Fortunately for these special trout, partners across the conservation field have come together and are working to restore their critical spawning habitat. American Rivers has been engaged in the Pine Creek watershed since 2015, and has proudly collaborated with the Lassen National Forest, Trout Unlimited, Susanville Indian Rancheria, the Pit River Tribes, and many other partners to build relationships and restore the watershed. American Rivers successfully implemented a riffle construction project in McKenzie Meadow in 2020, creating pools and riffles along the stream channel which enable ELRT to migrate upstream. In 2023 American Rivers implemented a project in Confluence Meadow to fill the eroded western channel and reactivate the flood plain along Pine Creek These projects have created critical habitat for ELRT migration and will help keep the water table higher throughout their spawning season. 

But the obstacles facing ELRT are significant. While their resilience and quick growth rate make them a world-class stocking fish outside of Pine Creek, ELRT are threatened by changes in hydrology and an increasingly variable climate within their native spawning habitat. Following the arrival of Euro-American settlers, the Pine Creek watershed experienced changes in land use including grazing, road and railroad construction, water diversions, and ditching. Additionally, the watershed sits where the Sierra Nevada meets the Great Basin and experiences a drier and more variable climate than most other Sierra watersheds.  

Of Pine Creek’s 35 stream-miles, only 7 flow year-round in the upper watershed. The fractured volcanic bedrock in the watershed slowly drains the lower reaches of the creek, cutting off access to the lake’s refuge until the waters rise again the following year. The seasonal connection between Pine Creek and Eagle Lake is fed by snowmelt from the high elevation headwaters. As snowpack and the timing of snowmelt become increasingly unpredictable and variable in the face of a changing climate, the critical hydrologic connection between Pine Creek and Eagle Lake doesn’t always persist long enough or at the right time for ELRT to spawn and for juveniles of the previous year’s cohort to migrate downstream to the lake. Ultimately, the shift in Pine Creek’s hydrology has contributed to declines in ELRT populations below sustainable levels and the fate of this iconic fish now depends on hatchery-based spawning.  

As we continue to engage in the Pine Creek watershed, American Rivers is working to advance landscape scale watershed restoration. Last year, we took on a leadership role in convening the Eagle Lake Partnership and acquired funding to enable a Partnership framework which is effective, transparent, and inclusive. Funding at this early stage has allowed us to engage the Pit River Tribe and Susanville Indian Rancheria to co-develop a Partnership MOU and fund tribal priority projects and trainings. The inaugural meeting of the partnership was attended by over 40 individuals representing the Lassen National Forest, California Department of Fish and Wildlife, permitting agencies, funders, tribes, NGOs, private timber industry, grazers, the Lassen Resource Control District, and the local Firesafe Council. The partnership is working to develop a restoration plan for a 100,000-acre project area, which includes fuel reduction treatments, meadow and river restoration, recreation and road improvements, all while incorporating traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). This large-scale collaborative effort will help increase the pace and scale of projects which ultimately benefit native flora and fauna beyond the Eagle Lake Rainbow Trout, and Sierra Nevada ecosystems as a whole. 

The challenges ELRT face are not unique and reflect many of the challenges faced by other native California salmonids. From the Klamath watershed in northwestern California to the headwaters of the Sierra Nevada, American Rivers is dedicated to working in collaborative partnership, restoring vital habitat, and providing a sustainable and lush home for fish, wildlife, and the communities that need healthy rivers.  

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This year’s Wildlands Festival at the Big Sky Events Arena was the second annual event. Produced by Outlaw Partners in partnership with actor Tom Skerritt, American Rivers, and Gallatin River Task Force, the festival was billed as “the largest event to ever be held in support of conserving the Gallatin River and rivers across the country.”  

This year being the 30^th anniversary of the release of A River Runs Through It, which was filmed on the nearby Gallatin River, it was fitting to partner with Tom Skerrit, who played Reverend Maclean in the film. Mr. Skerritt joined in the festivities and participated in a panel discussion during the fundraising dinner Friday night. 

“Of the 50 years I was in Hollywood, that’s (A River Runs Through It) my favorite movie,” Mr. Skerritt shared.  

It was a full weekend of opportunities for folks to learn about the importance of rivers and how they can help protect them. The weekend’s agenda included a dinner and silent auction on Friday and a star-studded lineup Saturday and Sunday featuring Lord Huron and Foo Fighters.  

Despite the parade of thunderstorms and torrential downpours that rolled through each night, the show went on and the festival raised over $500,000 for river conservation. This incredible feat will support our work to protect one million miles of rivers in Montana and across the country. 

“We’re working together with the Gallatin River Task Force to pass a bill called the Montana Headwaters Legacy Act that will permanently protect 20 of Montana’s most cherished rivers, including the Gallatin River,” said Scott Bosse, American Rivers’ Northern Rockies Regional Director.  

We greatly appreciate all of our partners and the work they are doing to take care of our rivers, and we can’t thank Outlaw Partners and the other sponsors of this event enough. Through ticket purchases, silent auction bids, merchandise purchases, and generous donations, you supported us and the rivers. Without you, we couldn’t do this important work.  

This weekend proved just how much Montanans love their priceless rivers. Now it’s up to the state’s congressional delegation to listen to them and take action.  

For the rivers! 

The post Montana’s Wildlands Festival RAises a Storm of Funding for Rivers appeared first on .

I am so emotional because the Columbia River is the final waterway that will carry me to the Pacific Ocean. I’ve paddled over 500 miles to get here, and I have become more invested in this river system than I could have possibly imagined. 

As I have now entered the main body of the Columbia River, I feel it’s my duty to tell you about the issues facing the waterways I’ve passed so far, on my travels to this point. But first, a little about this journey:

The Columbia River Canoe Project is an expedition from the headwaters of the Clark Fork of the Columbia – Silverbow Creek near the Continental Divide at Butte, Montana – all the way to the Pacific Ocean. My cousin, Braxton Mitchell, and I will paddle or carry our custom-made Navarro canoe over 1300 miles on this expedition, living on the rivers we travel for the entire journey. Our goal is to really learn about the health of the river system and share our first-hand knowledge to benefit the entire watershed and its stakeholders. To this end, we have an incredible crew of filmmakers traveling with us to create a documentary about our experience, as well as the social and ecological concerns facing America’s rivers. In this case, I’ve chosen a few issues to inform you about. 

The Scars of Progress

While the upper Clark Fork River flows inevitably into the lower Clark Fork, I see these two sections of the same river reversed in time. One possible future for the lower river has been written in the upper river. On the upper Clark Fork sits one of the most contaminated areas in the country, a problem so complex that the money and time it will take to fix the issues are almost incomprehensible. Meanwhile, on the lower Clark Fork, another ecological disaster rests at a tipping point.

Mining in the upper Clark Fork basin produced and processed the majority of U.S. copper during the industrial age. Advancement often comes at a price, and the scars of progress can now be seen in the upper Clark Fork watershed. The basin contains the nation’s largest superfund site, a mile-long acid lake, and an area where the Clark Fork flows over 19 million cubic yards of unaddressed toxic mining waste. 

