What California’s Klamath River Revival Means for Travelers

This is a very special episode of Unpacked by Afar. Because this week we hosted Unpacked Live, a—you guessed it—live version of the podcast in partnership with Visit California in Boston, Massachusetts.

In 2022, Visit California launched Visit Native California, and the goal with the Boston live event was to celebrate California’s diverse tribal communities. Unpacked host Aislyn Greene was joined onstage by John Acuna, a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe in Humboldt County, California, and a river guide with Rios to Rivers and Paddle Tribal Waters.

In July, 2025, shortly after the Klamath River was undammed—the largest dam removal project in U.S. history—John helped guide a historic 30-day expedition down the Klamath River, known as the First Descent.

On stage, John shared the Klamath River’s history and what it was like to spend 30 days kayaking a river that has been so essential to the West Coast Native communities and was for so long diverted and quite literally drained of life.

In this episode, we go deeper. John shares his early life, how he found his way back to the water, and the lessons he’s learned after spending so many years on the river. He also explains how cultural stewardship, land‑back efforts, and Indigenous fire and river knowledge are reshaping landscapes and communities across Northern California.

Transcript

Aislyn: I’m Aislyn Greene and this is a very special episode of Unpacked by Afar, because this week we hosted Unpacked Live, a, you guessed, it live version of the podcast in partnership with Visit California. The goal was to celebrate California’s diverse tribal communities. And that voice you just heard at the top of the episode belongs to John Acuna, one of our panelists. John is a river guide with Rio’s two rivers and a member of the Hoopa Valley Tribe in Humboldt County, California. And in July 2025, shortly after the Klamath River was undammed, which was the largest dam removal project in US history, John helped guide a historic thirty day expedition down the Klamath River, known as the First Descent. John joined me on stage in Boston to share the Klamath River’s history and what it was like to spend thirty days kayaking a river that has been so essential to the West Coast native communities and was for so long diverted and quite literally drained of life.

In this episode, we go deeper. John shares his early life, how he found his way back to the water, why he’s nearly always barefoot now, and the lessons he’s learned after spending so many years on the river.

John, welcome to unpacked. It’s so nice to meet you. As we mentioned when we first hopped on the call, you have a really wonderful background. Can you tell me where you’re sitting right now?

John: My name is John Acuna, and I’m a Hoopa person from the Valley of Hoopa, located on the Trinity River up in Northern California, the largest California reservation. Yeah, this is where I call home.

Aislyn: Amazing. And I think there’s maybe five kayaks behind you.

John: I think my last count is around 15, and this is my community fleet that I’ve been kind of piecing together. And, um, now, after some of the work that I’ve been involved in, I’ve got a lot of really generous donations from the community to see the programs that I’m involved in. Get off the ground. And a lot of that has been like a barrier of access due to like, gear, because this stuff is expensive. So now I kind of have like, my own accoutrement to outfit my community. And that’s kind of really what the goal has been is to pass on this, this amazing gift that’s been given to me through the circle that I’ve been in. Yeah. And so this is it.

Aislyn: Do you have a goal, like a number of kayaks that you’d like to have in your fleet?

John: Oh, that’s a dangerous question to ask a boater or hobbyist. It’s like as many as I can fit, you know.

Aislyn: Well, I want to hear more about your plans and what you want to do with all those kayaks. But I was hoping we could just start with where you’re from and what it was like for you growing up.

John: I was born in a little town called Susanville, which is near the Nevada border on the foot of the Lassen Mountain. Most of my childhood, my mom was pursuing higher education, so we moved around a lot. I think by the time I graduated high school, I’d moved like nineteen times I counted. And so I kind of always had a nomadic lifestyle, but always in the back of my mind, there was a sense of home because my mom always had a really good job at bringing this back to her home, which is this is where our family has always been from. So coming back to home, it’s always been kind of this undertone that this is a place that needs attention and love. And so that’s a really roundabout way of getting back to your question. Um, I didn’t live here on the reservation full time until I was twelve, I think.

So, you know, not actually coming and living in my home until I was an adolescent. It kind of echoed this bigger disconnect in my life. You know, my family and many families around me are a product of assimilation through a lot of the colonial impact that came through this area. And so there’s a big disconnect from our culture. And I think anytime we’re talking about what connects us to a place and what ties us to a place, especially from an indigenous person standpoint, I think it’s really important to also acknowledge the disconnect that’s happened. And this is something that I’m just now starting to wade through as a young man myself and as a father, to kind of undo these generational cycles that have been put in place for one reason or another. It has a chemical effect on the brain. You know, we talk about epigenetics and the cycles of trauma that are passed down to a person. And I think what connects me to this land is that even being in this space, it cuts through that noise of, of all of the, the things that have taken place in not just my history, but the history around me.

