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

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

[ exclaims ] Come over here, buddy!

Good boy!

[ laughing ] WOMAN: Whoo, high five!

Yeah!

ED JAHN: Next on Oregon Field Guide: For one man and his dog, hunting chukars is a form of bonding-- with each other and the big wild.

Come on, girl.

Keep moving.

Then, Oregon Field Guide photographer Todd Sonflieth turns the lens on his own backyard and captures the spirit of nature on a smaller scale.

But first, the largest dam removal in the United States is underway along the Klamath River.

What's the future look like for salmon and for those who live here?

When Oregon Field Guide first launched over 35 years ago, the idea of destroying huge dams to set rivers free across the Northwest was still mostly that-- an idea.

But then the dams started to fall-- along the Sandy, along the White Salmon, on the Elwha, among others.

Well, today, the largest and most complex dam removal project in the country is underway along the Klamath River, and it spells huge changes for the region.

Producer Cassandra Profita has made multiple trips to the area and found a story of both hope and anxiety along the river.

Arch forward, go, go, go, go!

[ all exclaim, laughing ] PROFITA: Summertime whitewater rafting on the West Coast doesn't get much better than this.

[ all exclaiming, laughing ] GUIDE: Okay, forward on.

But it's not natural to have so much water flowing down the Klamath River in August.

This rafting trip is only possible because of water released upstream from J.C. Boyle Dam.

MAN: This is an artificial experience on a modified river.

The dam is holding back water in the night, it's releasing water during the day, and we're riding on that bubble.

If all goes according to plan, that bubble will be gone by next year, along with J.C. Boyle Dam itself.

It's one of four Klamath River dams the utility PacifiCorp decided to take out, along with Copco 1, Copco 2, and Iron Gate dams.

They're all blocking salmon from swimming upstream, and they'll all be coming out next year in the world's largest dam-removal project.

Longtime river runner Bill Cross is eager to see them go.

If we have a dam upstream from us and three dams downstream from us, in the future, when the dams come out, there will be new stretches of river upstream and downstream from here and a fully connected river from top to bottom.

But when the dams come out, there will only be about half as much water in the river in late summer, not nearly enough for a big raft to make a trip like this.

That's a big blow for rafting guide Bart Baldwin, whose business depends on summertime trips that will no longer be possible.

I feel like I'm losing a good friend.

[ chuckles ] I just-- I've run this river a lot, and it's my favorite.

Right now, this is it.

This is the biggest bang for your buck that you can get in the summer: 95 degrees, 72-degree water, 42 named rapids, and they're long and exciting and explosive, and that's pretty unique.

The Klamath dam removal project took decades to get approval, in part because it's controversial.

Supporters say it will bring cleaner water with less of this white foam and fewer harmful algae blooms.

They both worsen with the combination of stagnant reservoirs and agricultural runoff.

So right over here on the bridge, we'll show you... what I like to look at.

Dam removal will open up new habitat for salmon.

That's what Karuk tribal leader and traditional fisherman Troy Hockaday has been fighting for.

During spawning season, he comes to check on the salmon at the confluence of the Klamath River and the Scott River tributary.

So the salmon will pull up here until it's time for them to get up the river, when they know they have to go.

To see these fish right here, right now gives me hope.

Now the hope is for them to get to where they have to go to spawn.

Removing the dams will reopen 400 miles of salmon habitat, including a lot of spawning grounds the fish haven't been able to reach for more than a century.

There's no guarantee the salmon will thrive in this drought-stricken basin, but Troy is hopeful.

Fish is our life, especially on the Klamath River.

Our life and our culture.

My goal is to fight for those fish and keep fighting for them until I can't fight anymore, as to where I can have my grandson, who's 1 year old today, to be down there fishing and all of a sudden, "Here, Grandpa, here's a fish."

PacifiCorp spokesman Bob Gravely says the cost of upgrading the dams to allow salmon to swim upstream was far more than the cost of taking them out.

These are electricity-producing dams.

Unlike some of the other dams people are familiar with, these are not really flood-control dams, they're not used for irrigation water.

So removing them won't really change the ongoing fights over water scarcity in the basin.

One of the problems on the Klamath is, you know, there's just lots of demands for a certain amount of water, and those disputes will continue after dam removal.

Francis Gill and Danny Fontaine are worried about losing the lake their community is named after.

They're longtime residents of Copco Lake, where about 75 houses line the reservoir.

And they want to see the place thrive in the future.

That's why the couple recently bought this store and starting renovating it.

We're reopening it, but it used to be open, and it was like the hub of the community back then, so we're hoping we can bring that back.

The rafters used to get out here, and the previous owner said they had 300 people here in one day.

I don't know if we can do it all by ourselves, but it'd be nice to have, like, donuts and coffee in the morning and... We're trying to make it into an old-- like an old general store from way back in time, you know, just to bring out the feeling of a community.

The problem is, they can't get anyone to tell them what to expect from the bare land and the river that will be their new neighbors.

Yeah, we have these three docks that we're going to lose.

We won't be able to launch boats anymore.

People are angry and sad because we're suffering a loss.