Downstream in the lower Clark Fork basin, below the city of Missoula and on the banks of the river, sits the Smurfit-Stone site, which is the remnants of a wood pulp mill that made bleached cardboard. While the mill no longer operates, 50 years of industrial waste remains in the Clark Fork floodplain. One of the most pressing concerns is that a large-scale flood will erode the inadequate earthen berm, causing toxins to be flushed into the river. 

As we canoed by Smurfit-Stone, it was easy to see the horrific possibility of this threat. If you need more convincing, just look upstream. In 1908, a historic flood washed Butte-area mine tailings downstream, threatening life along the river, both ecological and human. A similar flooding event could occur at Smurfit-Stone with similar consequences. But there is an opportunity to prevent the upstream mistakes from reoccurring. Smurfit-Stone needs to be reclaimed while the cleanup is a relatively simple one, and before the drastic consequences of inaction become reality. 

Smurfit-Stone is just the beginning, and the addition of the Clark Fork River to American Rivers’ Most Endangered Rivers Report of 2023 provides important recognition and a way for community members’ voices to be heard. But if you ask the people who live in the upper watershed in communities like Butte, they’ll remind everyone that until there’s a full cleanup in the upper watershed, the Clark Fork can never be healthy. Step one is cleaning the toxic Smurfit-Stone site, but don’t lose sight of the ultimate goal: a clean and healthy Clark Fork River from the Continental Divide to the Lake Pend Oreille Delta.

Big Trash, Simple Fix

There is a problem in this beautiful watershed, as terrible as any, that simply doesn’t get the coverage it deserves–trash and garbage in the river. Luckily, despite being one of the biggest problems, it has a simple solution that anyone can be part of.

Everyday during our trip, we picked garbage out of the river, and not just the types of items you’d think. We picked up chunks of Styrofoam coolers abandoned after riverside parties, basketballs lost to the currents, and a water cooler from an office. The trash we couldn’t extract from the river is much crazier – a half-sunken 35-foot boat run aground, full cars from every decade in the last 70 years, hundreds of pounds of coiled barbed wire, and even a broken trampoline that had been claimed by the wind. More concerning, though, is the staggering amount of plastic in the river. It’s heartbreaking to be in areas of this amazing river that are relatively untouched and see plastic bottles floating by.

The solution to garbage in the river doesn’t require government involvement or millions of dollars, just you. It comes down to prevention and clean up. Prevent more trash from entering river systems by securing your garbage and educating others on the importance of keeping trash from negatively impacting rivers. Cleanup is even simpler. You don’t have to join an organized river cleanup (although it would be great if you did). When you see trash, simply pick it up and dispose of it properly. Clean rivers benefit not only the ecological health of the river, but also guarantee a trash-free river experience for everyone, including future generations. 

The Downstream Blind Eye

Industrial pollution and garbage can’t be addressed until we grapple with a principle that I finally understood as I paddled across the border into Canada. I call it the Downstream Blind Eye. Over and over, river impacts are passed to our neighbors downstream, and as soon as those impacts are out of sight, they are also out of mind. While the Downstream Blind Eye is a concept that can be seen in every watershed since industrialization, it is abundantly clear at the United States/Canadian border. The United States passes less-than-perfect water to Canada. Further downstream, Canada returns the favor by passing on to us pollution from a still-operating lead-zinc smelter. Both countries have turned a blind eye to the impacts passed across the border, and people have very little understanding of the issues on the opposite side. To the fish, eagles, bears, and countless other animals that use and rely on these rivers, our line on a map doesn’t exist and only water quality matters.

If the Downstream Blind Eye can be so apparent between two superpowers, then it’s occurring on every level, from states to individual landowners. At every scale, from local to international, a clean watershed can only exist if we take responsibility for our impacts and no longer pass them downstream for someone else to deal with. Pass on downstream only the water that you would hope is passed on to you from upstream. 

Fight for this Watershed 

Talking about big serious issues can make people think that the problems are beyond repair or that a resource is no longer worth saving. I’m here to tell you that is not the case.

In this watershed there are landscapes worthy of our greatest national parks. Places where you can see a golden sunset over a 400-foot limestone cliff that was carved by the river. The confluence between a river so brown it could be flowing with chocolate milk and one so green it looks like liquid emeralds, and when they meet they don’t mix for miles. A spot where you can feel the power of a waterfall free falling into the river just by the wind it creates. 

I’ve seen animal interactions on this river that most have only seen in National Geographic. Newborn deer taking their first wobbling steps along the river bank. A river otter that stops playing in the rapids to curiously watch as we pass by. Bald and golden eagles fighting above our boat to secure a fish that was snatched from the water only moments before. 

So do not believe for even a second that problems can’t be solved and this river isn’t worth saving. The beauty is still there, and it’s worth preserving, not just for us but for all those who wish to see it in the future. Join the fight for the health of this incredible river system. And win.

Enjoy The Journey!

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The question was recently posed: What is your “why”? Why do I do this work? My immediate thought was, it just happened. As I reflected a little more, I do recall when the flip switched…

I’ve always been told that our Tribal history and culture are embedded in our songs and stories. This was vividly brought into perspective when a friend shared a story about taking their father to an old fishing spot that no longer had salmon; because of this they hadn’t been back there in years.

As they arrived, the father marveled in the special place and he began to sing. He sang a song his child had never heard and as he finished, he shared how he had forgotten this song of his ancestors. Coming back to this place allowed him to recall and share the song, its history, and meaning. This song, this piece of history, may have very well been lost forever had they not returned.

As I reflect on this story, I realize how minor this may seem to some. After all, what is the value of a single song?  Short answer- you can’t put a price tag on it. For a group of people who have fought for centuries just to retain their culture; a single song could be the difference between extirpation and a path to healing. To think that a place could be the catalyst to healing, one must wonder what happens when even less, or worse, no salmon return to these places? We have to go elsewhere, and the songs and stories recalled at those particular locations are lost with the salmon.

Flash forward to when Rep. Mike Simpson released his Columbia Basin Initiative. Working for the Nez Perce Tribe, I was pulled in to provide communications services to advocate on behalf of this proposal. It was the job, something I was being directed to do. While I knew it was important, I was on cruise control just doing what needed to be done. During a meeting of Tribal leaders, one leader shared their reality.

This Tribe is what you’d call “a blocked nation”, meaning salmon can no longer reach these homelands. Meaning, their younger generations have never experienced fishing for salmon and all the history and traditions that come along with it. During this emotional story, the Tribal leader shared how they were able to start hosting these “cultural experiences” where they unloaded salmon from the back of a truck into a river just so The People could experience this part of their culture. For that Tribal leader, witnessing the joy in the children’s faces and the elders teaching the children how to fish traditionally, was a reminder of why they continue to fight to bring the salmon back.