Aislyn: So you’re grappling as a young man with all of these cycles of trauma that have taken place, and you are developing a relationship with the land, and ultimately you did move into being a firefighter, which we can talk about a little bit later. But I’m wondering what those early memories of nature are for you, and how you think they led you to where you are today.

John: Yeah. You know, I grew up like being an outside kid. I’ve kind of always just been the kid who has had sap in his hair because he was up in a tree. We used to walk down to the river from my grandma’s house, like barefoot in the middle of the summer and would have, like, leather purses for feet because the asphalt was just so dang hot. And I very much had like one of those you don’t come inside till the street light comes on kind of upbringings.

What brought me to firefighting initially was I kind of had like a crazy, whirlwind high school experience where I wasn’t the most engaged student, just due to a lot of the at home things that were going on in my life. It was really hard to take school seriously when there was like in my mind, like real life things happening at home. And, you know, the same issues I had in high school quickly carried on to college. And I’m like, now I have no one else pushing me but myself. So it’s like, okay.

I think I floundered through a semester of college and then I’d been approached by military recruiters on the campus I was going to school at, and they had basically sold the Army to me, to the point where I had all but signed my name. And then I went home for spring break. And, you know, just some things behind the scenes with family unfolded, and it just became very obvious that I wasn’t going back to school. And then just serendipitously, that same span of time on that spring break, our local fire department had started a new fire crew for the first time in like two decades or something, and they were actually paying people to get the certification. And so just kind of like on, I could use a couple extra bucks, I dove into it and it kind of sparked this, like, amazing passion that I thought was going to be my lifelong career. And I spent six years doing that and, you know, devoted a large part of my young years to it. And it’s shaped me to who I am in a large part today.

Aislyn: That is amazing. And how interesting the way that life twists, right? So then from there, you pivoted to now working as a river professional. So what led to that change and what does that look like today?

John: I always say my life was a series of like right place at the right time. I kind of got nudged in the direction of my high school P.E. teacher, who is now on our tribal council. He’s done a lot of amazing things. Shout out to Joe Marshall, but he started this amazing nonprofit called the Warrior Institute, and that was kind of my first taste of anything nonprofit related. And the kind of the mission of that organization is to create healthy pathways and reintroduce habits such as healthy foods, exercise in all things health to the community in a way that’s accessible. And among those things is they started a program where they take the community out on rafting trips.

Even growing up on the river, I never knew what whitewater was like. I live in kind of one of the central hubs for a lot of amazing rivers, but I think the outdoor recreation world is something that’s pretty out of reach for people who don’t have time or resources to throw at something like a hobby. I always say that recreation is a luxury. And so just until my mid twenties, I just had no idea that this was a world that existed. And I kind of fell into some hard times that saw me without my living situation for a second. I lived and worked at the fire station, and I ran into some troubles with the law that ended up being a breach in my contract with the Forest Service. So they terminated my position, which meant I lost my housing, which meant I lost my job.

All these things set me off like this really wild dark spiral that I had never anticipated. And so through the Warrior Institute, I had made some really good friends who were like, really health and wellness minded. And I had a good friend who, like in my depression, would come to my house and drag me to the gym and like, wouldn’t give up on me as much as I wanted to give up on myself. And he just also happened to be a river guide, you know, and there was one day where he was just like, “Man, I’m so tired of seeing you bummed out. And we’re gonna, we’re gonna go out in the river.” And so he took me rafting and it was just like this instant. Click. I don’t know, it just like, was this floodgate of just, like, processing and healing that just happened in the span of, like, an hour, and I’m like, whoa. And then he kind of mentioned to me that the school where he got his training was hosting a course, and I should take part in it. And I was like, I don’t know if that’s really my thing. You know, I’m Mr. Firefighter. Like, I don’t know anything about being a river guide.

Aislyn: Yeah.

John: And so I kind of just like snuffed it off like it was nothing. And then I was sitting there feeling sorry for myself for even longer. And I came to this wall where I was like, what do I have to lose? And so I took part in this amazing week long guide school on the Trinity River, just a few miles upstream from where I’ve always grown up and never knew it existed. And this beautiful property called redwoods and rivers, which showed me so much love. Um, sorry. And so they liked me enough, and they liked my work ethic enough that they offered me a job right there that weekend. And they’re like, “You need to work for us. We like what you do. We like your energy.” And I was just hooked on that environment like that, that school environment, like I had been so long since I enjoyed being a student, you know? And now, like, I have this way to to re-engage in that world and also, you know, touch the water again.