We're going through this grief process for like 21 years up here.

Danny says his job as a real estate agent is harder now.

Capco Lake homes could see damaged water wells and unstable ground when the reservoir is drained and all the sediment stored up behind the dams starts flowing downstream.

This is what it looked like when Condit Dam was removed from the White Salmon River in Washington.

DANNY: Nobody knows what it's going to be like, so when you're trying to sell a home to somebody and you can't tell them what they're buying, it creates a big challenge.

FRANCIS: Now he has to disclose, "Well, your well may dry up or your house may fall off a cliff.

Oh, yeah, by the way, the lake's going away in a few months, too.

Welcome."

[ chuckles ruefully ] The emptied reservoirs will need a lot of restoration work, and some of it has already started.

[ rumbling ] Workers with local tribes are cutting down weeds and collecting native seeds so they can replant the bare land that's currently underwater.

WOMAN: It feels like I'm really making a difference.

We're working right now to get these invasive species out of the way so we can give the native plants a fighting chance to grow and do good.

Gwen Santos is overseeing the massive job of restoring more than 2,000 acres around the reservoirs and dams.

After dam removal, we are responsible for putting the river and the ecology and the environment back to a functioning ecosystem.

When do you think they'll be fully leafed out?

I was hoping this week.

I think this is the largest project that any of us have worked on ever.

Right now you're looking at a lake, so what I imagine is, as we can see, the chaparral on the hillsides, is for that to continue, kind of move into a grassland system, and then we see a flowing river that meanders, has some ripples, and will be a really pleasant area to look at.

BILL: The last brush.

I'm going to hope we can crash through on this line.

Bill Cross has been imagining that restored river, too.

There's one now.

Flaps are down, landing gear, making the final approach.

Oh, yes!

A few months after our whitewater rafting trip with Bill, we hiked with him to the top of these basalt cliffs, an area known as Ward's Canyon.

This is where he's most excited to see the river reemerge.

I've seen pretty much every inch of the Klamath, and this is the most spectacular canyon on the river.

The river channel here used to be filled with rushing water, but it was drained when they built Copco 2 Dam.

The first time in a century it'll have flow permanently restored to it.

[ rafter exclaims ] A few years ago, Bill had a chance to preview what it will look like after dam removal when PacifiCorp diverted water into this channel to simulate future flows.

During that test run, he got to raft this stretch of the river.

It was just spectacular to be swept right under that 200-foot-high wall.

Wow!

And it's fun whitewater, but the setting is just exquisite.

There's nothing like this on the rest of the Klamath.

My history with river running and river conservation goes back to a time when we were losing rivers on a regular basis to dams, and to have lived long enough to reach a point where we're actually removing dams and restoring canyons is something I never thought I'd live to see.

[ people chattering indistinctly ] So we're filleting fish up to cook it traditionally on sticks.

Then we'll stake it up.

And this is tradition passed on from the beginning of time.

This is how our people cooked fish.

Boom, there it is.

For Indigenous cultures that depend on salmon, removing the dams brings tremendous hope for restoring these fish.

But for now, Troy Hockaday is still waiting.

The dams are going to come out, but I'm not going to celebrate until I've seen an excavator on top of the dam moving that rock.

And once that day happens, then you'll see me jump up and down and scream and holler... [ chuckles ] to the Creator about what's happened.

But until that day, I mean, we've still got a little more to go, but that's the day I'll celebrate.

[ music playing ] Oregon Field Guide doesn't do a lot of stories about hunting.

That's mostly because there's entire TV networks dedicated to that sort of thing.

But when our producer Noah Thomas met a born-and-raised Oregonian who spent his days with his dog hunting chukars, he came back with a personal story about connection with nature that just makes a lot of sense, whether you hunt or not.

MAN: I got into hunting because I was born into one of those families that it was a long and steep tradition.

It's about being with family, it's about being with friends, it's about being with my dog.

Hi, Sky pie!

It's about being in the outdoors and seeing things that normal people don't get to see because they're not where I'm at.

THOMAS: Eric Thompson's traveled to the desert grasslands of northern Oregon with his nephew Kyle and Kyle's girlfriend Linsey.

- Got it?

- Yep.

The crew's in search of chukar, a partridge found in the northwest desert plateau, a beautiful bird if you can actually spot one.

Come here, Sky pie!

Come here!

How you doing, baby?

Assisting the hunters is a German wirehair pointer named Sky.

She's just excited.

As a puppy, Sky's still learning the ins and outs of the sport.

It's important to travel with a hunting dog because that dog's nose is thousands of times more sensitive than yours, and they will find that bird where you might walk around for an hour and not find it.

[ Eric chuckles ] You can see how the terrain just slopes off hard.

It looks nice and gentle, but we'll realize that this is some pretty tough walking.

So chukar country, it's a fun place to be.

I like to say that I've walked most of Oregon.

I've fished, I've hunted, I've picked up rocks, I've looked at mushrooms, I've seen the animals, I've observed my natural world in a minute detail.

I'm seeing tracks.

I'd say these are at least a day old because they're iced in.

