Interview with First Salmon in Klamath River Spawn

Anadromous fish fights her way upstream

Hi, my name is Sharon, and I am interviewing the first salmon ready to spawn upstream of the Klamath Dam removal. And who are you?

Hi, my name is Celine Salmon. I’m an anadromous fish, which means I swim from the ocean to freshwater to spawn. Celine like Saline, get it? I’m here, in the Klamath River, designated the first salmon to run up the Klamath now that the dams are down.

Why did you go up the Klamath so quickly? The last dam just came down in August, not even two months ago.

I like to be first, an early innovator. I didn’t know for sure if all the dams were down. God, what a wasted effort it would have been to swim up here for nothing. If I had hit a dam, I would have had to turn around, after fighting all that current. It’s been what, since 1903? What the heck, it took long enough. The water entering the ocean from the Klamath seemed fresher, and carried a little more nutrients, you know?

Anyway, I thought my kids, all those little salmonids, should grow up in a new, clean place.

Did you find a mate waiting for you?

Clyde was here, but he’d been just behind me, he’d been tailing me, stalking me, since just south of Crescent City, California. Some Oregonians drive to Crescent City to pick up liquor, cheaper in California, it’s just over the Oregon border. Clyde, he swims to pick me up! Didn’t even stop for liquor! So here we are now in Jenny Creek, over four miles upstream of where the southernmost dam used to be.

We’re going to do the breed deed as soon as this interview is over. I’m beat. “I’m too tired” doesn’t work when you’re a salmon. He’s all red and raring to go, before his milt is milt toast, if you know what I mean.

When I was in grade school I studied the salmon migrations, as an example of a keystone species.

Yeah, well, whatever, I don’t care what you humans do, as long as the dams stay out of our rivers. Indigenous tribes, environmentalists, and even Warren Buffett celebrated. Warren Buffett’s company owned PacifiCorps, so they had to sign a Memorandum of Understanding for this whole deal to work, in November 2023. Yeah, think of that, Warren Buffet signed an MOU so, I Celine, can get it on with Clyde in Jenny Creek.

Hydropower is looked at as a future growth industry. I’m sure you know clean energy resources are a priority.

Huh. All dams are temporary, in the scheme of things. Even the big Bonneville Dam on the Columbia, or some of the big dams in the world, they’ll all get loaded with silt. You can’t stop the water from flowing and the silt from silting.

Climate change is coming, they’ll all come down, a hundred years, a thousand, it’s all just time. Some are failing now. An inland hurricane, a 100-year flood, the earth erodes around and under the concrete, and bam, there she goes.

Heck, some of the dams were built for flour mills or sawmills. Purposes that are long gone, but the dams are still there. Damn dams.

Don’t you worry about higher temperatures?

Don’t you? I’m already here in Jenny Creek. Look, my time is short. I had a few good years, now I’m gonna meet up with Clyde, spill my eggs, die, decompose, and do my thing for the cycle of life.

I understand even the trees here along the river will benefit from the nutrients you contribute.

You betcha. You guys keep churning out academics who figure out this stuff. We just live, swim against the current, and swing our tails uphill, to create a little nest for our progeny. If you guys wouldn’t think so hard or would think at all, you would do the same. Hey, listen, Clyde is getting redder and he isn’t gonna last forever. I gotta go.

Thank you, Celine.