You know, in my time being a firefighter, I missed out on all the summers. So I didn’t get to go swimming. I didn’t get to go float. All the things I grew up doing were kind of, you know, you’re a big boy, you’re working now, you don’t get to go play. And I kind of had lost connection with how integral and important that was for me to have as a, as a person, like I’m a water person, I dry up really easy. And I had neglected that. And I was wondering like why I’d become so, like, crusty and callous to the world. And it’s like, man, like you’re just like, not grounded anymore.

Aislyn: And it seems like things happen so quickly once you hit the water again, like you had that healing, and then you did the training and you got the job. And so how long ago was that?

John: That was in 2019.

Aislyn: Wow. Okay. So I think it might be helpful to step back and talk about the Klamath River and what’s happened there. How the Trinity River is connected. So how would you describe this part of Northern California?

John: Usually the most familiar landmark people have close to me is Eureka, California. It’s like the big city in the area. And so if you go about 50 or so miles north of Eureka, you kind of roughly land in a place called Crescent City. And near Crescent City is the mouth of the Klamath River in a small town called Klamath, California, or Requa, which is the Yurok name for the mouth. It’s their traditional village down there. And from the mouth, the Klamath meanders three hundred and ten miles up to the headwaters in southern Oregon, near a place called Klamath Falls, where it. Then. I’m going backwards from this, but yeah, so the headwaters are near Crater Lake, and they’re made up of a series of lakes and tributaries that feed the upper Klamath Lake and Agency Lake.

Aislyn: Then returning to kind of the fight around the Klamath or the struggle. It’s gone on for decades, and I was hoping that you could help us understand why is it so important, and especially to the many tribes that have these deep ancestral ties to the area?

John: First and foremost, like the big one is, is how integral it is to all the peoples along it as a food source. It’s like one of the biggest spawning grounds for salmon. I, I don’t want to speak out of turn, but it’s one of the biggest salmon bearing rivers in the country, if not the world. And so the dams that were put on it were a direct detriment to the fish. The tribes along the rivers recognized that immediately and have been protesting it since its inception. And, you know, a lot of Oregon and California’s water laws came about because of things like, well, mostly from all the different industries revolving around resource extraction, like here on the Trinity in the lower Klamath Basin. We were hit heavily by gold mining. Our first contact story is when the gold rush happened. And a lot of the upper areas are that same kind of timeline. You know, you think of colonialism in this country started when they landed in the fourteen hundreds. And, you know, that was over 500 years ago. But our story of colonialism is about 200 years old. In the 1800s, when they were doing fur trapping and gold mining and all the stuff that first brought contact over here. The first documented resident of Klamath Falls, which is in southern Oregon. It’s at the headwaters of the of the Klamath River. I don’t think it was documented until the 1860s. And so much of the history here is very fresh. And it’s taken some really, really educated indigenous people getting in the law world to go back and look at some of these treaties that were signed. And then before the ink was dry, they were being rewritten and violated. And so it took people in the current day and age to go back on those treaties and say, hey, this still has legal binding. And so a lot of the rights for the river that have been fought for and preserved have been through, you know, using these systems that were put to oppress us and take things from us to kind of hold the government accountable for the things that they had initially promised. And we’re kind of seeing the ramifications of all of that to this day.

Aislyn: Wow. And since there was so much protest going on for so long, what do you think made it finally feasible? Like what made people finally listen?

John: Honestly, you know, it always comes back to money. I give so much praise and respect to the people that dedicated their lives to protesting and fighting these dams, who, you know, traveled across the country and banged on the doors of every politician who would listen. But ultimately, I feel like it came down to money. It became too expensive for Pacific Corps to run this place. It would cost more money to keep it up and running than it would have taken to dismantle it. And so that’s kind of the difference when it comes to the talk of dam removal, is that it’s really much more feasible to get a privately owned dam removed, because usually it’s a question of money. The flip side is federally owned dams, which are in the interests of the government, and they don’t really have a dollar sign that they listen to. And so usually the deciding factor between dams and their removal or not is if it’s monetarily worth it.

Aislyn: So then the final cofferdams were broken on August 28, 2024. And I think that marked the completion of most of the removal of the dams. There’s still two left. Is that right?

John: Yeah, they are still the Link River dam and the Keno Dam.

Aislyn: Got it. And will those come down at some point?

John: There’s a really big push to have them removed. The argument is that it is mostly used as flood control. There’s historical evidence that shows that those lakes were able to retain themselves before the dams were implemented, and that the lakes would act more like marshlands, and that the water would come and go from them.

