Major support for Oregon Field Guide is provided by... [ ♪♪♪ ] WOMAN: Come on!

There he is, there he is, there he is.

[ exclaims ] Get him out of there, buddy!

Good boy!

[ laughing ] WOMAN: Whoo, high five!

Yeah!

THOMAS: Next, on Oregon Field Guide: [ ♪♪♪ ] GIRL: Before I came on this trip, my uncle was saying bye to me, and he said, "Go be historic."

This is history.

We are currently creating history.

BOY: I've had a lot of family members that have been fighting for these dams.

And it's just like, "Keep going.

Keep doing it for the people before you."

MAN: Paddle, paddle!

Paddle!

Two years of progression all for these next 30 days.

You're good!

You're good!

GIRL: This moment has been prayed for.

[ birds chirping ] [ all exclaiming ] [ explosions ] [ people whooping, cheering ] BOY: The Klamath Dam removal was the largest dam removal in history.

They removed four out of the six dams that were built on the Klamath River.

This is a battle tribal communities have been fighting for for over a century.

The first descent is to celebrate the work that went into dam removal and to show why it's necessary.

[ ♪♪♪ ] GIRL: The Klamath River starts in Oregon on the headwaters of the Wood River through Agency and Klamath Lake.

We'll have to get out and portage around the two remaining dams.

We're gonna have to keep going for about a week until we get through past dam sites where the dams used to be.

Then we're gonna keep going until we hit the ocean.

GIRL: So this trip is an opportunity for us to celebrate a free-flowing river, because it's not something that happens in everybody's community and it's something that just happened in ours.

[ all exclaiming ] [ laughing, chattering ] My name is Julian To:-Nikya:w Rogers.

I'm from the Hoopa Valley tribe.

I'm 16 years old.

I started kayaking with Paddle Tribal Waters in 2022.

When I first started, I was terrified of the water and I, like, swam all the time and I could barely paddle.

But now I've seen myself improve exponentially.

[ all chattering indistinctly ] Well, I wanna welcome everybody here to our homelands.

Uh, for myself, it's a really emotional day.

For us, the Ewksiknii, Modokni, Numu, the people that live here, it's been over 100 years since we've had c'iiyals, salmon, in our homeland.

And soon they'll be swimming in these rivers.

And it wouldn't have never happened if it hadn't been for the support of many, many, many people.

But in our custom, we need to open this up in the right way, and that's with prayer.

Creator, we thank you for bringing us here.

We ask that you bless all of the people here this day.

We pray for the good health of our youth and that they be protected as they make this journey.

And we thank everybody for being here.

[ speaks in Native language ] ...to all my relation.

[ all chattering, laughing ] GIRL: Come on, come on, come on!

[ screams joyfully ] GIRL: You gotta go deeper.

[ all laugh ] My name is To'nehwan Jayden Dauz.

I'm 15 years old and a Hoopa tribal member, and I've been kayaking for two years now.

There's a lot of strainers, meaning, like, downed wood and trees, on the outsides of the riverbend, so we wanna... JAYDEN: The reason why I was preparing for is happening now.

And two years of progression all leading for these next 30 days.

All right, we gettin' goin'?

GIRL: It's good.

[ all cheer ] All right, guys, let's go.

[ all cheering ] WOMAN: What a reward.

What a joy.

As much as I wanna be there, look at these little water warriors.

Like, look at them all keep that going.

And that's a part of the importance of us as Indigenous people, that we all have that role, and there's a time where we have to look to our younger ones.

JAYDEN: Yeah, we're gonna be the first Native American youth that runs our home river from source to sea.

There's that, like, bigger picture from so many elders and so many people that was, like, talking to us.

For me, it was just the fact that I could show my siblings that things like this can be done.

[ birds chirping ] JULIAN: For me, what I'm really thinking about is my community.

I'm doing it for all of them.

And the people before me who aren't here anymore, so that they could see what I'm doing now.

Ooh, ooh.