For me, it was an eye opener to a harsh reality that is at our doorstep on the Snake River. It was in that moment I remember telling myself, “This cannot happen to my people or any other Tribes.” I couldn’t grasp the idea of my nieces and nephews not being able to learn these traditions. I couldn’t bear the thought of my dad no longer being able to partake in something that feeds his soul.

That moment is my why. The reason I’ve continued to advocate. Not because I want to, because I have to. Being privy to this information, it is my responsibility and obligation to use the skills I possess to help uphold our ancient covenant with salmon.

Salmon People are not Salmon People without their cultures and traditions; salmon are the cornerstone to both.

In a world where salmon are already in an uphill battle with climate change, we must make every effort to mitigate the impacts that we do have control over. The loss of a critical species such as salmon is unacceptable. The loss of a culture that is vital to the wellbeing of our country is unfathomable. 

Salmon and their needs must be put first, for once! We can no longer sit back and act like the loss of their existence doesn’t have grand impacts.

The time to speak loud and clear, is now. 

The post why?- because river advocacy is cultural preservation appeared first on .

What do you draw on for inspiration? 

All of my inspiration comes from Mother Nature. I was lucky enough to grow up camping and playing outside in nature with my parents. I feel a deep connection to the land. Not everyone has the opportunity to form that bond early in life, and it is my hope that my art can help point people back to nature, inspiring them to build their own deep love of the land through curiosity and beauty. I paint what I feel more than what I see.  

Tell us about the idea for this piece. 

When I learned that the new motto for American Rivers was “Life Depends on Rivers,” all I could think about is how we are all interconnected with nature. I wanted to show that interconnected relationship. My first idea was related to the way a river delta looks like lungs and vasculature. I realized I could overlay my home watershed on top of an image of people in a way that the river takes on the look and feel of their veins … their lifeblood … their very existence.  

It is not surprising that I landed on an image of a woman and a young boy, being a new mother to two young boys. The line work on the image is the actual waterways and mountain topography of the Roaring Fork watershed, a tributary to the Colorado River. The mother and son looking up towards the sun are showing a reverence for nature that I feel every day. 

What inspired you about this project with American Rivers? 

This job pushed me to refine my skills as an artist and to find the balance of creating beautiful imagery that draws someone into a story. It is my hope that this artwork creates curiosity and further inquiry into the interconnectedness of people and rivers. 

What is your favorite river? 

I am lucky enough to live beside the Crystal River in Colorado’s Roaring Fork Valley. This sacred river shapes the valley and awes me daily. I am so grateful to live beside a river that reminds me how precious and magical life is. There are so many distractions in our modern culture that pull us out of that awareness, and it’s a huge gift to be able to pull myself back into that connection to nature.  

For our 50th anniversary, American Rivers is teaming up with five artists on original works that explore how important healthy rivers are to the future of humanity and nature. You can buy their limited-edition artwork at AmericanRivers.org/store.  

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The nation’s most iconic poster press Globe Collection and Press at MICA helps us kick off our five-part limited-edition art collection.

Learn more about Globe and visit AMERICANRIVERS.ORG/STORE to buy T-shirts, totes, posters, and more featuring this artwork and more from our 50th anniversary collection. 

Globe has an incredibly cool history. Tell us about it. 

Globe was founded in Baltimore 1929 and started out printing inexpensive posters for everyday people — so fairs, carnivals, boxing, racing, wrestling, big band. But it’s real claim to fame was in the 1950s and ‘60s with R&B and rock-and-roll posters for the likes of James Brown, Marvin Gaye, Aretha Franklin, Ike and Tina Turner, and B.B. King.  

It was using a mixed-media process to produce these super-vibrant posters. Fluorescent backgrounds and bold black type became Globe’s trademark style. And its footprint wasn’t just Baltimore, it was sending posters everywhere from upstate New York down the Eastern Seaboard and along the Gulf into Texas.  

That carried forward into the late ‘70s to early ‘80s with go-go music and early rap and hip hop. And it held on until about 2011. When Globe finally closed, there was a community movement of artists and designers, historians, and students that activated to find Globe a new home and keep it in Baltimore, where it’s always been. The Maryland Institute College of Art, MICA, stepped up and purchased it when the press was 81 years old. It is one of the largest intact collections of letter-press printing materials of its kind in the country, if not in the world.  

What is Globe up to now? 

Now Globe is what we call a working collection. It has three jobs at MICA. We teach with it and pass on the tradition of the letter-press craft. We’re also slowly working on archiving the collection so it can be used for research and scholarship. And we also make new work with it. We’re using all of the great type and tools and stylings that made Globe famous. MICA has given us a lot of freedom to try a lot of different things. The collection has a really nice balance of commercial work, but we also do a lot of nonpartisan voter civic participation stuff and community-based projects. 

Can you describe the process that Globe used to create the posters for American Rivers? 

With any project, we always look to our archive materials as a place to start, whether it’s posters or wood blocks in our collection. This project with American Rivers was a little bit different because most of the time we design posters that need to be screen printed and letter pressed one at a time. This was a fun one because we didn’t have those same constraints. It gave us a lot of room to play with the wood type and the texturings from the collection to build up different layers.  

For example, take the poster that says, “Life Depends on Rivers.” That is the one that is most classically Globe, with a colored background and black wood-type text on top. We pulled the idea of the background from American Rivers’ annual list of America’s Most Endangered Rivers®. The background for that poster is made up of wood-type textured graphics of our loose interpretation of what the shape of those endangered rivers look like.

What inspired you about this project? 

There’s a really nice symbiosis of using wood type as the base of these graphics. Because without rivers, trees don’t grow. We are kind of coming full circle in the materials that we’re using to do this design work — because it wouldn’t exist without water in rivers.  

I really like design where you are constantly finding more information about it, whether it’s subtle moments where two pieces of type overlap or a color hits or something shifts just a little bit. I like those really quiet moments in design where things sync nicely or in a way you don’t necessarily expect them to. 

To learn more about our Globe collection, please visit the American Rivers’ store.

The post The art of rivers  appeared first on .

Santiago’s head cocked sideways, his little body limp, held up only by car-seat straps across each shoulder. Instead of mule panniers, food, and horse-tack in the bed of the truck, there are Legos on the floorboard, crumbles of colorful Play-doh, an empty Big-League-Chew bubble gum packet. Water bottles instead of whiskey.

Santiago sleeps as the first sight of the mountain is revealed, at last and for the first time in years, alive as can be, seen through my truck’s front windshield. Haven’t been this close – physically – to the Gila in sixteen years. But here I am again, my boy in tow.

I turn up the radio, and a part of me stiffens as we begin to ascend into the Black Range.

Santiago remains asleep as the truck swerves its way through all the turns, dozens of mountainous switchbacks. Llano turns to juniper turns to piñon turns to ponderosa. This two-lane highway, so familiar, yet I haven’t driven it in nearly twenty years. A playlist on the radio—Lucinda Williams, John Fogerty and Steve Earle, but also Las Hermanas Huertas, Paquita La Del Barrio, and Cornelio Reyna—familiar voices and songs, and the truck sways, and Santiago remains asleep in the back.