Aislyn: Well, a year after those cofferdams were removed, you were part of the historic first dissent, a group of primarily indigenous youth who spent a month kayaking the entirety of the river, a month which I still am like trying to wrap my head around what that was like. So I know it took a year to plan. And you said there was a lot that went on in that year. But how did this project come about?

John: Yeah, so I think to understand the first ascent and paddle tribal waters, which is the group that was on the descent. We have to talk about Rios to Rivers, which is like the organization umbrella. I think that’s the best way to think of it, because we have two other sister programs in Bolivia and Chile, respectively.

And so Rios to Rivers, which is the non-profit organization, originally started out as a cultural exchange program of sorts, where groups of youth from dam impacted basins in Chile would be taken up to do an exchange with youth from the Klamath Basin to see what a dam impacted river was like. And they kind of talked about it as a time machine, where you can go back in time to see what a river was like undammed. And then for the people that are threatened, they can go and see what the impacts of the dam are. Because in Chile, on the Bio Bio River, they’re being threatened by some serious mega dams.

And so anyways, that was the original mission of Rios rias to rivers. But then when the pandemic happened in twenty twenty, it shut down international travel, right? And so it made it really, really difficult to do those internationally based exchange programs. And so the focus shifted to what can we do for the domestic indigenous people rather than focusing on international. And so one of my now very dear friends, Paul Robert Wolf Wilson of the Klamath and Modoc tribes up at the headwaters, he collaborated with one of the professional kayakers in the industry named Rush Sturges, and they kind of together collaborated this idea of paddle tribal waters and using the Klamath Dam removal effort as a focal point for getting indigenous youth of that basin in their in their waterways, which has been something that has never been a thing.

And I think it’s been learned through history that, like recreation is like a really good way to advocate for the preservation of waterways and like we discussed earlier, like recreation isn’t a reality in some of these impoverished spaces and under served communities. And so flipping that narrative and creating that access and creating that space and bringing these youth who are indigenous since time immemorial is the phrase that we always throw around. It only makes sense that they are able to recreate in these spaces. And man, are they good at it.

Aislyn: Tell me about okay, so how did that idea come back to like, hey, the dams are going to be removed, we’re going to be able to traverse this river for the first time in centuries. How did it come about, this 30 day travel project?

John: I can’t speak from conversations. I wasn’t in the room when they happened initially, but I know that Paddle Tribal Waters has been a culmination to the first ascent, like as a goal. It’s always been the goal from the beginning and it was working backwards from there. Like, how do we do that? And Rush Sturgis, through his connections in the industry, was able to help curate this really, really high level cadre of experience in the kayaking space. And then there was kind of a recruitment effort of leadership within the indigenous communities in the basin. And, you know, so there’s a handful of us from all the local tribes along the basin that have been able to professionalize ourselves in this space and be advocates and leaders for our community. The model for this thing, you know, the running joke. When I first joined Rios to Rivers was my job title. I was kind of just walking. The walk was all I was there to do was like, I was there to learn alongside the kids and show them what it looked like to be a professional and, and learn myself what that meant, because I was still definitely figuring it out and still am.

Aislyn: So you spent a year preparing for this. What was that preparation like for both you and for? It was mostly, youth under18?

John: So our demographic is like ages twelve to our oldest student now is twenty one, but it’s hard to call her a student anymore because she’s grown so much. But yeah, it’s like our age range. We’ve seen some of our kids grow up.

Aislyn: Can you tell me more about what it’s been like to work with the kids and to watch them grow and develop and build this relationship with the river?

John: It’s been, I think, to put it into a word is powerful. You know, I, I talked earlier about how a lot of this has been like my own sifting through and making sense of my own realities and the things that I went through as a person. And being in the outdoor spaces has brought like, such a presence and awareness to me, that has really cleared the fog of a lot of things. And when I see those kinds of lights coming on in, in the eyes of like other young folks, and it’s like, man, I don’t have to say anything profound. I don’t have to, like, have anything figured out. All I have to do is like, hold space and they can arrive to all these profound conclusions like organically and naturally, and not with any kind of like rigid structure that I think so many people in our society, especially young people, are being forced into where it’s like, you know, they always describe kids as bouncing off the wall, but it’s like what happens when you take the walls away and just like, give space and magic happens is what we’re finding out.

And so it’s cool just to see all these things that I have learned to see as hindrances and damages and scars really just like evolve and and transcend like all these kind of parameters that I thought were just forever going to be oppressing us, you know, like it’s a heavy burden to walk around with.

Aislyn: Do you feel like this is helping to lighten the load in some ways?