BEN: We've got a couple of days of miles to paddle across the lake.

There's no short days coming up in the immediate future, so we wanna make sure that you're getting plenty of sleep so that you're feeling rested and solid for good mileage days.

[ playing softly ] [ people chattering ] Oh!

[ laughs ] No, what do you mean?

What do you mean, "What do you mean"?

[ all chattering, laughing ] My name is Tasia Linwood.

I am Karuk and Okanagan and Ojibwe and Wampanoag.

I'm 15 right now.

It sounds so young when I say it, but I feel so old and I don't know why.

Thumbs up.

Around the rez.

[ people chuckling ] Make a video.

What day of the descent is it?

What are we getting ready to do?

Ready, set, go.

Hi, my name's Tae.

And I'm Tasia.

TAE: And today we're on the Wood River.

On day two of the first descent.

Get hyped, get hyped, get hyped!

[ both screaming excitedly ] Let's go!

TASIA: The Klamath River has been dammed for over 100 years.

My grandpa, my grandma, my parents, they never thought that they were gonna see this river undammed.

We had moments of, not concern, but, like, it's just she's been gone and she's whitewater kayaking on a river that's unknown at this point.

The river is moving in different ways than it ever has.

This is our daughter.

Like, this is our... like, young, small daughter.

[ laughs ] But she is so strong and so powerful.

We're going 19.2 miles today.

That's a lot.

[ giggles ] I think it's cool.

You know, you don't get to see the river the way you do in a kayak, you know?

[ birds chirping ] JULIAN: We keep having fun, you know, keep moseying on down the river, but it's not a fast river at all.

Oh, my gosh.

What-- What is--?

TASIA: Go right!

Go right!

Watch your head!

Too low?

Yeah.

Road block, ah, I'm getting stuck.

Not ideal.

[ all chattering ] BOY: That was sick.

Up here, we got this bridge that's a little too low for us to just paddle under it.

You have to kind of like brace in the water to get a little bit lower.

Some people are gonna have to portage because that was pretty tough to do, I guess.

You got it, Tasia.

Pick it up, pick it up.

I'm short.

[ grunts ] Thanks, Tae.

Oh.

Take both of 'em.

Oh, both of 'em?

Yes.

Oh, you're the best.

I have no clue how much miles we've gone and how much time has passed.

I'm delirious and delusional now.

So, after like five miles, people are getting like, "Oh, boy, I wonder how far in we are."

Then 10 miles in, everybody's tired.

And then we get to the lake, and I'm like, "Oh, here it is.

We only got three miles to go."

And let me tell you, that was the worst three miles of my life.

We get to the lake, I'm so excited.

And then, boom, there's crashing waves.

You have to fight to stay moving forward.

Whoa-ho!

Yeah!

[ yelps ] There's so much water in my boat.

It's actually psychotic.

I swear I was getting seasick.

It was so gnarly.

It was so bad.

And my pants are rubbing really bad on my back, and my bra.

I'm going through it right now.

This is a hard birthday.

[ Ruby sighs ] You did it.

It's gonna be better.

Today's the hardest day.

You promise?

Yeah.

Whoo!

All I'm saying is that if I'm not shredded by the end of this, I'm done.

I'm done.

Lake days were long.

We had to be in sea kayaks, flat water, just wind.

[ ♪♪♪ ] We portaged Link River and Keno Dams.

We had to get out and walk around it.

From the upper part of the Klamath River to the lower part of the Klamath River, there was a very obvious change in water.

Behind the dams, there is still so much algae inside the river.

And you can see the difference of the Klamath River, like, wow, that is disgusting.

Being part of this program has taught me a lot about river health, rivers around the world, because it's not just our river that this is happening to.

For training for the first descent, we went to Chile for two semesters.

We went to this town.

It was like a reservation.

The people who created the dams forcefully relocated the Native people who were living beside the river.

That's what happened with reservations.

Like, we were forcefully removed somewhere else.

