Northern California Tribe Celebrates 59th Salmon Festival

Salmon are an ancestral part of the Yurok Tribe’s culture. (Drew Farwell)

Long ago, it was common for members of the Yurok Tribe to catch 50 salmon per day in the Klamath River east of Crescent City near the tiny town of Klamath, population 850. These days, it’s rare for the Indigenous people of Northern California to get seven. But after the group spearheaded a historic dam removal project, the country’s biggest set to begin in July 2023, spirits are higher than they have been in a long time. It feels like fate that the tribe’s 59th Klamath Salmon Festival will take place on August 19, about a month after the project finally begins.

According to an Instagram post, the festival will provide a hoary host of time-tested favorites. The lineup includes cultural demonstrations, a stick game tournament, a softball tournament, live music, food vendors, basket-weaving demonstrations, a parade, activities for the kids, a petting zoo, and about 100 vendors. And indeed the momentum from the dam removal project is well-felt by the tribe. “In 2024, the Klamath will run free for the first time in more than a century,” the post reads. “The much-anticipated project is the largest salmon restoration initiative in world history.”

To get the festivities going, the tribe announced Yurok citizen Brook Thompson will design the logo for the blowout event. Thompson is both Yurok and Karuk, studying the integration of Indigenous Knowledge into California water policy and nutritional differences in Spring versus Fall Klamath Chinook salmon at the University of California Santa Cruz. This award nabs the PhD student $250 and a free tee shirt and poster, to boot.

Yurok citizen Brook Thompson is a multi-talented researcher and artist. (Yurok Tribe)

In 2020 the Klamath Justice Coalition launched a campaign to persuade the United States government to remove the four major dams on the Klamath River. Klamath Promise Neighborhood Director Josh Norris told Standart Magazine in 2022 the campaign really began in 2002 when the Bureau of Reclamation changed irrigation policy and killed 70,000 Chinook salmon. Needless to say, this festival is a lot more than just a chance to play softball. “It was traumatic and life-changing for those who witnessed the awful sight,” Norris said.

The Klamath Salmon Festival is a free-to-attend event at 190 Klamath Boulevard in Klamath, California on August 19th.

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