John: Yeah. You know, I feel like I’ve been a very, very tiny, tiny part of the Klamath Dam removal story. Like, I got to come in when, you know, the hard work was done, and I got to lead the celebration, you know. And so in order to really, like, sit in that, like, celebratory feeling, like we really need to acknowledge everything that’s come before it. But I think there’s so much to celebrate. And in the inception of Paddle Tribal Waters, my friend Paul. He’s a filmmaker, and he has always had this philosophy of not showcasing the trauma in this story, because it’s a tale that’s been told over and over again about, like, how beaten down we are as people. And this expedition, this 30 day long journey was to showcase, you know, resiliency isn’t the scars of trauma.

Resiliency could be taught and learned through putting young people in really, really adverse situations that aren’t detrimental to their being. Resiliency can be a tool rather than like this thing that you earn through war and fire. It can be gained through like, love and meeting the challenge of adversity. It doesn’t have to be this big lament, this big sad story. And we can pay attention to that and give it credence and give it honor. But like, we just want to celebrate for a second, you know?

Aislyn: Yeah. I love that idea of resilience in response to beneficial challenges like navigating these whitewater rapids in a kayak, right, and spending 30 days challenging yourself in that way. So what was it like to sit there on day one? You’re about to leave. You have all of these people that you’ve worked with over the last four years, and you’re sitting with that whole story. Tell me about that moment.

John: You know, this is still something that I’m unpacking, too. Like you spend a month on the river and I feel like you process it for a lifetime. Yeah. Day one feels like a lifetime ago. But we had this amazing, amazing send off. The headwaters that we started at is this beautiful, beautiful pool on this tiny little river called the Wood River. It’s like this glacial blue water. There’s some amazing photos of it, but this river quite literally bubbles out of the ground. You can walk over and dip your water bottle in it and take a drink of the headwaters. I’ve been fortunate enough to explore this space. As I’ve been growing in this work, I’ve been able to spend some time up there and it’s quickly become one of my favorite places in the world. There’s a specialness to it.

And so setting off there with our huge team and all of the community from the upper basin, you know, they burned prayer roots over our boats. They blessed our boats. They gave a blessing to each of the students. And it was like this, this rallying of people that I feel like I think anytime a community is able to rally around anything, it’s always really special. And this is just something that, you know, like we talked about, people have fought their entire lives. Like some people didn’t get to see this happen. They don’t get to celebrate with us. It was kind of imparted on us that every one of our paddle strokes was a prayer from the people that weren’t there, kind of guiding us down the river. And it felt like that, you know, it felt like that. We got our first taste of adversity a couple days into the trip, because after the Wood River, this tiny, little meandering, flat water, it turns into these big lakes. And we had to paddle across these lakes, sometimes doing twenty mile days. Our first introduction to the lake, we got hit by wind and we were like, going through like this torrential rolling waves and kids were getting seasick and their boats. And it’s like, wow, what are we doing? We’re doing this. And then the days just started melting away and it became day four, day five, day sixteen, day twenty, you know, and the next thing you know, you’re touching the ocean.

Aislyn: I’m curious to know what it felt like and what it felt like to watch those kids or teens reach the ocean. After all of that, Is there another moment that sticks with you in the middle, somewhere between day one and day thirty?

John: I don’t remember what day it was exactly. For anyone who wants to, like, check it out. We had an amazing media team following us around and they did a daily post on Instagram Reels.

Aislyn: Oh, cool.

John: Okay, there’s 30 days worth of reels or more and they’re all amazing. You can find it on the Rios to Rivers Instagram. Um, all that being said, on a section called Ikes Falls, which is right near the confluence of the Cal Salmon River and the Klamath, right near a town called Somes Bar. The Karuk people who are the indigenous people to that area, they view that as the center of their universe. And so it’s a really significant place. There’s a section of the Klamath River that we had to portage around, which means we couldn’t run that section of river because it was a sacred site. And so Ikes Falls was the section immediately after that portage.

And so it was significant for a lot of reasons. But one of the big things that stood out to me about that day was, up until that point, all of the more technical, challenging Whitewater sections, we had to really tailor who could run those sections, because not all of our students were up to those skill levels. We have a pretty wide range of skills, and so that was the first, like really technical and difficult section where we just like said, if you feel confident enough to run this, we’ll allow you.