And it was weird to see that.

What happened to us is happening somewhere else right now.

These rivers, these dams that we just got taken out, they're being put up somewhere else right now, right this minute.

[ people chattering ] Not bad.

Why are you doing that to your face?

It's not makeup.

It's a zinc stick.

They're like sunscreen so the sun don't burn your face.

It's like sunscreen on steroids.

Get a picture.

[ laughing ] You cannot do pink face.

Well, that's only half.

You look like a miscolored French flag.

I'm a Neapolitan tub of ice cream.

Boom!

Today we are paddling Kikacéki, also known as Ward's Canyon, the new section on the Klamath River.

The Klamath has quite a few rapids, some Class IV, IV+.

We rafted this section probably a year ago, and it was big, so I'm pretty nervous.

Yes!

Yes!

When the dams came down, that was over a year ago, and it's still like my brain hasn't totally caught up.

And they got to go through that place.

Like, our people haven't been able to do that.

[ ♪♪♪ ] TASIA: There used to be this ginormous structure right here, and I'm just goin' through it.

DANIELLE: Going through the dam sites, and I've only ever seen Iron Gate from, like, this big ugly blockade on the river.

And I was looking at it from river level and, like, I never thought that I would see it like this, these beautiful stretches of river.

Was like this is the river I grew up on, but I've never known this river like this.

TASIA: So much hardship for our people and for the river and its inhabitants-- the fish and the wildlife.

Fish kills, algae blooms, not being able to go in the river.

You can see the toll it took on the river and everything around the river.

On the Klamath, it's been not just dirty but sick my entire life.

We never swam in the Klamath River because there's algae up to my knees in pretty much every single place.

It felt like another thing... that was taken from us and another thing that we had to just get used to.

DANIELLE: So it was an extremely blessed feeling to know that I get to be alive during this time.

We're just blowin' on through.

Holy crap, that's where it was.

Ahh!

[ all exclaiming ] DANIELLE: It looks so different now.

It's actually so much colder almost every single place that I can remember even just a few years ago.

It feels like a place that's actually healing.

[ person exclaims ] Oh, my gosh, no!

JAYDEN: Whenever I get in the flat water and all that, I just start doing as much tricks as I can.

Ah!

[ panting ] It hurts.

[ all chattering ] My older cousin just had a baby, so I thought it was time to start weaving, so, yeah.

This is a baby rattle that I started.

We gathered all the material for it, the willow roots and the sticks, and then I've been kind of weaving off and on since then.

DANIELLE: During the last three days, we had this goal of bringing together folks from Indigenous communities all across the globe, because we know that, while our river's free-flowing, dams are an international problem.

TASIA: There's people from China.

There's people from Bolivia.

There's people from Chile.

There's people from New Zealand.

TASIA: It's so much more than just the river.

It's also about the people that are getting forcefully relocated.

It's about the people that had to move.

And it's a hard reality to think so happily and hopefully about our river, because-- Because this is amazing.

This is amazing.

And I am overwhelmed with joy that this has happened.

But at the same time, how can I be so joyful when the same thing that happened to us 100 years ago is happening right now somewhere else?

[ birds chirping ] It's been a long journey.

Good morning, little girls.

Good morning.

Okay, hi, guys.

So today's a really big day.

We're getting to the mouth.

Someone will sing us in when we get there.

An elder, they'll do prayer for us.

All right, one, two, three.

Take a lot.

Gotta get the fists up.

WOMAN: Okay, one, two, three.

JAYDEN: There's times where I was like, "Oh, I could just quit this descent now," but for me, the bigger picture was just showing up for my siblings and showing 'em that I could do this.

[ camera beeping ] What up, you guys?

It is day 30 out of 30 of the first descent, and we are about to put in.

We are currently all feeling a little bit good, sad, I don't know.

Three years of hard work about to be over in like two hours.

Ooh!

WOMAN: Good job!

[ all exclaiming ] BOY: Yeah!

