River of Renewal

by Stephen Most

A land of mountains, forests, wetlands, lakes, and rivers, the Klamath Basin spans the Oregon-California state line. Farms and ranches, logging towns, and back-to-the-land communities are scattered over this 10-million-acre bioregion. There are Indian reservations at the headwaters, at the estuary, and across the major tributary of the Klamath River. In this place that has witnessed, ever since the Gold Rush, a succession of wars and resource conflicts, myths of the West loom large, amplifying differences among its inhabitants.

At the core of the contemporary controversy is overallocation of the waters of the Klamath Basin. This dispute has pitted farmers and ranchers against those whose cultures and livelihoods depend upon fishing and others who would forestall the extinction of wild salmon. Yet it has also revealed the unity of the Klamath Basin, the interdependence of economic recovery with ecological restoration, and the urgency for all the communities within the Basin to find common ground.

To listen to an interview with Stephen Most entitled "Fished Draining the Seas of Their Bounty," please

Genres: History

292 pages, Paperback

First published October 30, 2006

Reviews

[Mia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot has happened to the Klamath River since Most wrote this book twenty years ago. This year, the drawdown process has been completed on three of four dams mentioned in the book, work is in process on a fourth dam and riverine restoration can begin. Several years of decent rainfall can begin to flush the river. The dangerous bacterial growth will not survive the moving water and purity can return. I remember crossing the Klamath River bridge on I5 on my way to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival many times. A few years ago, I returned home along the Pacific Coast and crossed the Klamath River again near the Pacific Ocean. I thought the Coast Range was an unbroken series of mountains and ranges, so, I wondered, how did the river get around the mountains? I found this book while learning about the river.
Stephen Most provides an historical context for the battles that have centered on the headwaters and the length of the Klamath River since settlers arrived in great numbers after the Civil War. The Indigenous peoples have been subjected to lies, deception, and attempts at extermination, continually through the Administration of G W Bush, and his henchmen including Karl Rove. The farmers have been promised more water than could reasonably be expected and reacted with fury when told they had to reduce their share of the water.
In an interesting section of the book, Most describes the rise of armed militias defending the rights of the citizens against federal bureaucrats in the Pacific Northwest. These water wars are part of their ascendancy which continued throughout the twenty first century, culminating in the attempted insurrection of January 6, 2021.
As the book is nearing completion, Most describes the efforts of facilitators to bring various interests together to find common ground and reach consensus without violence. Unfortunately that history has not yet been written but some progress has been made toward restoring the river with the de-certification of old dams that prevented salmon migration.
The Klamath is a beautiful and valuable resource. It deserves protection and reverence.

[Ryan Mishap · Rating 4 out of 5]

An invaluable look at the region and peoples of the Klamath River Basin, I wish the author and press hadn't tacke don the "myth" part of the title. The book would have been a tad shorter much stronger as a history and current affairs bit of reportage.

It reads like the author wished to explore the dueling world-views of natives and colonizer cultures and how they relate to the natural world, specific to this geographic bio-region and was forced to add shit about The State of Jefferson and Paul Bunyan to justify the book. Who knows?