And so a lot of students, it was like the first time doing something stout and scary. And there was this, this young man who was in my group who was going down. His name is Otter Perez, and he’s such a wonderful young man. He’s got so much like just tenacity to him. And he always has like this cool guy front like nothing fazes him. And he like, looked at me and he’s like, I’m scared. And I was like dude, me too, me too. And I tried to have like a conversation with him that like, that feeling is never, ever going to go away, but your relationship with it changes. And I think the most special thing about this journey was just like watching people evolve their relationship with fear. Because fear is like such a crippling thing, but like it drives so many of our decisions, right? But you know, when you first get in a kayak for the very first time, you’re the most scared thing is like flipping over, like, I want to sit as still as possible, because if I move around, I’m going to flip. But then once you learn how to roll over, your fear changes. You still get scared. And you still have that, like in your tummy, like, oh my God, this is the worst thing ever. But like the thing that that’s a response to changes. And like, that’s so cool to see in real time is like these pathways being created in brains, like I can do something that like two seconds ago I thought was terrifying. And that was just like a theme throughout this trip of just, like, conquering fear and finding the new thing that you’re afraid of and be like, oh my goodness.

Aislyn: So how do you imagine that that, I mean, you don’t have a crystal ball I know, but, like, how do you think that will change your life going forward and the lives of these kids? Maybe in small or big ways, or maybe it’s just in terms of them having a relationship with this river that is going to last the rest of their lives.

John: I think the thing that will have the most lasting impact, like it’s so cool that there’s like this big movement to get to like rally behind, like the Klamath removal. It’s like this thing that you can, like look up to the sky and like, that’s what we’re working towards. But I think ultimately, like, if you took all that away, if you like, just were looking at what we were doing and just like taking people from different places, like even though we were all from an indigenous background, like there were so many diversities between the upper and lower basin.

And not to mention we have students who aren’t even from that basin, who are from neighboring basins. And all of our cultures, like intertribal, are so vastly different and through a bunch of different reasons. There is also a lot of intertribal tension sometimes too. So just like seeing this gathering of people with a unified cause, breaking down all these other like external barriers that normally would have been like, oh, I’m probably going to hang out with this person for XYZ and like seeing them now be like, oh, that’s my sister, that’s my brother, I would do anything for them. It doesn’t matter who they are or where they’re from. And I think that’s just like needed so much more now than ever.

Aislyn: Right, connecting with people over something outside of where we’re from or politics or all of those things, and being able to see people for their full humanness. I skipped over this question earlier, and maybe it’s a good one to talk about now, because you mentioned multiple tribes and people being very different from very different parts of the river. So there was this New York Times story that chronicled your journey. And William Rae Junior, who’s the chairman, I believe, of the Klamath Tribes, said that this undamming will allow quote all relatives to be connected again. And so I was curious to know what he meant by that and what the Klamath Tribes is, as a whole.

John: The Klamath Tribes. And I will apologize for speaking out of line, because, I mean, these these lines that get drawn in the sand can get pretty contentious. So the the Klamath Tribes are kind of a conglomerate or a confederacy of the Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin people. When all of the governmental influence that created reservations came through that area and said, like, this is where y’all are from. They kind of pushed all these tribes into one place, kind of ignoring any kind of history they had with each other. I mean, like, you are all Klamath now.

Aislyn: I see.

John: Yeah. And a lot of similar things happened down the basin, too, when you get kind of mid basin in the Karuk, Shasta, Konomihu area. A lot of those people were like eradicated just like the Konomihu Shasta people who were from the Cal Salmon confluence of the Klamath are pretty much non-existent, except for a couple families. And then there’s the Shasta Nation, which kind of goes around the perimeter of Mount Shasta, which is a huge nation. They’re reclaiming their identity and their federal recognition. And then further down you have the, the Hoopa, the Karuk, the Yurok. Um, and those are kind of the big tribes that make up the Klamath Basin.

Aislyn: So do you see this undamming as healing in terms of some of those governmental boundaries or names? Do you feel like that is something that will be unpacked or healed a bit over time?

John: I think it’s a step in the right direction. What we’ve seen with the dam removal efforts and then other kind of conservation directed efforts, I think the Dakota Access Pipeline is a good example of just when tribes can put aside differences and unify behind a bigger thing. Like, I think the Klamath Dam removal was a really, really good example of like the power that unification and collaboration can have, because it was a huge effort between all of the tribes and their attorneys and lawmakers and people who are really like, what happens at the top affects down at the mouth and like, really like accepting that that’s the reality regardless of any other factors.

Aislyn: So one of the things that you mentioned last week was that some people were maybe initially a little bit skeptical about the salmon returning to the river, and yet they have returned so swiftly and so strongly. So can you tell me a little bit more about what that recovery has been like and what it’s been like to watch?