Paddles in!

Paddles in!

[ all exclaiming, cheering ] [ all laughing ] [ all chanting ] Tasia, Tasia!

I do what?

I'm scared!

Go, go, go, go.

[ chanting continues ] [ all cheering ] You made it!

I'm proud of you.

Good luck.

[ all exclaiming, chattering ] KIAHNA: Come on, Tae.

We gotta make it to the ocean.

JAREN: Final mile.

[ Tasia exclaims ] I thought it was gonna be sunny.

I also thought it was gonna be sunny.

I think Creator's trying to build up the suspense, eh?

MAN [ yells ]: Come on!

[ horn blowing, people cheering ] There's Julian!

[ cheering continues ] I think being on this trip has definitely healed some things in me.

But I think, more importantly, it's healed things for my community.

[ people cheering ] WOMAN: We can cry, Grandma.

Crying is healing.

[ singing in Native language ] [ people applauding, cheering ] [ whoops ] [ cheering continues ] [ Julian sighs ] JULIAN: We made it to the ocean.

How do you feel?

We just kayaked the entire Klamath River!

JULIAN: We're now at your home territory.

How does it feel?

I'm gonna start crying.

This is so insane.

I'm so proud of all these kids, especially Julian To:-Nikya:w Rogers.

Because he really did truly kayak the entire river, like the insane boss he is.

Yeah, Julian!

We did it!

ALL: Hoopa!

[ all exclaiming ] DANIELLE: Almost as soon as we were done, the fog just started lifting and it got sunny and kind of loving on us a little bit.

Tasia!

Hi, baby.

TASIA: Proud mama.

[ both laugh ] I'm so proud.

Mm, I'm gonna squeeze you.

I'm so happy.

[ people chattering ] WOMAN: Oh, my God.

I'm so proud of you.

So proud of you.

[ giggles ] Stop.

[ laughs ] I'm gonna keep crying, so just get used to it.

Getting her back, but also getting her back from this journey that's gonna change her life, she's gonna be a different person now from this point on.

I can't even fathom what she's going to do after this.

[ people chattering ] JULIAN: I've been thinking back and thinking of my ancestors, and I've had a lot of family members that have been fighting for these dams, and they aren't here today, but, you know, I'm proud and I'm thankful that they were there and they were fighting for it.

So for me, just I'm super proud to say that I've done it and I'm super thankful for them, the people before me.

It is a wonderful day, and these young people who made a 30-day journey, we need to honor each of them for taking this journey for all of us.

[ all cheering ] It's been powerful, you know, that my boys are contributing, my nephews, my nieces, my great-nephew, contributing to something that our warriors have been a part of for so long, and they get to be the celebration.

JAYDEN: I wanna go show my community how to kayak.

That is my main goal for the next five, ten years, to get to where kayaking is really well known in Hoopa.

[ all chattering, laughing ] TASIA: You know, there's still this whole narrative that people don't know that we exist.

You don't learn about us now.

And hopefully, hopefully this-- This is put in a textbook as a current event.

DANIELLE: Proud of you guys.

Congratulations for making it here.

One, two, three.

[ all exclaiming ] TASIA: The river is part of who we are as Native people who have lived on this river.

This is something positive that I can tell my grandkids that I was a part of.

And hopefully, my kids, my grandkids, they're never gonna have to see this river unhealthy.

I need to do something after this.

This doesn't feel like the end for me.

[ ♪♪♪ ] [ kayakers chattering ] Oh, yeah.

KIMORA: I've never been kayaking before, and so doing this, it was like Ariel, bro.

♪ A whole new world ♪ ♪ A dazzling place I never knew ♪ What is good?

Kayaking.

Kayaking.

What is mid?

Flat water.

Flat water is bad.

What do we hate?

BOTH: Dams and racism.

It's the first descent of the Klamath River undammed.

[ ♪♪♪ ] You can now find many Oregon Field Guide stories and episodes online.

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