We cross into National Forest land, past the towns of San Lorenzo and Mimbres. Into Apache land, what the Warm-Spring Apache’s call NDE BEHNA, true name for the place we now call Gila.

At last, Santiago and I are here, and I imagine the water he’ll soon touch. Agua santa.

In May 2020, New Mexico Senators introduced the M.H. Dutch Salmon Greater Gila Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, which would protect nearly 450 miles of the Gila and San Francisco Rivers and their tributaries under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the premiere federal river protection legislation in the United States.

But what does this mean to a six-year-old boy more concerned with Legos and MineCraft than any of the ‘boring’ news I read and watch?

The Senator’s email came through five days before Santiago and I set foot in the Gila, for the first time, together, mother and son.

Never really understanding much about legislation, and even less about congressional committees, I did know the power of law, so I read the Senator’s email carefully.

 “My legislation to protect one of the nation’s most iconic and treasured rivers just passed out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee with a bipartisan vote!…”

What did this email mean to me, a native Nuevo Mexicana? And what did this email mean to my six-year-old sleeping in the back seat, already three hours into our drive, up the valley into the Black Range, driving due east and closer to the great Gila?

“…The Gila and San Francisco Rivers are the heart of southwest New Mexico and are home to some of the most outstanding places in the entire West to go rafting, fishing, or camping…” continued the Senator’s email.

I thought of the time I first saw the Senator in-person, his tall stature, his chiseled face. I thought of what it was to have such power, such influence. A Senator, taut with insight and influence to propose legislation to protect a place and its resources. And what did it mean to protect anyway? Who defines ‘protection’, and what expandable definition can this concept have? Again, I thought of my own boy in the back seat of my truck. It was my duty now, to protect him. But how? And in both the immediate and deeper sense, what does it mean to protect?

Words from the email lingered; I too had worked in the Gila, much like Senator Heinrich, in the early days of my career. In what I’d gained from articles and interviews, he’d worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) on Mexican Wolf Recovery.

He was still doing great things for the Gila—he’d proposed legislation. He was making a difference. All I was doing was bringing my little boy to the Gila’s water,no power or political stature to my name. The email continued:

The Greater Gila watershed, including the San Francisco River and other main tributaries, comprises the largest remaining network of naturally flowing river segments in the Southwestern United States.

I thought of the many ríos that had shaped me, influenced me in more ways than words could describe. The Rio Grande of central New Mexico, its café-colored water flooding my Papa’s alfalfa fields each summer con benedición. The Rio Lucero of Taos, searching for Rio Grande cutthroat alongside Pueblo War-Chief staff and the tribal biologist of a federal agency; a wild July thunderstorm moved in, and we were taught humility in the deepest sense. The San Juan spanning both New Mexico and Utah’s corners; again, work had allowed me to know and learn about the ecology of a place most people only see in photographs, or now in Instagram posts.  

Yes, rios had shaped me into the woman who now drove a truck heading deep into the Gila, a boy in tow.

“New Mexicans treasure the Gila because it provides unique and memorable outdoor experiences for families, spectacular scenery and wildlife habitat, and the foundation of a rural economy. Protecting the river will support enhanced water quality, local economic development, increased recreation opportunities, and healthy populations of fish and wildlife.”

And yes, I was a mother now, bringing my boy to a place important to me. It was this simple. This uncomplicated.

“It is time for us to provide the Gila with our nation’s highest form of protection and stewardship,” ended the Senator’s email. I thought about this last free-flowing river in our Southwest home. And I thought about how each of us who cared about this place, this río, had our part to play.

I couldn’t propose legislation, but I could sign petitions, I could remain aware and eager and spread the word about the Gila’s protection within my own familia. I could bring my boy to witness the Gila. It was this simple. This uncomplicated.

What Santiago didn’t realize is I forgot to pack a flashlight.

What the hell. How foolish was this? In all my hurried packing of food, sleep gear, water, emergency tools—in all my well-timed logistics, how the hell had I forgotten a flashlight?! I thought of the wild dark nights we’d be spending in the Gila, how this remote mountain-river-wilderness in southwestern New Mexico knew darkness. I’d forgotten to pack a flashlight.

And it was too late to turn back now. Already long past Hillsboro, past Iron Creek, Upper Gallinas, then Lower Gallinas. A winding Forest Service road. Already in the Mimbres Valley, I calculated the risk of this item I’d forgotten. My phone had a flashlight, and I had battery packs and a charger in my truck.

Santiago still asleep in the back. He didn’t care I’d forgotten a flashlight. At his age, carefree. I watched as the rio, adjacent to the road,ran wild—full, thick with a deep reddish-brown-color, clear remnants of an upper water-shed monsoon storm—evidence of rain. With evidence of rain in the river, I decided then and there we’d drive on. It was too late to turn back now.

The Gila River, a 649-mile-long tributary of the Colorado River flowing through New Mexico and Arizona, is also one of the longest rivers in the west. And I sit and wonder HOW to introduce my boy to this place.

The river is the heart, the lifeblood of the Gila Wilderness, National Forest, and surrounding landscape and ecosystem.

The Wild & Scenic legislation would protect 450 miles of river, keeping it free flowing in the face of development or other ‘use.’

But the question remains, HOW to introduce my boy to this place?

My OLD field notes as a fish biologist in the Gila read like this entry from 2005: Something tells you to listen. Something tells you to listen carefully. Thunder in the canyon. Rain speaking. Water speaking. And a cold August dampness in the air forming words on your skin like an orange tattoo.

It is now the year 2022—17 years later. I am no longer a fish biologist working in the Gila. I am a visitor again, as I always was. A visitor.

The yellow Rite-in-the-Rain hardcover book containing all my old Gila notes is only half-full of the notes I used to take while working deep within the Gila Wilderness, what now feels so long ago. The first date reads Friday, August 20^th, 2004, and the last, March 28th, 2008. Four years spanned my formal working days in the Gila Wilderness and River, a wannabe biologist among the headwaters, los rítos. I was a young woman, struggling to find my way into a career, but more honestly, through life, searching for a space of identity and understanding among men and wilderness.

I was introduced to the Gila long before I became a mother to a son. Even as a native Nuevo Mexicana, a brown girl raised in the farm fields of the middle Rio Grande valley, I did not know the Gila in my childhood days. It was a place I’d only heard of.

With today’s current climate conditions—megadrought looming in the American West—I search back through memory and time, trying to define for myself, as much as for my young son, why exactly the Gila has become so important to me.

The yellow Rite-in-the-Rain hardcover book containing all my old Gila notes is only half full. And as I drove INTO the Gila again for the first time in 17 years, I thought about all I’d written back then. More importantly, I thought of the empty pages the book still contained, what more I had to discover, what more left to learn.