John: The initial argument to the dam removal was that it wasn’t going to make a lick of difference in bringing back these fish populations, not just the salmon, but the C’wamm and Koptu of the upper lakes as well have been almost, have gone extinct from all of this. So there’s like a lot of naysayers that were like, it’s not going to make a difference. It’s not going to change anything because they were pointing out stuff that was happening, happening far below the dams, quote unquote influence. And like what’s going on down there?

And so when the dams finally came out, they had seen salmon start returning to previous spawning grounds within like two weeks or something crazy like that. And now, like, it’s getting even crazier. In October, the fish had been spotted in the lakes, like in the tributaries of the upper lakes, like they had gotten around the dams that are still in place even.

Aislyn: What do you hope happens ultimately? What is your vision or your community’s vision for the Klamath in the generations to come?

John: I think it’s a multifaceted vision, and it’ll vary depending on who you ask and where their priorities lie. I think first and foremost, as a food source, I think the closer that we can reach food sovereignty and not have to rely on the more processed mainstream diets that are presented to us as a society. Like in the indigenous communities, those processed diets are so foreign to our biology that we have higher rates of diabetes. I don’t know the statistic, but a huge proportion of us are lactose intolerant, prone to alcoholism and all these things that are just like, so new in the relative scheme of us as people that were introduced to us, that have just taken us way off of our equilibrium, so to speak.

And so reclaiming those food sources and that kind of goes into the land back thing, not just with our waterways, but our forests as well. Like, those are a huge source of our foods that have been threatened and impacted and mismanaged for a long time. And so I think the ultimate goal is to really reach like what true sovereignty is, and that’s being able to be self-sufficient, navigate our waterways, harvest our natural foods, um, and manage our lands. Because as science is showing the ways that our people have traditionally done things, had a rhyme and a reason, and were often what was in the best interest of the land. And a lot of that was outlawed by the government because, you know, they just saw us as a bunch of wild savages burning down forests. But really, we were trying to be stewards of our land and really bringing those practices back has, I think, really aided in a lot of this dam removal story, like bringing that indigenous science to a level that can be understood from an academic standpoint rather than just like, oh, that’s how we’ve always done things, you know.

And I think it also sets a precedent for other dam impacted rivers like the Eel River. It is a neighboring basin. There’s a big dam removal effort going on in that river, and they’re hoping to have it undammed by 2027.

Aislyn: So, as I understand it, in 2023, the Hoopa Valley Tribe purchased more than 10,000 acres. And then more recently, there was a historic land backed deal that returned 17,000 acres around the Klamath River to the Yurok people, and I that I think was the largest land backed deal in the history of modern California. So why do you think, you mentioned it a little bit, but as a larger conversation, why do you think these land deals are so important alongside the undamming?

John: It really builds a foothold for like what we’re talking about and and bringing back these traditional cultural practices and, and really reclaiming these lands as indigenous territories rather than public lands or privately owned lands that can just be passed back and forth as bargaining chips. And the only way to see real ethical management of lands is to, in my opinion, put it back in the hands of the people who have always managed it. Without these ulterior motives, I feel like there’s always an ulterior motive to our natural resources, and it can’t be just simply because it’s worth something. That’s something that’s worth preserving. And I recognize that there are public use requirements such as water and all that. And I think that there’s more sustainable ways to go about it than what we’re doing.

Aislyn: Something that stuck with me last week. You said that you felt like you were in the infancy of your outdoor career. So where do you want it to go?

John: I think there’s this beauty in being able to say that, I don’t know. You know, when I was a firefighter, I had so much identity wrapped up in it. It’s like all I knew, it’s all I was. It shaped a lot of how I walked through the world. And when that kind of stopped being my identity, I was like, kind of like this really abrupt, abrasive, like, oh, well, who the heck am I now? I, you know, I’m not this or I’m not that, then who am I?

And so when I dove into this whole new kind of realm, I was always really hesitant about, like, not letting it become who I was. And I think by keeping that perspective and just like kind of allowing this, like open ended circle for just whatever to come into and flow out of. I think that rather than having this new path become who I am, it’s helped kind of teach me who I am. And I think through that, I just want to expand on that. I want to become more disciplined. I want to take the experience that I’ve felt like in a whitewater boat and take it to a sea kayak or take it to all these other modalities or disciplines where I can see, like having similar effects happen and just bringing that to as many people that want it, because I’ve realized that not everybody wants to whitewater kayak. It’s pretty. It’s pretty scary. I mean, if you notice, I’m missing my front teeth. That’s because I knocked them out.

Aislyn: Oh my gosh, did you really?

