Thursday February 22, 2024
San Francisco Chronicle —
The nation’s largest dam-removal project, the dismantling of four hydroelectric dams near the remote California-Oregon border this year, may be the end of one story.
But it’s the beginning of another.
The native Shasta people, who were exiled from the banks of the Klamath River more than a century ago, in part because of dam construction, are expected to acquire a stretch of ancestral land that is emerging along the river as the dams come out and the reservoirs behind them dry up.
Tribal members envision a revival of their age-old community on the property, which the state is looking to hand over as acknowledgement of their enduring hardship. The displaced Shasta people never found a place to regroup after the forced diaspora. Many of their descendants, now scattered across California and beyond, hope to come live, work and worship on the riverfront they still call home.