JOURNAL ENTRY, 2005. In the mountains, thunder directs your thoughts. And bees gather around objects—your backpack, the bucket, the yellow book, wet shoes. Everything is the way the mountain wants it. In the rain, you’ve got to keep your head down, it teaches you humility. Sometimes the Gila is about slow and deliberate motion, or that thick smell of whiskey in a tin cup. Sometimes it’s about the way paper warps in the rain… There is yellow in only the smallest places of the mountain. In the flowers, on the bees, on the flowers. Most of this mountain is a thousand shade of browns and greens, and the combination of all this color is like waiting for the sound of water to break into you.

Your hands smell like tree sap and purple flowers. The rain has stopped, for now, and you wait for Richard to arrive from the upstream duty post. You listen for the sounds of his arrival – the splashing of water and gravel and rocks, the occasional breaking of branches, his movement downstream. There is stillness again, under a grey sky of occasional thunder, and we work through it all, a color green.

In her essay, “The Vessel & the Water,” Kailea Frederick describes, “In those nine full months, my womb was neither fully mine nor his, our bodies blurred so completely that even when he finally came through and out of me, our delineation of self remained soft and unfocused, a horizon line of hazy blue touching the forever expanse of the sky, indistinct in color or shape. I was the vessel that held the waters in which he grew” (https://humansandnature.org/the-vessel-and-the-water/).

My boy was born on a Friday, 2:51 am. I labored for 17 hours until at last the nurses gave the C-section order, and they cut him out of me.

“I was the vessel that held the waters in which he grew,” states Kailea Frederick in her gorgeous description.

Looking through my notebooks—the kind I’ve kept for years—of daily notes and ritos of time and place, I try and find the earliest instances, phrases, documentation of what it was like for baby and me starting off together as one. There are writings, mentions during pregnancy, but not after. Nothing in the days, hours, months, after his actual birth. They cut him out of me. This time frame, these days AFTER the baby’s birth—all my writing entries fall short.

I wrote nothing about the baby. I wrote about other things, many other things, but NOT about the baby.

This biologist and writer who was TRAINED and DISCIPLINED in writing and note-taking, could suddenly not write. I did not write about the baby, or even about me as mother.

Was I afraid to write the truth? Or at the time, did I simply not know the truth?

The closest I find to mention of baby or motherhood, or ANYTHING tangible, isn’t until one year and one month later.

Something in me was hesitant, afraid to write, until, at last, it wasn’t.

JOURNAL ENTRY, OCT 25th, 2016 (one year AFTER my baby’s birth). Eating fruit with a fork reminds me it is Tuesday, and last night Santiago woke at 01:30 AM, crying, but was calm and quiet as soon as I picked him up. He is comforted just by my touch. I hold him close to me, and the room is completely dark. He is leaning into me. I am holding him close and tight to my chest. I am just beginning to understand what it is to be a mother. At last, it feels like love to hold him.

My boy was born on a Friday, 2:51 am.

“I was the vessel that held the waters in which he grew.…” And yet it was a struggle, all the early days, a deep struggle, a wilderness even now I cannot name, cannot admit to. Where does one hide from the sin of a mother who cannot, does not, love in those early days? Even the expanse of the great Gila wilderness cannot contain such darkness. Even the free-flowing Gila River cannot wash away such disdain.

JOURNAL ENTRY, SEPTEMBER 2005. Soaking rain during the ride that took us six and a half hrs. Slept warm with the saddle blankets beneath a grey tarp in the tent that was set up between Jerry and Johnny. As for now, I am alone with this mountain, ‘watching’ the two lowest buckets on Langstroth creek wondering if I will make it out of here unharmed. In many ways you are useless among all of this. Out here, if you get hurt, you’re on your own.

The sun keeps coming in and out, in and out…there is thunder. Orange flagging marks the lowest bucket of chemical treatment as we work. Thunder. And it is only fourteen minutes past noon. Yesterday at this time we were in the saddle, taking the trail that eventually leads into and out of Hell’s Hole.

The presence of thunder is never mistaken for anything other than thunder. And yet here in the mountain it is common. They say these are the days of the monsoon. It is so different to experience all this wetness and rain than to merely hear news of it through a coworker. So much more terrifying to experience. It forces you into being right now, right now, right now. And never any time before or after or otherwise. The way thunder-rain comes into a canyon is fast.

Thunder-rain thru the mountains. Dressed in a color we had never seen before. Speaking something blue. And it rumbles the silence right out of the trees while the wildflowers are busy at conversation.

When working in the Gila, it was always about the fish. But also, it was never about the fish. Gila trout, a federally listed species, was reclassified from endangered, down to threatened in 2006. 

Gila trout: one of the rarest trout species in the United States.

Native to mountain streams of the Gila, their populations HAVE seen an increase in total WILD populations through recovery efforts over the years.

In 1992, their numbers were estimated to be less than 10,000 fish older than 1 year.

In 2001, the population in New Mexico was estimated to be over 37,000.

Intensive stream renovation and transplantation efforts have worked.

But what does it mean to ‘recover’ a species? What does it mean to protect a place? What does place TEACH us? How do species and ecologies of PLACE inform our own human lives, and why does any of it matter?

I used to work on fish-recovery efforts: treating upper watershed creeks with chemicals, eliminating all fish existing within very specific stretches to ‘make room’ for this rare and threatened trout. I used to pack in to the Gila Wilderness with large crews, mostly men, working for days that turned into weeks.

Now I am mother to a young boy. I no longer work as a biologist or field tech.

But even now, I still ask, often and always, what does it mean to ‘recover’ a species? What does it mean to protect a place, how do places become IMPORTANT to us?

I reach out to Chad Baulmer, the USFWS biologist currently assigned to Gila trout public inquiries. I reach out via email, and he replies, tables and numbers attached. But what I really want to ask him is, “Did your heart skip a beat when you first held a Gila Trout? Do you still remember the fire-orange along its lateral line and fins? What excitement still lives within you since the first time you witnessed this species in the wild, this endemic fish, this species worth saving?

But I don’t write that in the email. Instead, another ríto wells up inside me, another question, another source. It begins slowly, agua moving thru soil and boulders of a high-mountain forest. Headwaters of my alma—the smallest ríto already inching its way into the expansive eternity of an ocean source not yet realized. “Thank you for the information,” states my emailed reply to Chad the biologist, and I sign the end of the email with my three initials—LTT—the way the field fish biologists taught me so long ago, always 3 initials instead of just two. Three initials in honor of my old field days of taking notes in the Gila. Will Chad the biologist notice this end-of-email signatory? Will he sense I TOO once worked on recovery efforts? No, he doesn’t know me. And I smile at my own anonymity.

For a good six months or more, Santiago’s favorite snack has remained apple slices and Funyuns. Although his likes and dislikes change much like his padrino, my brother, THIS snack of choice has remained. Yes, apples and Funyuns. Yes, those ridiculous salty corn rings sold in a bright yellow bag, marketed to look like onion rings, but really the only ‘onion’ ingredient is ‘onion powder’ listed as one of the very last ingredients. My boy loves apple slices and Funyuns, and I won’t try to describe to you the wicked-strange breath out of his little laugh after he eats his snack.

