KLAMATH >> As bright-colored kayaks push through a thick wall of fog, voices and the beats of drums build as kayakers approach a crowd that has formed on the beach. Applause erupts as the boats land on the sandy spit that partially separates the Klamath River from the Pacific Ocean in northern California.

Native American teenagers from tribes across the river basin push themselves up and out of the kayaks and begin to cross the sand, some breaking into a sprint. They kick playfully at the cold waves of the ocean they’ve been paddling toward over the last month — the ocean that’s seen fewer and fewer salmon return to it over the last century as four hydropower dams blocked their ideal spawning grounds upstream.

“I think our ancestors would be proud because this is what they’ve been fighting for,” said Tasia Linwood, a 15-year-old member of the Karuk Tribe, on Thursday night, ahead of the group’s final push to the end Friday.

The Klamath River is newly navigable after a decades-long effort to remove its four hydropower dams to help restore the salmon run — an ancient source of life, food and culture for these paddlers’ tribes who have lived alongside the river for millennia. Youth primarily from the Yurok, Klamath, Hoopa Valley, Karuk, Quartz Valley and Warm Springs tribes paddled 310 miles over a month from the headwaters of the Wood River, a tributary to the Klamath that some tribes consider sacred, to the Pacific Ocean.

The teens spent several years learning to navigate white water through Paddle Tribal Waters, a program set up by the nonprofit Rios to Rivers, to prepare local Native youth for the day this would be possible.

During their last days on the water, the group of several dozen swelled to more than 100, joined by some family members and Indigenous people from Bolivia, Chile and New Zealand who face similar challenges on their home rivers.

Dams built decades ago for electricity

Starting in the early 1900s, power company PacifiCorp built the dams over several decades to generate electricity. But the structures, which provided 2% of the utility’s power, halted the natural flow of a waterway once known as the third-largest salmon-producing river on the West Coast.

With the dams in place, tribes lost access to a reliable source of food. The dams blocked the path to hundreds of miles of cool freshwater streams, ideal for salmon returning from the ocean to lay their eggs. Salmon numbers declined dramatically along with the water quality.

In 2002, a bacterial outbreak caused by low water and warm temperatures killed more than 34,000 fish, mostly Chinook salmon. That galvanized decades of advocacy by tribes and environmental groups, culminating in 2022 when federal regulators approved a plan to remove the dams.

Through protests, testimony and lawsuits, the tribes showcased the environmental devastation caused by the dams, especially to salmon. From 2023 to 2024, the four dams were dynamited and removed, freeing hundreds of miles of the Klamath.

The renewable electricity lost by removing the hydropower dams was enough to power the equivalent of 70,000 homes, although PacifiCorp has since expanded its renewable sources through wind and solar projects.

Two dams used for irrigation and flood control remain on the upper stretch of the river. They have “ladders” that allow some fish to pass through, although their efficacy for adult salmon is questionable. On the journey, the paddlers got out of the river and carried their kayaks around the dams.

For teens, a month of paddling and making memories.