THE WATER REMEMBERS

The story of the largest dam removal in U.S. history.

When Bowers Cordalis accepted an internship with the Yurok tribe, in Northern California, she didn’t expect to witness the largest fish kill in American history. It was 2002, but well before her arrival the conditions had been primed for salmon loss on a massive scale. For nearly a century, a system of dams and canals had been used to convert the once-fertile salmon grounds and traditional Yurok territory into agricultural land. During that time, the U.S. government systematically reduced Yurok access to their native lands and fishing grounds, while increasing the amount of water diverted to farmers. By the time Bowers Cordalis steered a boat through miles of dead chinook piled three or four layers deep, the sickness resulting from the government’s water diversion had led to losses of between 34,000 and 78,000 adult chinook, losses that the colonial exploitation of the river had been building toward for a long time. Bowers Cordalis describes her Yurok tribe as people intrinsically connected to the salmon, people who consider the right to fish “as important to us as breathing.” Their way of life was at stake, as were the livelihood of the salmon and the health of the Klamath River. In trying to exercise their right to fish, her family had survived violence, intimidation, harassment, and an armed occupation on their reservation. The author’s path as an attorney and eventual leader in the successful removal of the Klamath dams grew out of that suffering. Her tribe’s resistance is rendered here in potent prose. Bowers Cordalis moves fluidly between her own story, personal accounts of her family and tribe, and the mighty river itself.

A moving and empowering account of an Indigenous tribe’s tenacity in the face of injustice.