“Mama, I LUHHHOVE YOU,” he pushes out hot intentional breath trying to reach me as he jokes, knowing this annoys me as much as it makes me laugh.

“Uhhhgg, go brush your teeth!” I yell back as he continues to breathe on me, laughing, trying to climb up on me, pulling on my hips while I push him back, my palm on his forehead. Both of us laughing, Funyun-crumb residue on his shirt chest and belly, his fingers sticky from the apples too.

“No, for reals, go brush your teeth,” I finally insist, and off he goes to the bathroom, stepping up on a little stool to reach the sink. My boy brushes his teeth, and I stand outside against the door, a space where he can’t see me, and just listen to him hum a little song while he brushes his teeth. Looking down at my own shirt, there’s Funyun powder residue all over me now, but I leave it there, and keep listening until he’s done, and in a hurried rush he slams the wood cabinet drawer shut with a loud thud as he puts his wet toothbrush away.

River and boy, river and boy—both teach me not only about wildness, but about what it is, not to be a mother, but to become a mother.

Just as rivers become rivers from headwaters, so have I struggled to become a mother. Gentle. Peaceful. Teacher. Loving.

Water connects us in obvious ways. But it’s the smaller ways, the intimate ways that take us by surprise, that hold a different color, that remain.

Thus, in many ways, mine is a story about water—agua. Es una estoria de cambio—change—and of how our relationship to a place—an element, like water, like mountain, like wilderness—can change over time.

I lean into the fragments, the many tributaries of my querencia.

Querencia: a deep love of place, or belonging to a place. Fragmented tributaries of experience, stories, and time spent IN and AT the Gila’s water. Creeks, streams, and headwaters converging and leading always into the deeper understanding.   

The word querencia is a popular term in the Spanish-speaking world that is used to express a deeply rooted love of place or people. And though it’s a Spanish word, the idea of Querencia is truly universal, its translation endless and ever widening.

Querencia: the place of your deepest identity, your deepest longing; a place in which we know exactly who we are; the place from which we speak our deepest beliefs.

Writers such as J. Drew Lanham might refer to this concept as “home-place.” Similarly, Robin Wall Kimmerer might call it “kinship.” But here in Nuevo Mexico, some of us call it “querencia,” that which anchors us to the land. A deeply rooted knowledge of place.

It is strange returning this way, returning to the Gila not as a fish biologist, but as a mother. My title, my qualifications are gone. I still have the university degree and an old resumé, but what does that matter when returning to a place you knew and observed from a worker’s perspective?

I think of the men who taught me about and in this place. Jim, Johnny, Dave, Vern. Where are they now? I think of the horses and mules, those who had nicknames, and those who didn’t. Where are they now? Time has passed. Seasons and years.

“Mama, can you take off this Lego for me?” asks Santiago, holding up a little tower he’s constructed. “This yellow one is stuck to the black one, and I want to change it but can’t get it off.” He holds up his toy creation as I try to get our gear out of the truck and set up for our stay in the Gila.

His little toy tower, and I am focused on logistics. I am too caught up in the past to notice the urgency right in front of me. The present. The now.

That night my boy and I sleep under a Gila sky, the cosmos laid out in deep black, a scattering of constellations. “What’s that one?” asks Santiago. “And what about that one?” playfully. “No se, mi hito, I only know the Seven Sisters.” There is so much I don’t know, and yet he’s aways asking me for the answers.

The next day, we find a ríto named Sapello. We look for fish, turn over rocks, eat apples and a bag of Cheetos at the edge of where the stream runs endlessly. I sit there, considering the Gila as STILL the last free-flowing river in NM, thanks to the EFFORTS of so many intent on protecting its wild and native flow.

Willow and olive trees provide shade as Santiago plays—splashing his feet in the water, throwing sticks, asking, “Is that a fish, Mama, is that a fish?” 

“No loco, that’s just algae, see?” And we proceed to pull some of the silky green off rocks, exposing it above water to get a better look. 

We had no real agenda that afternoon, I realized later, and Santiago never asked for one. We were just at the creek. Looking for fish? Climbing rocks? In its very essence, we were just at the creek.

What sort of privilege is this? To have time and resources to just play in the water. Previously, all my time in the Gila was dedicated to work. Labor. Pack this, plan that, pack in on mules, take notes on water quality, habitat elements like substrate and bank-width, then pack it all out. This is how it used to be. This is who I was. Trabajo. Work.

What Santiago was suddenly offering me was the notion of playfulness, enjoyment. I’d never had that in this place. Even as a child, we were not a ‘family’ of ‘recreators.’ Papa worked. Mama worked. We didn’t take camping trips, or boat at the lake, or fish in the streams. Papa worked. Mama worked. Then I worked. Then when I was introduced to the Gila, it was with men and work and whiskey. But here I was with my boy, and his playfulness surprised me.

We’re still exploring, Santiago still playing, and I begin to sense and see a monsoon storm moving in.

“Hey, let’s go,” I say to Santiago. Downstream, thunder rumbles, the sound getting closer than just a few minutes ago. I hustle, making sure we’ve got everything, preparing to leave.

I start scrambling, moving faster to get our things gathered up, backpacks, rain jackets, water bottles, snacks. Santiago is still playing. “Hey, for reals, let’s go,” I say to him, my tone dropping. “Ok, ok,” he responds. He’s still at the edge of the water. “Let’s go, let’s go,” urges my voice out loud again. Still, I’m scrambling, watching the sky, the movement of storm, but also making sure I’ve picked up everything.

It’s then I hear: from the water’s edge, Santiago says to me, “Mama, bless…” I turn to see him standing in the water, at its edge, calling me over.

I go to him and almost instinctively, I crouch down. We are both at the water. Mother and son. Presence of incoming rain tells me we should hurry. But Santiago’s sudden calmness tells me not to rush. “I gotta bless you, Mama,” and he puts his hand in the stream, and with a scooped hand, he pours water on my head.

Then he does it again, this time smushing his hand in my hair. More water, messing up my hair with his motions. He scoops water from the creek. Again. Again. He’s getting my head all wet.

A blessing.

I think then of all the times I’VE blessed my boy, a tradition given to me by my own mother and father. When we were children, Mama and Papa would always bless my brother and me with a holy sign, a physical gesture. With the right hand, they’d touch our forehead, chest, shoulders, speaking aloud, “padre, hijo, spiritu santo…”

A blessing.

They’d bless us when we’d leave the house. They’d bless us if we’d go with our primos or to Nana’s house. They’d bless us before going to school. They blessed me when I left to the Marine Corps. This blessing also extended to include water—especially on June 24th, dia de San Juan—when Papa would playfully bless us with water, spraying us kids with the hose, or splashing water on our faces first thing in the morning.

Mama and Papa were always blessing me. Even today, they still do. And in turn, I’ve extended this tradition to my own boy.

For the last six years, I’d blessed Santiago too. But in my own way, I’d also extended this tradition, often blessing him with water. When walking along the Rio Grande near the house, I’d say, “Bird, come here. Let me bless you.” I’d touch my fingers to water, then to his forehead.

