- [Garin] We need to pray before we do anything.

- [Aurora] Yeah.

(Garin speaking native language) (indigenous music) (indigenous music continues) - [Narrator] In late summer, Klamath tribal member Garin Riddle brings his family to this marsh for a time honored grocery run.

- [Garin] I see a good one right here.

- [Narrator] This is one of the only places they can still find the food their ancestors ate for thousands of years.

- We call this wocsum right here.

This is that wocus that we were talking about.

- [Narrator] These wocus plants produce a bulb with highly nutritious seeds inside.

- That's a good size.

There's something beautiful about those first foods.

It almost like it sparks this reawakening of your genetic memory, like you remember who you are.

(water sloshing) (indigenous music) Me and my family, we go and we gather.

We always say a prayer.

We always sing songs when we're gathering.

I truly believe that when people consume the foods that we gather, that they consume that good spirit that it was gathered with.

(indigenous music continues) Our people have been gathering in these spots right here that we're at right now since the beginning of time.

- [Narrator] Wocus thrive in fairly shallow water, in healthy wetlands like this, with beautiful yellow flowers in early summer.

Cold clear water bubbles up from underground springs nearby at the headwaters of the Klamath River.

But as that water makes its way downstream, it gets hot and overloaded with pollution from nearby farms.

Many of the wetlands in the Upper Klamath Basin have been replaced by agriculture.

- I'd say 90 to 95% of what we used to have as far as wocus is non-existent anymore.

It's all farmlands, including the Tule Lake.

It's gone.

- [Narrator] The lakes that used to be here were drained by a government irrigation project in the early 1900s.

Now you can see farms growing crops where the lakes used to be.

Upper Klamath Lake remains, and the surrounding farms use its water for irrigation.

- This is no longer a lake as it once was.

It's more treated today like a bathtub.

We're constantly filling it and lowering it, filling it, and lowering it.

- [Narrator] Now only a few places have the right amount of water for wocus.

- There was wocus all along this lake and the fringes and the edges of this lake.

All of these aquatic plants were like little factories that clean the water.

I look out here from where I'm sitting now and what I see are fields that have been chilled for agriculture.

They've drained that type of habitat where wocus once thrived.

- [Narrator] Many farms take water from the lake and send it back filled with extra nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus that fuel toxic algae blooms, and that could make the food from wocus plants unsafe to eat.

But could those same farms help restore the healthy wetlands and the wocus that used to be here?

Farmer Karl Wenner is testing that out.

- All of these plants, we did not plant 'em.

They're, the seed bank was here.

- [Narrator] To reduce phosphorus in the water on his farm, he turned one of his barley fields into a permanent wetland.

- Put a little water, get the right conditions, they germinate, and you got a wetland.

And it's happening, it's happening.

It's pretty exciting.

- [Narrator] But as much as he's enjoying his new wetlands, he's not doing this for fun.

His farm depends on sending water into Upper Klamath Lake before planting, and the water on his farm was polluted with phosphorus, a nutrient in the soil.

- We were told we couldn't pump in the lake anymore, and that really messed up our operation, and we didn't want to stop doing that.

So we tried to come up with a way, and one of the ways was a wetland.

- [Narrator] He got federal funding to create these wetlands.

Now these plants are cleaning the water so it can safely go back into Upper Klamath Lake.

- Well, in 18 months of being a wetland, it was sucking the phosphorus out, so we had legal water in 18 months.

- [Narrator] Phosphorus levels in the water on his farm dropped from four times higher than the allowable limit to a level that was safe to pump back into the lake.

- It wanted to fix itself.

It wanted to be a marsh, and it became one.

- [Narrator] He's also creating temporary wetlands that move around.

This one will be flooded in the fall.

- All the way as far as you can see, this will be duck food.

- [Narrator] And in two years it'll be replanted with crops.

- We're trying to use the wetlands not only to provide food and habitat for waterfowl, but it's going to enhance our farm.

This will be very productive ground when we transfer it out of wetlands.

We'll get a better yield and it'll be organic.

This fluffy stuff is called panicgrass.

That is all seeds, pintail, and teal cocaine.

This is wild millet (laughing) and that's ready to go.

This is just about to hit the ground and be sitting there for birds of all kinds to come and eat.

God, I just love it.

Wetlands are what drove the system here for millennium.

We want a healthy, productive, profitable farm.

At the same time, we're going to have acres of wetlands, tons of waterfowl, tons of wildlife using the farm.

This is the answer for the Klamath Basin.

(tray shakes) - [Aurora] So these seeds are the inside of wocus pods, which we have here.

- [Narrator] After gathering wocus bulbs, Garin and Aurora spread their wocus seeds out on a screen to dry.

- So this is day two of them drying.

You can still see they're kind of glossy.

They're still a little bit damp when you pick 'em up and touch 'em, there's still moisture in them and they still have kind of a swampy smell or a marshy smell.

- [Narrator] There are many more steps to go before they can eat these seeds, but they will be highly prized because they're so rare.

- [Child] Mama?

- [Aurora] Yeah baby.

- [Child] Can we get that one for me?

- [Narrator] Garin says, he hopes putting wetlands on more farms in the Klamath Basin will help restore first foods and the Klamath people who depend on them.

- There are some very good people out there that are using those federal funds to be able to bring back wetlands.

If we just give it a little chance, give it a little water, give it a little hope.

But a lot of times the creator will take care of everything else.

- Thank you, daddy.

- You're welcome.

I have a responsibility.

It's not a choice of mine to be able to do these things.

It's not a choice of mine to sing songs and to gather wocus and to take my children out there.

It's not really a choice.

It's a responsibility of mine.

(indigenous music) (no audio) - Great people just doing their thing in their own Northwesty way.

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(upbeat music)