{"id":28855,"date":"2023-04-08T10:00:40","date_gmt":"2023-04-08T17:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.nrs.com\/?p=28855"},"modified":"2023-04-21T11:01:54","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T18:01:54","slug":"the-grand-salmon-journals-approaching-the-dams","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2023\/04\/08\/the-grand-salmon-journals-approaching-the-dams\/","title":{"rendered":"The Grand Salmon Journals: Approaching the Dams"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over the course of the spring and summer in 2022, The Grand Salmon team skied, whitewater kayaked and sea kayaked from the headwaters of the Salmon River in central Idaho to the Pacific Ocean. The women completed this 1,000+ mile source-to-sea expedition as a conservation project, promoting the removal of the four lower Snake River dams and a moratorium on the Stibnite Gold Project, in order to save the rapidly dwindling Snake River Basin salmon populations from extinction.<\/em><\/p>\n

Following the natural migration of chinook and sockeye salmon, the team launched on April 29, around the same time the salmon were hatching from their spawning grounds at the headwaters of the Salmon River. The team followed the salmon smolts\u2019 migration path for the following 79 days, reaching the Pacific Ocean around the same time the salmon reached the ocean.<\/em>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The following is a collaboration of journal entries, art, and reflection by the three core paddlers of The Grand Salmon team: Hailey Thompson, Libby Tobey, and\u00a0Brooke Hess<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Day 39 \u2013 Day 43: Approaching the Dams
\n<\/strong>From the journals and thoughts of Libby Tobey<\/em><\/p>\n

One of the most important pieces of the expedition (and, in hindsight, also the most grueling) was the Lower Snake River. Here, we ran up against the four dams at the heart of our project\u2019s mission and the grim physical reality of the environmental and cultural crises they\u2019ve created.<\/p>\n

When we launched on the Lower Snake in Lewiston after reshuffling ourselves into sea kayaks, we were still riding the high of our sprint down the Salmon, packed with the buzz of high water, the company of the many friends who joined us along the way, and the electric, wildflower-splashed green of an Idaho spring. But within a few miles of leaving Lewiston, that excitement ran headlong into the sluggish torpor of a river that should be a freight train and the moodiness of a place that\u2019s been chewed up and spit out by the industries that once promised prosperity.<\/p>\n