peoples' day we're sharing this episode about how Indigenous communities are bringing good fire back to the land and heralding in a new era of landscape and wildfire management.

In recent years a new season has cemented itself into the western calendar: Wildfire Season. Research shows that wildfires are three times more frequent and four times larger than they were in the 80's and 90's. A big reason for this is the fire suppression policies that have been in place for the last century to encourage the growth of timber production. Indigenous communities used to tend to the landscape by conducting controlled burns but since the government made it illegal for them to do so, forests in the West have grown unchecked make it easy for wildfires to spread with unprecedented speed and ferocity.

And the Klamath Basin is no exception. The McKinney Fire consumed more than 50,000 acres the Klamath National Forest in less than 36 hours in 2022. The heavy rains which followed and fell onto the burn scar caused flooding and debris flow and killed tens of thousands of fish in the Klamath River and its tributaries.

But things are changing. There is increasing appreciation for the necessity of prescribed and controlled burns and Indigenous communities are reclaiming the ability to tend to their lands with fire. And some of the most exciting progress in this area is happening in the Klamath basin. In this episode I talk with Lenya Quinn-Davidson and Margo Robbins about what fire has to do with river health, and how they're working to bring good fire back to the landscape and to the Yurok people.

This podcast was made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.

Spring Chinook are treasured by Indigenous communities in the Klamath basin, who have long recognized the distinction between spring and fall Chinook runs. However, the view of Western science has been that spring Chinook could easily re-evolve from fall Chinook if they disappear, and as a result, there have been no special conservation provisions for spring Chinook. But a few years ago a team of researchers made a discovery that could completely change the way we see these salmon and how they should be protected. In this episode, we'll dive into the Salmon River, which is a tributary to the Klamath, with the annual Spring Chinook and Summer Steelhead snorkel survey, which aims to track these fish populations and understand how they are changing. And we'll explore what fish and river conservation could look like if it's led by people with a deep understanding of these systems and what they need to thrive.

This podcast was made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.

When it comes to conversations about water, farmers are usually pitted against tribes and conservationists. The tensions between farmers and tribes in the Klamath basin have developed over decades and, in some instances, have teetered on the edge of violence. Today, many farmers recognize the plight of the salmon but are worried that if dam removal doesn't restore fish populations, especially in the short term, they will be the ones to pay the price and lose their water access, which could spell disaster for farm operations. In this episode, I pay a visit to Ryan Walker's farm in Siskiyou County, California where a small but mighty creek with a surprising history has a lot to tell us about why farmers are concerned about dam removal. But it also may hold some lessons about the opportunities for river restoration projects that everyone can get behind.

This podcast was made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.

In the last two episodes we heard about the incredible effort it took to remove four dams on the Klamath. But American Rivers hopes to support the removal of 30,000 dams by 2050. In this episode I chat with An Willis, California Regional Director at American Rivers about the wild history of dam building into the West, why we've entered into this new era of dam removal, how American Rivers thinks about which dams to remove, and why dam removal is only one piece of the work to revitalize rivers. Because dam removal is not just about removing infastructure, but working hand in hand with dam owners, regulators, and local communities to find economically viable alternatives while restoring a working landscape.

This podcast was made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.

This is the story of a historic grassroots effort to free a river. The removal of four dams on the lower Klamath River is the largest dam removal project in history and has reopened 400 miles of salmon habitat. Indigenous leaders and activists campaigned for over two decades to reach this moment. The dam removals represent an unparalleled victory for native communities and an opportunity for them to reverse decades of environmental degradation and regain their ancestral connection to the river. In this podcast I speak with Molli Myers, Karuk Tribal member, as well as Karuk Natural Resources Policy Consultant Craig Tucker, both at the forefront of the dam removal campaign, about the winding and remarkable road to this point.

This podcast was made possible by support from American Rivers and was produced by Blue Canoe Studios with invaluable guidance from Kerry Donahue.