When playing or working near the acequias at home, I’d dip a finger in the water and bless him, finger to water, then to his forehead.

His first time at the San Juan near Pagosa Springs, I led him to the stream edge, scooped water from a riffle, and wet his head. A blessing.

This is what my familia did. It is what I’d been taught. It was the action I took.

But what I didn’t realize is that it had translated. THIS small action had translated. Santiago had been paying attention, and now suddenly, completely unprompted, he was asking to bless me. He was asking to bless me with Gila water, and all I was concerned about was outrunning the rain and ensuring we’d picked up all our Cheetos bags. 

Santiago scooped up more water from the creek. He poured water on my head, messed up my hair. A blessing from the ríto. My boy, suddenly blessing me.

As a New Mexico native, born a daughter to this American Southwest, my desert life has always been a story about water—agua.

I’d followed through television and reported news stories, the battles and controversies to dam the Gila River. I’d supported federal legislation proposals to protect certain portions of the river. I’d tracked the news stories as fires and then floods moved across the Gila landscape.

But among and within all of it—current, historical, political, or otherwise—it is our RELATIONSHIP to place that inspires action, cambio, querencia.

My head now dripping with water, I look up. Santiago is smiling. He’s smiling and almost laughing. It isn’t him being travieso (ornery or badly behaved), it’s him being playful. And I let him. 

“One more time,” I ask him, and immediately he reaches for more water, drips it on my head.

His playfulness isthe prayer offered to the Gila. His playfulness is a re-envisioning of my own relationship to this place, mi querencia. I am not here in the Gila as a girl who works, but as a woman and mother now.

Similarly, my deep hope for Santiago is that this playfulness will also be the origin of this as his own querencia. Maybe. Si Dios quiere.

Thunder rumbles in the distance, not low and deep as before. “Eeee, let’s go,” I say to Santiago. “Ok!” he replies and jumps easily and willfully up and out of the stream, his botas sopping wet. He could care less and starts running up the trail. I scoop up bags, wipe water from my face, all of it still from Santiago’s playful blessing.

Then rain begins to fall. We rush back up the trail, upstream toward the truck, Legos still scattered on the floorboard, apple juice instead of whiskey.

THE END.

Leeanna T. Torres is a native daughter of the American Southwest, a Nuevomexicana who has worked as an environmental professional throughout the West since 2001. Her essays have appeared in various print & online publications (Blue Mesa Review, High Country news, High Desert Journal), as well as anthologies. She is also currently at work on a creative-non-fiction book manuscript centered-on landscape, culture & querencia. Leeanna received the 2021 Southwest Emerging Artist Scholarship from American Rivers to participate in a FreeFlow Institute writing workshop with William DeBuys on the Green River, which led to this essay.

Thank you to Senator Martin Heinrich, Senator Ben Ray Lujan, Representative Melanie Stansbury, and Representative Teresa Leger-Fernandez for working with their leadership to try to get the M.H. Dutch Salmon Greater Gila Wild and Scenic Rivers Act passed before the end of 2022!

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For me, rivers in the winter make me more reflective. While the sun rises later and sets earlier, the hours in which you can spend at the river become fewer. You learn to cherish the times you can make it down to the banks to catch the small moments that make each river so unique and special. My favorite river, The James River, in Richmond, Virginia, has a different personality in the winter. Rafters and kayakers don’t spend as much time throwing tricks in the rapids as the bundled layers under dry suits make it harder to manipulate their boats. Students from nearby universities aren’t splayed out on the rocks blasting their favorite tunes. Not as many dogs are swimming around – but there are still a select few that can’t resist a nice stick tossed in the water. 

It brings me such joy when I see all those wonderful things happening in the summer, but in the winter it’s quieter. You can hear each small ripple of moving water. You can see the large nests beautifully constructed by Bald Eagles and Osprey in trees no longer full of vegetation. You experience the bare bones of the river, which reminds me that the river is not there to just support human life, it supports an entire ecosystem of plants and wildlife year-round.

We asked some of our staff members to reflect on their favorite river in the winter. What makes their river special? What lessons do winter rivers hold? What is their relationship like with rivers in this colder season? Is there a specific stream or river they like to visit this time of year? We received some beautifully written responses. 

Please share with us your favorite winter river and what makes it so special!

“My favorite part of winter with our local river, Russian River, is the way the fog rolls in and blankets the river and surrounding forest creating a cottony, mysterious, yet calming place…The river always flows, the ocean is always there, waiting for it.”

“Nine Mile Run in Frick Park, which I enjoy for “snow treks” because there are great walking trails along the creek and it is less than a mile from my house… “Snow treks” are soul-restoring ventures that I really look forward to.”

“I like to walk the higher-elevation sections of the [Nooksack] river in the winter as the snow-covered banks do little to hide the tracks of river visitors who I don’t get to see every day (mink, otter, deer, bear, coyote). It reminds me of how important this river is to things/beings that I might not get to see.”

“Sandy Creek is a small stream in the headwaters of the Youghiogheny River that flows through the woods in the backyard of our family cabin. In the winter, when all the undergrowth except the rhododendrons has died back and snow covers the ground, it is a magical time to follow the stream and try to find where it starts.”

“My favorite trails took us along the Saco River…the ice flows stacked chunks of ice on one another making for awesome shapes with blue reflecting on the underside. I loved those days when even the rivers seem to quiet for a bit hidden under the ice.”

“My favorite winter river is a small tributary of French Creek, outside of Saegertown, PA, just south of Lake Erie…The silence in the woods was magical, punctured only by the sound of the wind and the stream running, still alive, under the snow and ice.”

P.S. As always, please be sure to tag us (@AmericanRivers) in your outdoor adventures along with True North (@TrueNorthEnergy). True North shares American Rivers’ goal of protecting the outdoor spaces we love to play in, as well as protecting what goes into your body with their energized Sparkling Water with an organic plant-based energy blend.

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We are a nonpartisan, practical organization full of individuals who work with anyone interested in advancing policies and projects for healthy rivers and healthy people. Practical is the word that rings the loudest today.  

This election season defied a lot of predictions. The President’s party loses on average 26 seats in the midterms for the U.S. House of Representatives. Further, global inflation has demonstrated voters’ resounding rejection of incumbents repeatedly in 2022. So, the odds were in favor of Republicans easily winning the already slimly Democratic-held U.S. House and U.S. Senate.  

As of this writing, Democrats are expected to have their best midterm with a Democrat in the White House since 1950 and the Republicans will likely take the House, and still could make a play for the Senate.  

In the House, Republicans flipped eight previously held Democratic seats (FL-7, FL-13, GA-6, NJ-7, TN-5, TX-15, VA2, and WI-3) and are leading in eight others (AZ-2, IA-3, MI-10, NY-3, NY-4, NY-17, NY-19, OR-5). Democrats flipped six Republican seats (IL-13, MI-3, NM-2, NC-13, OH-1, TX-34) with leads in four others (AZ-1, CA-41, CO-8, WA-3). 

