A Salmon Song
an essay, poem and song for Maxwell Quinn
I once lived in the woods on the coast of central California, and a little creek flowed through my home. In the spring I’d see fish swimming through. Perhaps they were coho salmon, or some other anadromous fish. Sometimes the cats would watch. All the cats I lived with– Paul, Mushi and Gingko, lost their lives in the woods, one to a mountain lion, the other two to a mystery, but they lived good lives there, and so did I til I got evicted. My heart and mind still drift back to California all the time.
Before colonization, the salmon used to spawn up and down the state, even in the south, but the reign of Los Angeles ended that. The bears once roamed all around, too. Grizzly bears could be found from Alaska to Mexico, and the state flag still bears a grizzly, though they have have long since been annihilated from the land.
Recently I learned that the redwoods grow better with the salmon in their lives. In the Northwest, where the salmon runs are still significant and bears still exist, the redwoods’ fate is tied to the salmon. When the salmon have a strong year, the bears eat well and shit better and the redwoods soak up the nutrients from the sea. Unfortunately, the salmon haven’t been swimming like they should, the bears have not been shitting very well, and the redwoods are struggling, for they’ve dammed nearly all the rivers, and it’s getting hotter and drier.
The situation is dire, but there’s also much to be hopeful for. Take the Klamath river, which flows from the high desert of south Oregon to the coast of northern California. The river has been dammed for a hundred years, and everyone from the Klamath basin has paid a price. The master of the dams was Warren Buffet (est. net worth $135 billion), and his asset fueled a hydroelectric powerplant and cycles of poverty all along the river. Indigenous activists of the Yurok, Karuk, and other tribes from the Klamath region would attend his annual shareholder meeting in Nebraska and ask, when are you going to undam the river?
At his gatherings, the Oracle of Omaha would talk about his plans to alleviate poverty and save the world, and Native activists and allies of the river would remind him that there is poverty in their homeland in America, along the river he keeps. They would tell him the river is bereft of fish and people are struggling because of it, and they would talk about life along the Klamath until he would grow frustrated and say, no more questions. They would unfurl a banner that said Klamath dams equal cultural genocide. This happened annually.
The Yurok word for salmon, nepu, translates to food–that which is eaten. No salmon were eaten at the Yurok’s annual salmon festival a couple years ago–the salmon run was too small–but the future is brighter. Just this month, October 2024, after one hundred years of struggle, the people of the Klamath won, and they finally tore down the dams on the river–the largest dam removal in California’s history.
I was writing another fish poem when I heard the news, so it was only natural to extend the verses to the Chinook salmon, too. They swam in effortlessly, as if they knew the way. Eternal gratitude to the salmon, and congratulations to all the people of the Klamath river.
A Salmon Song for Maxwell Quinn Sleep, my dear, and have no fear, the fish will come and I’ll be near The fish are free the river sings let it feed your heart and dreams Rest your head on the riverbed and I’ll love you until the end And when you leave my heart is a fish a lost a way a last adrift through a dark milky sea full of vicious fishes, though you know they’re not malicious fishes no, the fishes’ wishes are simply to be free and you know they are free even in captivity. What good grace is this– here come the fish now! and I’m here to say, have you heard the good news? The Chinook salmon are coming back! The walls have fallen, may they swim up the Klamath river to spawn again, Godspeed through the bloodstreams of consciousness, all thanks to the efforts of the Native people, who struggled for a hundred years to undam the dams. “The tribally led effort to dismantle the dams is an expression of our sacred duty to maintain balance in the world,” said Joseph L. James, Yurok tribal chairman. Now they may fish the fish that once swam only in dreams. The salmon have swum out of their dreams into the trees and the sky. Bears rejoice. I’d like to give my thanks to the river, my best to the fish, my hat to the sun, and my dreams to you. I hope you have the dreams of your dreams. And as Maxwell says, thank God for the fish advocates! the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5H6ANHD0VDE
