There are perhaps few things more fulfilling than traveling hundreds of miles propelled by nothing more than your own strength and nature’s currents. Dozens of Indigenous teens did just that by kayaking 310 miles down California’s sacred Klamath River. The trip lasted about a month. For more than a hundred years, the journey remained off-limits to their peoples: the Klamath, Yurok, Karuk, and Hoopa living in the Klamath Basin. The route had been blocked by hydropower dams. The four dams were removed between 2023 and 2024. Doing so restored a clear pathway for salmon to swim up the river to spawn. Tribes for centuries had depended on the salmon run for food and culture. “I’m overflowing with gratitude and appreciation,” Keeya Wiki, 17, told the local news nonprofit Ashland.news. “Thirty days is no joke … Reclaiming our waterways is more important than a sore shoulder.” Wiki’s mother is Yurok. Her father is Maori. Keeya and the other teens finished their journey on July 11. They jumped from their kayaks and raced across a short stretch of sand to splash in the Pacific Ocean. “We did it!” Malia McNair, 15, exclaimed to Ashland.news. “I never thought it was possible.” Malia is half-Klamath. Malia said the journey was so hard she’d considered quitting a number of times. She stuck with it because she wanted to prove that Indigenous youths are “just as tough” as anyone else. Local tribespeople had pushed for their fishing and water rights on the river for generations. That evolved into a unified movement two decades ago. The dam's owner finally agreed to have them removed. “I think our ancestors would be proud,” Tasia Linwood told The Associated Press. She's a 15-year-old Karuk Tribe member. Reflect: What is something you’ve done that was really hard but made you feel proud afterward?