The Senate now stands at 48 Democrats to 48 Republicans with three races yet to be called in Arizona, Georgia (where we expect a December run-off), and Nevada.  

So, the bottom line is we don’t know who will govern each chamber of Congress at this moment, but no one can legitimately claim a national mandate or broad support from voters. 

And I think that uncertainty is a message in and of itself. The American people aren’t really thrilled with either party. The rhetoric has driven leaders away from addressing the most pressing issues – including climate change, injustices, and loss of nature — towards scoring political points. 

Here is the reality that I think most everyone sees:  

CLIMATE CHANGE: Extreme weather is happening more often as climate change settles in. According to the U.S. EPA:  

• Nine of the top ten warmest years on record have occurred since 1998, 

• Heat waves are occurring three times more often than they did in the 1960s, 
• A higher percentage of precipitation in the US has come in the form of intense single-day events. Nationwide, nine of the top ten years for extreme one-day precipitation events have occurred since 1996. 
• Floods have generally become larger across parts of the Northeast and Midwest and smaller in the West, southern Appalachia, and northern Michigan. Large floods have become more frequent across the Northeast, Pacific Northwest, and parts of the northern Great Plains, and less frequent in the Southwest and the Rockies. 

In my home region of Appalachia, we have seen deadly flooding becoming a greater risk every year with a combination of climate change, mountainous topography, and economic decline that has come about as people failed to transition away from coal as it became less competitive. 

PERMANENT DROUGHT: Lake Mead and Lake Powell – which together release two trillion gallons of water to cities and farms each year – are at their lowest point since the dams were built. The federal government just issued a warning to the seven states (CA, CO, UT, WY, NM, NV, and AZ) that they will consider changing the way water is released unless the states can agree to a reasonable plan to deal with this reality. Failure to find an agreement has severe implications to the millions who depend on those reservoirs for drinking water, the millions who depend on the hydropower for energy, not to mention all who depend on those farms for their food. It threatens species, water affordability, and some of our most iconic places, like the Grand Canyon.  

The solutions aren’t easy and that is why American Rivers will work with our political leaders to try to reduce the rhetoric and work together to find a real path forward.  

WILD FIRE: According to National Atmospheric and Oceanic Administration, “Research shows that changes in climate create warmer, drier conditions, leading to longer and more active fire seasons. Increases in temperatures and the thirst of the atmosphere due to human-caused climate change have increased aridity of forest fuels during the fire season.” 

We know river health starts with forest heath. Uncharacteristically intense wildfires can change the course a river takes, erode its banks, disrupt biological processes, and fill reservoirs with excess nutrients and sediment. More intense fires endanger our rivers and water. 

We need decision-makers who are willing to work together to find scientifically based solutions and this is what American Rivers will continue championing. We need our leaders to end the rhetoric and start to work together to find a real path forward. 

Last night, voters sent a message to Congress that they need political leaders to work together to address the real issues that are impacting our lives. They want leaders to be thoughtful about our future and get to work.  

Now, back to the practical work of American Rivers.

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American Rivers recently had the pleasure of co-hosting a whitewater rafting trip with a local nonprofit organization called the Vamos Outdoors Project — a group, based in Whatcom and Skagit counties, whose mission is to build community through connection to the land and access to the outdoors.

American Rivers recognizes that conservation and environmental education traditionally underserves Latine, Migrant, and Multilingual communities, disconnecting them from their rivers and the environmental threats that disproportionately burden their communities. We wanted to create a fun experience for the youth of these communities — one that would foster new advocates who will engage in Northwest river protection efforts for years to come. Thus, the idea of a river rafting trip was born.

Eleven students and two trip leaders from the Vamos Outdoors Project piled out of the van on a drizzly morning in early June, all brimming with excitement. They wriggled into their wetsuits, and everyone’s safety equipment was checked for proper fit. A few students grew nervously quiet as we approached the bridge under which we would launch the rafts. The river was raging at over 3,000cubic feet per second. Spring runoff had just peaked, and Mt. Baker was shedding her winter coat directly into the Nooksack. It was a lot of water—beautiful and breathtaking.

The professional guides conducted a thorough safety check and tested our knowledge of the paddling commands. We then set out on the first section of our trip. Hoots and hollers filled the canyon for several miles. Nearly everyone was beaming as we pulled over on the river for lunch.

I introduced the students to a handy way of remembering the five Pacific salmon species that call the Nooksack River home. They also collected macroinvertebrates (bugs that salmon like to eat while they rear in freshwater) and discussed the life cycle of Pacific salmon. A restoration staff member from the Nooksack Indian Tribe talked about some of the threats the river faces (logging, irresponsible recreation, dams, etc.). The Nooksack people have stewarded this watershed for centuries, and today, the Tribe’s restoration team implements several projects throughout the river, including the installation of engineered log jams that provide habitat for all life stages of salmon and steelhead. Through their efforts, and those of numerous partners, habitat is recovering from erosion, the riparian forest is reconnecting to its river and floodplain, and dams like the Middle Fork Nooksack Dam are being removed to restore a free-flowing river.

After two devoured watermelons and a near-stampede when the brownies came out at the end of the lunch hour, we were all back on the river together. The sun had emerged to illuminate a whole mess of smiles, disappearing behind and then rising above the river waves.

We closed the trip by sharing our rose, bud, and thorn: one thing about the trip that you really enjoyed; one thing that you want to improve upon; and one part that was particularly challenging. Following the paddling commands and changing stroke patterns on a dime, were challenging for most. But for eleven students doing a highly adrenaline-inducing activity for the first time, I was elated to hear that so many of the kids were looking forward to “next time.”

Trips like this one are dynamic ways to engage Latine and Migrant youth, who aren’t always offered the opportunity to get to know their river in this way. Creating opportunities to interact with and learn about the river builds and strengthens connections and understandings of the North Fork Nooksack River’s ecosystem, the people who rely on it, and the work being done to protect and enhance it – work such as the Nooksack River Wild and Scenic effort. Since 2012, American Rivers and several local partners have been working to secure permanent protections for the Nooksack River, which will allow for the protection and restoration of all five Pacific salmon species and steelhead; protect the river’s clean water used for drinking, farming, outdoor recreation, and tourism; and ensure the river remains free flowing. We were also able to introduce the students to the Maple Creek River Access Site—a plan put together in collaboration with the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, Whatcom Land Trust, American Whitewater, and others which will, once completed, provide public recreation access along the North Fork Nooksack River, while also allowing natural resource managers to protect, restore, and enhance the adjacent riparian forest and natural river systems.

This trip was made possible by the generous support of the Wilburforce Foundation, Superfeet, the Mountaineers Foundation AKA the Keta Legacy Foundation, and the Norcliffe Foundation. We are so grateful for your support of this trip. Thank you for supporting these youth, their education, and their budding roles as river advocates.

Language Note:  Vamos Outdoors Project uses the terms ‘Latine,’ ‘Migrant,’ and ‘Multilingual’ to refer to their community and their students.

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