Yurok Tribe will mark first year of dam-free Klamath River at annual festival

Teenagers and young adults from Klamath Basin tribes in south-central Oregon and Northern California earned international applause this summer paddling neon-colored kayaks 310 miles on the newly free-flowing Klamath River.

The 30-day journey, dubbed “source to sea,” started at the river’s headwaters, Oregon’s Upper Klamath Lake east of the Cascade Range, and ended at the Yurok Reservation’s Requa Village beach in California, where the river meets the Pacific Ocean.

The successful kayak crossing celebrated the completion of the world’s largest dam removal project. For more than a century, four hydroelectric dams altered the ecology, disrupted salmon runs, degraded the water quality and impacted Indigenous communities’ ancestral land.

The kayak trip also put a global spotlight on the most ambitious salmon restoration project in history. A month after deconstruction crews dismantled the last dam in August 2024, thousands of salmon started repopulating, according to the Yurok Tribe.

People are invited to learn more about the Yurok Tribe and its rewilding of their ecologically distinct stretch of the Klamath River during the 61st Yurok Salmon Festival and 5K fun run 9 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday in Klamath, California.

Admission is free to the festival centered on the Yurok Tribal Headquarters at 190 Klamath Blvd.

The theme, as reflected in parade floats, is celebrating the start of the Klamath River’s renewal.

“This year, we have every reason to be thankful – the Klamath River looks better than any other time in living memory, a powerful testament to dam removal and restoration,” said Joseph L. James, the chairman of the Yurok Tribe in a news release. “It fills my heart to see the Klamath healing with each passing day.”

Scientists like a riparian ecologist or biologists with the Yurok Fisheries Department will answer questions about the dam removals and the ongoing work to restore the Klamath River. Revegetation efforts include planting native trees, shrubs and grasses like narrowleaf milkweed, yellow gum plant and Garry and black oaks.

There will also be screenings at 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. of films about the dismantling the Klamath River Hydroelectric Project. Documentary filmmaker Shane Anderson will attend a segment showing of his upcoming feature film “Undamming Klamath” and artist Lucy Raven will be there to screen her film, “Murderers Bar.”

Salmon will not be available at the festival. Festival organizers hope the dam closings will provide a surplus to serve at future festivals.

“The river is our lifeline and so undamming it couldn’t be more important,” Justin Woods, director of Yurok Tribal Employment Rights Office, told the Oregonian/OregonLive.

The restoration of the Klamath River is requiring incredible effort, technical and ancestral knowledge, and time, he added.

“But promising numbers of salmon appearing in our estuary make us very optimistic,” he said “It’s not unreasonable to think in less than a handful of years, there will be enough fish to easily satisfy the need for fish at the salmon festival.”

Festival goers will also have a chance to cheer on competitors in three tournaments, watch a basket weaving demonstration and check out more than 150 vendors selling traditional food like fry bread as well as artisan-crafted jewelry, clothing and other specialty items.

A prefestival 5K Ney-puey Run/Walk starts at 9 a.m. outside the Yurok Justice Center , 230 Klamath Blvd. Ney-puey means “salmon” in the Yurok language.

The parade starts at 10 a.m., followed by the 11 a.m. stick game tournament and at noon, an arm wrestling tournament and live blues-rock music by Blue Mountain Tribe.

“I always recommend people get there a little bit early so they can set up their chairs to watch the parade,” said Maya Mace, a festival organizer who works for the Office of the Tribal Attorney. “There are also bounce houses and slides and snow cones to keep the kids busy.“

She said her festival highlight is watching the high energy and entertaining stick games.

As many as 3,500 visitors come to the family-friendly festival in tiny Klamath, which has 800 residents.

The Yurok people are known as great fishermen, eelers, basket weavers, canoemakers, storytellers, singers, dancers, healers and strong medicine people, according to the Yurok Country Visitor Center.

Yuroks were the original inhabitants of the Klamath Basin, which is most of Klamath County and parts of Lake and Jackson counties in Oregon, and parts of Del Norte, Humboldt, Modoc, Siskiyou and Trinity counties in California.

Youth traversing the Klamath River were also members of the Klamath, Karuk, Quartz Valley, Hoopa Valley, Warm Springs as well as the Tohono O’odham Nation.

The Yurok Tribe and the Klamath River Renewal Corporation collaborated on the dam removal project with the Shasta Indian Nation.

The Yurok reservation is in parts of Del Norte and Humboldt counties on a 44-mile stretch of the Klamath River.

In June, the Yurok Tribe announced its ownership of the Blue Creek Salmon Sanctuary and Yurok Tribal Community Forest, 73 square miles of their ancestral homelands along the eastern side of the lower Klamath River.

The area, logged for a century, was acquired over time by the environmental nonprofit Western Rivers Conservancy for $56 million. The transfer to the Yurok people is the largest single “land back” deal in California history, according to the Yurok Tribe.

The cold-water refuge surrounded by forest lands will now be managed for forest complexity and old-growth health for the benefit of the Klamath River’s fish and wildlife, according to a Yurok Tribe news release.

“The wild and untamed Klamath River is a living entity, with its own will, its own drive and its own life force … that transcends manmade borders,” said Woods. “We think about the Klamath River as a whole … and we occupy a space where we get to shepherd where it meets the Pacific Ocean.”

If you go: A pre-festival 5K Ney-puey Run/Walk starts at 9 a.m. and the 61st Yurok Salmon Festival is 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 16, centered on the Yurok Tribal Headquarters at 190 Klamath Blvd. in Klamath, California.

Take the Terwer Valley Exit (769) on U.S. 101 and follow the salmon signs on Klamath Mill Road to secure parking and shuttles that will drop off and pick up in front of the festival.

“It’s the coast, so wear layers,” said Mace. “Mornings can be foggy, but then it warms up.”

A sentence in the story has been corrected to make it clear that the Tohono O’odham Nation did not settle in the Klamath Basin.