Sofia Stidham
After enduring decades of damming, Indigenous teens recently completed the first full descent of the Klamath River, regaining the waterway and their history.
Rafting on the Klamath River. Zachary Collier. CC BY 2.0.
On July 11, a group of 13-to 20-year-old Indigenous kayakers was welcomed in Northern California after navigating 310 miles of the Klamath River's Class II to IV rapids. Representing the Klamath, Yurok, Karuk, Quartz Valley, Hoopa Valley, Warm Springs and Tohono O’odham tribes, the teenagers not only achieved the river’s first complete descent but also reclaimed Native American history. Three years of preparation, including international whitewater training in Chile, led to this moment. They were taught under the Paddle Tribal Waters program, created by the non-profit Rios to Rivers to reconnect Native communities with ancestral waterways, guided by their elders’ belief that water retains memory.
Critics have praised the youth’s feat as a powerful act of environmental activism tied to Native American justice. For two centuries, Indigenous access to the river was limited. In 1826, white settlers and miners diverted its flow. Subsequently, in the early 1900s, PacifiCorp built four hydroelectric dams that stifled the river and decimated the salmon population, while only supplying 2% of local power. Thus, what once was a life source for tribes became lifeless. A 2002 disease that killed 30,000 salmon galvanized governments to listen to decades-long tribal campaigns to remove the dams, which cited violations of federal treaties. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission approved the removal in 2022.
Many of the participants said they kayaked the Klamath on behalf of their ancestors who could not. “I think our ancestors would be proud because this is what they’ve been fighting for,” Tasia Linwood, a 15-year-old from the Karuk Tribe, told the Associated Press.
Yurok council member Phillip Williams mentioned to the news agency that their triumph, however, was bittersweet and interwoven with grief. “If there’s a heaviness that I feel it’s because there’s a lot of people that lived all in these places, all these little houses here that are no longer here no more,” he said.
As a result, kayaking the Klamath is seen as an act of joyful resistance, spurred by Indigenous suffering at the hands of white settlers. Weston Boyles, founder of Rios to Rivers, pointed out that the “first descent” is a historically colonial concept. “We’re reclaiming a stolen narrative. It matters because those waters flow through ancestral homelands, and these young paddlers are reasserting sovereignty,” he said.
Kayaking instructor Amanda Lang sees kayaking as “an entryway for activism.” “When you’re paddling down a river, it’s a different way of really seeing [the fight],” she noted.
The Indigenous first descent was a symbol of liberation that transcended borders and spoke to international communities. By the end of the journey, more than a hundred Native individuals from Bolivia, Chile and New Zealand joined the group. Many of the kayakers wore shirts that read “Undammed,” while others wore red hats with the words “Make America Native Again.” “We’re definitely going to go down in history,” said 13-year-old Scarlett Schroeder. In reclaiming the river, they reclaimed a future.
Sofia Stidham
Sofia is a rising fourth-year English Literature student at the University of Edinburgh, having recently completed a year-long exchange at the University of Virginia. Outside of writing, she enjoys spending time with family and friends, going to concerts, curating her wardrobe, and zoning out on long walks. She hopes to pursue a career that allows her to channel her passion for writing into intersectional feminist advocacy.