Ruby Williams’s pink kayak pierced the fog shrouding the mouth of the Klamath River, and she paddled harder. She was flanked on both sides by fellow Indigenous youth from across the basin, and their line of brightly colored boats would make history when they reached the Pacific Ocean on the other side of the sandy dunes – they were going to do it together.

The final of four hydroelectric dams were removed last year from the Klamath River, in the largest project of its kind in US history. The following July, 28 teenage tribal representatives completed a 30-day journey that spanned roughly 310 miles (500km) from the headwaters in the Cascades to the Pacific. They were the very first to kayak the entirety of the mighty river in more than a century.

It marked a new beginning for the once-imperiled river and its sprawling basin that straddles the California-Oregon border, an important biodiversity hotspot and a region that’s been at the heart of local Indigenous culture for millennia. It also served as a bridge, bringing together river advocates from around the world eager to replicate the restoration happening on the Klamath.

It’s been only a year without the dams and the reservoirs created by them, and already there are successes to share.

Just days after the dams were demolished, threatened coho salmon made it farther upriver than they had in the previous 60 years. Shortly after the one-year mark, Chinook salmon were spotted in headwaters for the first time in more than a century.

Construction crews removed the top of the cofferdam that was left from the Iron Gate Dam, allowing the Klamath River to run in its original path for the first time in nearly a century, near Hornbrook, California, on 28 August 2024. Photograph: San Francisco Chronicle/Hearst Newspapers/Getty Images

Native seeds strewn across the riverbanks and their adjoining hillsides began to bloom. Scores of birds and animals – from bald eagles, to beavers, to bears – returned to the waterway. Insects, algae and microscopic features of the flourishing systems that feed this ecosystem were sprouting.

“These kids will be the first generation who get to grow up alongside a clean Klamath River,” said Ren Brownell, the former spokesperson for the Klamath River Renewal Corporation, a non-profit created to oversee and implement the removal. “They can now carry this momentum to other watersheds,” Brownell said.

That sentiment fueled the idea to have tribal youth be the first to navigate the river. The “Paddle Tribal Waters” program is part of Ríos to Rivers, an advocacy organization that fosters environmental stewardship by connecting thousands of Indigenous students across seven countries.

For the finish, people traveled from China and the Bolivian Amazon. There were Māori people from New Zealand there and members of the Mapuche-Pehuenche tribe who live along the Biobío river in Chile. Representatives from the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes and the Nimiipuu (Nez Perce) Tribe in the Snake River Basin in the western US also joined.

While the Klamath youth cultivated a deeper connection to their wild river being reborn, they also inspired Indigenous-led movements working to protect or restore other rivers around the world.

“It is a great David-and-Goliath story,” Brownell added. “It turns out that you can win.”

Klamath’s first year

A project of this scale had never been attempted before Klamath’s dams came down, and even with an abundance of hope and extensive modeling, there was uncertainty about how the river would rebound.

Even with years of work left to do, the speed of recovery has surprised everyone.

Without the large reservoirs that kept waters stagnant and warm during the summers, toxic markers that used to consistently spike outside healthy ranges have stayed at safe levels through the seasons. Water temperatures too have returned to their natural regimes, providing the coolness fish need to migrate.

“The river seemed to come alive right after dam removal,” said Damon Goodman, the Mount Shasta-Klamath regional director for CalTrout during a meeting on the one-year anniversary. “There’s just fish jumping all over the place, bald eagles, all sorts of wildlife.”

The unprecedented project required an equally unprecedented fish-monitoring effort that relied on a range of tools, including sonar, boat surveys, netting and tagging, and video, to observe adaptation, migration, spawning and habitat.

“The data is coming out so fast it is hard to keep up with the findings,” Goodman said.

Ruby Williams on the Klamath River. Photograph: Erik Boomer/River Roots Productions

Barry McCovey Jr is the senior fisheries biologist for the Yurok Tribe and has warned local communities and the public about the challenges that still lie ahead. Two dams remain on the river and it will take decades to heal “the massive scars” left by the dams that were removed, McCovey Jr said, adding that what might seem like a happy ending is just the beginning.

