No Shortcuts

Touching a stream in mid-autumn, letting the cold water numb your skin, has a special way of connecting you to a moment, a place, a feeling. When you add the presence of Chinook salmon, some almost 2 feet in length, swimming so close as to brush against the insulated fabric of your boot, that feels even more memorable. Some of my fellow staff and I at Jackson Soil & Water Conservation District had the privilege of visiting Spencer Creek, a tributary to the now undammed section of the Klamath River, alive with Chinook for the first time in over 100 years. The experience left me feeling I had seen something special, historical, sacred.

Take a look at these Chinook in Spencer Creek!

Ecosystem restoration asks much of its practitioners and proponents. Work frequently hits roadblocks, setbacks, and delays, and has long timelines for implementation— longer sometimes than the lifespan of those that do the work. Some would say that the work to remove the four Klamath dams started with the 2002 Klamath River fish kill event which saw tens of thousands of dead salmon and steelhead below Iron Gate Dam. Others would argue that the work to remove the dams began as far back as the mid-eighties. Certainly enough time for those who began the work to never see the reward of those hard-travelled miles. Those practitioners, especially among the Yurok Tribe, did not take the shortcuts undoubtedly offered to see rest and reward in their time.

In a way, restoration resembles the journey of the Chinook salmon that brushed against my boot that autumn morning. That salmon had never ventured these 230 miles up the Klamath River to Spencer Creek before this year. Nor had its ancestors for the past 100 years. Its journey represents the work to create the next generation of

salmon that will inhabit Spencer Creek, to bring new nutrients and energy into a watershed that has gone without for a century, to restore an ecosystem in the Klamath River Watershed that it will never enjoy. It took no shortcuts.

a glimpse at new beginnings: salmon eggs laid in Spencer Creek

The construction of the dams themselves represented a sort of shortcut: 

one we probably didn’t realize we had agreed to take at the time. People

operate under the knowledge they have at the time and the values, goals,

and concerns they are burdened with in those times. So, we dam rivers,

straighten streams, and build communities in floodplains that change the

course of entire watersheds. The work of every generation involves

observing the decisions made by our ancestors, deciding if they still have

relevance to our current understanding and needs, and moving forward

without taking the shortcuts that rob the lives of those that come after us.

What will Spencer Creek look like next year, with all this energy returning to the watershed after more than 100 years of absence, scarcity, and famine? In ten years, when the native plants seeded by the Yurok Tribe and their partners grow and heal these recovering ecosystems? In 100 years, when our children’s children have forgotten a time when salmon did not swim in Spencer Creek? I don’t know, and that’s okay. Today, I will feel the water of Spencer Creek numb my fingertips as I try and understand the energy, the history, and the abundance of this place.

Learn more about Jackson Soil & Water Conservation District and their work here: https://www.jswcd.org/