{"id":39462,"date":"2026-05-21T08:00:40","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/?p=39462"},"modified":"2026-05-12T14:14:40","modified_gmt":"2026-05-12T21:14:40","slug":"so-what-are-you-doing-this-summer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2026\/05\/21\/so-what-are-you-doing-this-summer\/","title":{"rendered":"So, What Are You Doing This Summer?"},"content":{"rendered":"

To paraphrase the 2010s kids\u2019 show Phineas and Ferb<\/em>: \u2018There are 104 days of summer vacation and school comes along just to end it, so the annual problem for our generation is finding a good way to spend it. Like maybe\u2026 landscaping bushes, or clerking a law firm, or climbing up the corporate ladder<\/em>, discovering new ways to think about science<\/em>\u2013 or, <\/em>if you\u2019re really stoked, \u201cgiving a monkey a shower.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Each academic year around mid-April, there\u2019s an anxious thrum that overtakes college campuses as professors, peers, and parents alike ask, \u201cso, whatcha doin\u2019 this summer?\u201d Words like \u2018summer classes\u2019 \u2018labs\u2019 and \u2018internship\u2019 swirl as professors and TA\u2019s collect their final undergrad researchers, and LinkedIn posts fill our email inboxes. This fall, as we looked at our options for summer employment (like the overanxious students we are), we thought long and hard about summers past and what we wanted to do.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d worked as summer camp counselors, conservation interns, and sea kayak guides, each job presenting new challenges and lessons, but we wanted to think bigger. When we sat down and drew out our messy word cloud of things that taught us the most, we realized our best learning never came from cubicles or conference rooms. It came from the water.<\/p>\n

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We knew we wanted to paddle, but we didn\u2019t exactly know where, or why. While working as sea kayaking guides in Alaska\u2019s Prince William Sound last summer season, we became obsessed with harebrained schemes of through-paddling the Columbia River. We knew that would be an amazing trip, but we wanted a way to engage our geeky Reed College brains. After sitting with the idea for a couple months, we were sipping coffee at a cafe during our study abroad in Northern Mexico when we cracked the code.<\/p>\n

\u201cHey, wouldn\u2019t it, wouldn\u2019t it be funny if we, if we paddled upriver! Like, like the salmon, get it, because like salmon?\u201d What started in jest soon became the base of our plan. We\u2019d seen salmon runs before in Alaska, coastal waters churning with hundreds of thousands of strawberry red fish with big beaked snouts. Watching them fight, charge, and writhe upstream, we came to understand their immense importance to the cultures, communities, and ecosystems around them. So we thought \u2013 what a role model!<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been six months since the idea struck us, and we are finally in sight of our launch day. This summer, with support from NRS and Reed College, we will be paddling from Astoria, OR to Lewiston, ID along the Columbia and Snake Rivers. We\u2019ll be tracing the migration of the Snake River Summer Chinook Salmon, also known as the June Hog, an endangered regional hero. Definitely our <\/em>regional hero. And by now, you may be wondering who we <\/em>are:<\/p>\n