That's the joy of hunting chukars in the snow-- you get to see all the tracks.

I enjoy chukar hunting because of the challenge.

It is not an easy thing to do.

They will run on you, they will tire out your dogs, they will tire you out.

They will break you on the hills, trying to catch up with them.

Chukars are native to Eurasia.

They were introduced as a game bird to the United States in the early 1900s and they're notoriously difficult to hunt.

Spend a few hours walking on steep, rocky terrain and you'll see what I mean.

Perfect for chukars, not so great for humans.

There was a real push to put them in as game birds in the late '60s, early '70s, so hundreds of thousands of them were transplanted throughout the western United States.

Seeing a few bird tracks.

The birds normally will get on this lip where it's harder to get, so I'm the guy that always goes in the worst spots.

What's up, girlie?

She's working the scent.

She's found something interesting, and that's what's keeping her doing her job.

It's important to me to form a relationship with my dog without being yell-y and scream-y, without being overbearing.

I'm setting the foundations for how I want to interact with my hunting partner, because that's what, ultimately, she is.

[ gunshots in distance ] Somebody hunting the other side of that plateau.

They're chukar hunting.

It's the joys of living in public-land country, and I don't know where I'd be if I didn't live somewhere where I could just walk out and hunt.

Here you go.

She's full of energy, and we had to fall back on her because my steady dog is out of commission for another week.

Eric's steady dog is a Wirehaired Pointing Griffon named Hex.

For these dogs, nothing compares to the excitement of hunting.

But during the off-season, Eric likes to conduct training sessions with Hex to keep her skills sharp.

You want to keep the conditioning, you want to keep the sharpness of the dog, keep 'em happy, and that's what makes 'em happy.

She's my main dog right now.

She's got five seasons under her belt.

She is a die-hard chukar dog.

It's kind of wet, so we're going to change up our procedure.

There won't be any shots or anything, but we will let her go out, point the bird.

I'll leash her up, take her off, and just give her some good praise and let her know she's doing a good job.

Eric's released a training bird somewhere in the field.

They're domesticated chukars that are used for exercises like this one.

All right, you ready?

Bird's in the field!

Hunt him up.

Once Hex finds the bird, her job is to freeze like a statue with her nose pointed directly towards it.

You see, her tail's all wiggly like that, that indicates to me that she knows there's one in the area and she's got the scent, so she's working it.

So she's got her nose to the ground and she's following where that bird walked.

When she starts ranging, she's just checking the entire area.

And that's her on point.

Ah, whoa!

Whoa!

And that is not what we want.

[ laughs ] She went on point, and before I could get to her and pull her off that point, that bird moved.

She broke point, which is not desired.

Everybody always shows all the successes, but sometimes we have failures, and that's okay.

We just reset and go again.

You ready?

Bird's in the field.

Hunt him up now!

Even though Hex can range several hundred yards ahead of Eric, pointers will typically remain frozen on point until their hunter catches up to them.

Normally this is where I would go in and flush the bird while making sure that she stays steady and go ahead and shoot the bird and she retrieves the bird.

And that's her reward for all her hard work.

[ Kyle whistles ] After nearly three hours of walking, the hunters know the chukars are close.

They've left a very distinct clue.

If you look down, you'll see something that looks like a green and white ice cream cone, and that'll be chukar poop.

We're on the birds.

They're somewhere in here.

We've just got to find where they're roosting, because that one is another fresh one right there.

Now you need to find those birds.

Where'd they go?

I know they're around here.

KYLE: I can hear 'em.

Like they're saying... [ imitates chukar calls ] Doesn't sound like 20 or 30 of 'em.

ERIC: Sky is on point right now.

Oh, there they go!

The birds were way out of range, so we wait for good shots, just like with big game.

Eh, she's creeping.

She could just be smelling the old birds that were there.

Oh, there it goes!

Oh, oh, oh, oh!

[ gunshots ] Dead bird!

Good girl!

KYLE: We had already kicked a few out.

The dog was telling us there were a few still there, so I just got up and I was able to get a bead on it and got lucky.

Chukar hunting's a lot of walking.

You cover a lot of miles.

[ Linsey sighs ] It's something that's a challenge.

ERIC: Oregon is just so steeped in my blood.

I've experienced so much joy and happiness in the outdoors here with my family, with my friends.

Everybody has played a part in what has developed Oregon into a place that I will always hold dear in my heart.

[ whimpering ] Go on, girl.

Keep moving.

[ music playing ] This is the street where Oregon Field Guide photographer Todd Sonflieth lives.

Now, Todd has been absolutely everywhere across the Northwest on our show, but back during the pandemic, he spent a lot of time right here, where he turned the lens on the subtle nature he found in his own backyard.

[ water bubbling ] [ birds chirping ] [ raindrops pattering ] [ music playing ] [ gulls cawing ] You can now find many Oregon Field Guide stories and episodes online.

And to be part of the conversation about the outdoors and environment here in the Northwest, join us on Facebook.

[ birds chirping ] Major support for Oregon Field Guide is provided by... Additional support provided by... and the following... and contributing members of OPB and viewers like you.