More than a century after four dams cut off the Klamath River's natural flow, salmon are finally swimming freely upstream again. The historic comeback follows the completion of the world's largest dam removal project in October 2024, ending decades of ecological damage that devastated fish populations and disrupted the lives of the Yurok people in northern California. Behind that milestone was a generations-long campaign led by Indigenous Yurok families, including attorney and activist Amy Bowers Cordalis, whose memoir The Water Remembers recounts her family's role in restoring a river they consider central to their culture, identity and survival.
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