Though these fish have never traveled
this far up their home waters,

they are making their way upriver
now after their long journey from

the sea where they will deposit
their precious cargo of the next

generation in a place their ancestors
swam more than a century ago.

The salmon remember.

Chinook again migrate up the mighty
Klamath River where four dams

once blocked their return,
manmade concrete barriers taken

down bit by bit after decades of urging
by the peoples of the land who knew

them best. The fish, guided by instinct,
cannot know the names of

the Yurok, the Karuk, the Shasta,
the Klamath and the Hoopa Valley,

their land-based human champions,
their sisters and brothers.

But the salmon remember the way
embedded deep in their DNA,

and, as if receiving a coded message,
they have arrived; they have

come home to complete the cycle
of spawning and dying, of birthing

so much more than offspring—
a legacy of hope fulfilled,

of future generations that they,
like us, will never see.

•••

On Oct. 16, 2024, biologists with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW)
spotted Chinook salmon above the former site of the J.C. Boyle Dam in the Upper Klamath River. They’re the first salmon in the region since 1912.

The dam was one of four that had blocked the salmon’s migration between the Klamath Basin and the Pacific Ocean. Each of those dams was recently deconstructed in the largest dam removal project in U.S. history, which has restored the river to its natural, free-flowing state.

(With appreciation to, among many others, the late Steve Thompson for his work on this salmon restoration project.)

•••

(Top) Woman with salmon / Artist: Tamara Adams