That doesn’t mean he isn’t celebrating.

“We called them footballs, they were so robust and healthy,” he said, referring to the fish now completing long journeys they haven’t been able to for more than a hundred years. One year in, “the big-picture update is the river is continuing to heal”, McCovey Jr said. “It has a different feel to it now – and it is only going to get better.”

For McCovey Jr, the wins go beyond the fish getting a renewed chance to thrive, along with the ecosystems that support them. After working to restore this basin for most of his life, his son, who completed the first descent, is now connecting with the river as it rebounds.

“The river needed those kids – they are part of the solution,” he said. They will play an important role to lead restoration work needed into the future. But they are also helping to spread an important message.

“It’s always been part of the goal to show people around the world that something like this is possible,” McCovey Jr said. “You just have to look to the Klamath to see that crazy things can happen.”

A new story

The removal of the four dams was still an abstract idea when Williams first began training for the adventure of a lifetime. She was one of about a dozen in the Klamath inaugural class, launched in 2022, when she was a sophomore in high school.

Williams mastered the kayaking skills required to traverse challenging and unknown rapids that would emerge from under the reservoirs – including the harrowing and awe-inspiring K’íka·c’é·ki Canyon run, more than 2.5 miles of class IV rapids that winds through an ancient and steep basalt chasm, held sacred to the Shasta Indian Nation. It’s a run that sparked fear even among the most experienced guides.

She turned 18 early on in the journey, her birthday falling on a grueling day spent battling strong headwinds and sharp sunlight that left her eyes and skin burning. But the memories of exhaustion are outweighed by those of camaraderie. Williams said she still talks to the friends she made during the program nearly every day.

Weston Boyles, founder and director of Ríos to Rivers, said the program forged links among youth from across the Klamath basin: “Everyone within a basin is connected to that river. Through the love of a common sport like kayaking, you can connect communities.”

Ruby Williams on the Klamath River. Photograph: Erik Boomer/River Roots Productions

Boyles and others on his team hatched the plan to help Indigenous youth lead the first descent in 2021 along with Rush Sturges, a professional kayaker and film-maker who cut his teeth on a Klamath tributary, the Salmon River. The curriculum they designed not only gave kids the skills needed to paddle the river but also helped them engage with what they were studying.

Students, including Williams, were also taken on trips around the world to meet other youth dedicated to fighting for their rivers. Among them were youth from the Bolivian Amazon, where dams being proposed would displace more than 5,000 Indigenous people and flood a portion of biodiverse Madidi national park.

“Our work in these rivers is allowing [people] to jump in a time machine and go to the future to see what could happen – what their basins would look like if the dams were built,” Boyles said. “We have all the information and we know all the answers here. There are actually solutions that are obtainable.”

A group of the students are heading to Cop30 in Brazil, petitioning the United Nations to stop recognizing dams as clean energy eligible to receive carbon offset funding. They were also the first to sign the so-called Klamath River Accord, an agreement made to protect rivers around the world that “recognizes that the removal of these dams should serve as a model for future climate resilience efforts and a testament to the power of collective action”.

The Klamath River. Photograph: Erik Boomer/River Roots Productions

For Williams, who is a Quartz Valley tribal member and a Karuk person, paddling the entirety of this river was a protest in itself. She recalled the tears that filled her eyes as she reached the ocean and pulled her boat onto the shore, taking in the sound of beating drums and the generations of Native people smiling as they reached the sand on that cool July morning.

“For a split second we stood there, like what do we do now?” she said. “And then all at the same moment we looked at each other and sprinted up this hill as fast as we could and full-on jumped into the ocean.”

Williams, who started college this year majoring in environmental conservation and land management, is eager to lead the charge. Along with lifelong friendships she found on the Klamath’s first descent, she’s gained a calling to fight for her river, and others around the world.

“All rivers should be free,” she said.