John: Yeah. And yeah, I flipped in the middle of this, this rapid. I was kind of just stepping up into this when I first started getting into, like, the class three realm. Um, this was two years ago now, but, yeah, I, I went through the crux of one of these rapids upside down and found out that rocks are quite hard.

Aislyn: Wow. Wow. I’m just, like, really having an empathetic response to smashing your face on a rock. When we first started talking, you mentioned that you were collecting all of these kayaks because you wanted to build some access. Is that part of what you want to do, helping other younger people access this way of life?

John: I have a lot of ambitions in the outdoor space, but I think like what is actionable for me right now is like through my work, I’ve been fortunate enough to like, get some certifications under my belt. Like I’m certified with the American Canoe Association to instruct kayaking, like on an official level. And so that’s created like a professional avenue that I could operate out of. Like I’ve been able to facilitate pool classes at our local community center and, you know, get some young folks who aren’t a part of the Big Paddle Tribal Waters program, like Into the fold. And I figure it’s my duty and my obligation with what I’ve created in my own personal experiences to try and give back in some way.

Aislyn: Yeah. And you had mentioned like recreation is often a luxury and so being able to offer it in a different way seems really important. And especially because, you know, as a teen, you’re going through so much. Right?

John: I talk about it all the time like it’s like the great equalizer, like being in the midst of the river. Like when it’s tumultuous and turbulent, it doesn’t care who you are. It doesn’t matter. You know how rich you are, how poor you are, what color you are. It’s just you in the water and like how you’re going to react to it. It becomes this beautiful dance where you kind of have to surrender because, like, as big as and strong as I could ever possibly be, I’m never going to be stronger than the river, right? And so I have to learn how to both dance with that in a way, but like, not step on the river’s toes because, like, I can try and lead and just, like, get worked. It’s like I have to learn how to just be okay with just going into the fray sometimes. And, and that’s a skill that I don’t think you can learn in any other kind of way other than that, and it translates so much into the rest of my life. You hit yourself in the face with a giant rock. You know, there’s not a whole lot of things you’re afraid to be hit by other than bigger, bigger rocks. You know.

Aislyn: That’s a great metaphor for life.

John: Yeah. And beyond mountains, there are more mountains, you know, and it’s like you just climb them and learn how to keep on climbing.

Aislyn: Is this a good moment, then, to ask about the tattoo on your feet?

John: Oh, good. A time as any.

Aislyn: Because I read that you’re often barefoot. And then I saw this really cool photo of your feet. And would you mind sharing what you have there and what it represents?

John: Yeah. So anyone who knows me or spend enough time around me, it’s just a given that I’m running around barefoot so I feel most grounded when I’m barefoot. And in 2019, oddly enough, I had this wild idea that I’m mostly barefoot, so I might as well, like, decorate my feet. And it was right after I had stepped into the water world. and I’ve always been a tattoo fanatic. I’ve loved all the different cultures surrounding tattoos and the different regions, and I’ve always been a big fan of American traditional tattoos, which is kind of like a maritime sailor kind of origins to it. And one of the common tattoos that sailors would get would be a rooster and a pig.

Aislyn: Oh, I didn’t know that.

John: Because when they were at sea and like, ships would sink often, oftentimes one of the things that would survive would be the livestock on board. And that’s because they stored them in wooden crates that floated. And so you would have, like these chickens and pigs that were just impervious to drowning, the sailors thought. And so they would get these symbols tattooed on them as a protection from drowning. And so I just thought it’d be fitting to, like, blast that on my feet with the saying tread water as a literal saying and more metaphorical, because I feel like a lot of my life has been trying to keep my nose above water.

Aislyn: Thank you so much to John Acuna and to our event partner, Visit California. To watch a live recording of the events, see our YouTube link in the show notes.

In the show notes, we’ve included more about John, about the Klamath River, and the ways that travelers can engage with it, and with this part of Northern California as a whole.

And please check out our second Unpacked Live episode featuring Monterey chef Christina Lonewolf Martinez and our bonus episode featuring Angela C Marcelino, a Massachusetts based author and member of the Mashpee Wampanoag who have lived in the state for more than ten thousand years, much longer than Massachusetts has actually been a state. Angela did our land acknowledgement and has a wonderful cookbook. We’ve included that link as well.

Ready for more interviews with travel writers? Visit Afar.com and be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok. We are @AfarMedia. If you enjoyed today’s exploration, please subscribe and rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platform—it helps other travelers find it.

This has been Unpacked: Minis, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene, Nikki Galteland, and Katherine LaGrave. The podcast is part of the Airwave Media podcast network. Visit Airwave Media to listen and subscribe to their other shows like Culture Kids and The Explorers Podcast.