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Michael Dunne: I'm Michael Dunne. The removal of most of the dams on the Klamath River was a historic act and an engineering feat, but for many tribes of Indigenous peoples in Oregon and Northern California, it was so much more than that. It was a reclamation of their river and a tribute to many generations who continually asked for the river to be returned to its natural habitat. Therefore, it was only fitting that a group of young Indigenous people were honored with the first descent of the river in boats. Today on the show, you'll hear from a documentarian at OPB who produced and directed the film "First Descent: Kayaking the Klamath." The film chronicles these young people as they navigate more than 300 miles of wild river to the ocean. Jessie Sears, proud member of the Karuk tribe, is a producer, director and cinematographer based in Portland. She produced and directed the new OPB documentary "First Descent: Kayaking the Klamath." Jessie, thanks so much for coming on and talking with us.
Jessie Sears: Thank you so much for having me, Michael.
Dunne: Tell us why you wanted to make this documentary.
Sears: This documentary is super special to me, because I've actually been filming the dam removal itself on the Klamath River for the past three or four years. I stopped working on that documentary when I started at OPB a year ago, and this was the next step. As a Karuk tribal member, I was actually born and raised in Portland, so I'm a city girl, and getting to film the dam removal itself was a way for me to reconnect with my roots and reconnect with the space that my grandma grew up in. This was the next step, to show what happens after. So it was not only a homecoming for the river, it was also a homecoming for myself.
Dunne: For folks who are going to see it, it's an amazing journey of these young Indigenous people kayaking the river. As a documentarian, as someone filming this, talk about some of the challenges. Obviously, you're on a river, and for folks who don't know, this isn't like a fun little paddle down a gently moving body of water. These are challenging rapids. These kids are in river kayaks, moving fast through rapids. Talk about the challenges of filming all this.
Sears: I've got to tell you, this was a logistical nightmare. In all my years as a filmmaker, I thought I had filmed difficult things. This was by far the hardest thing I've had to film. A huge shout-out to my cinematographer, Brandon Swanson, because he knew which gear to bring. He knew which microphones would withstand water. He knew we had to bring GoPros, and he was just on it. From my end, having to plan this out was very difficult. We were there for 10 days out of the 30-day journey, and having to meet up with the crew and all the paddlers in the middle was a challenge because they were all out of cell service. I had to look at a map and figure out where they were going to be on a very specific day, then drive down from Portland and just hope I could find them, because without service down there, I couldn't use maps either. Then on the last three days, we were actually on a raft. We didn't have access to a car or electricity. We were camping alongside the paddlers, and we knew that if we dropped the camera in the water on day one, we wouldn't get the final three days. We had to bring enough batteries and memory cards, knowing we weren't going to be able to offload footage onto a hard drive until the very last day. Like I said, a logistical nightmare, but it all came through. I'm very happy to say we didn't have any catastrophes.
Dunne: When you were filming, again, they're kids in a fairly dangerous situation. Were there moments where your heart was in your throat because they were running these rapids and you were there filming, realizing this is punctuated by very intense moments?
Sears: Yes, that's a good question. We actually were not able to be there for the most challenging rapids because it was just too dangerous. I understand how the organizers of this journey already have to look out for these teens. They don't want to also look out for the camera crew from the city. We did license some footage from the paddlers. But there were a few nerve-wracking moments, particularly when some of the teenagers were practicing their hand rolls, which is when you throw your paddle, go upside down and come back up. I show this a few times in the film. It's incredibly difficult to do. There were a few times where they weren't coming up for a while, and I started panicking, and then they would resurface. There were moments like that where I thought, 'Are they ever going to roll back up? Are they OK?' But they are very, very skilled, and they trained for years to be able to do this.
Dunne: One of the things I really enjoyed about the film was how the young people doing this journey were not just subjects being filmed. They were active participants, because you had to bring GoPros. Well, the kids were, in many ways, your deputized film crew, because their GoPros were part of the action, and they also narrated parts of the film. Talk about that participation, both as subjects and as your ad hoc crew.
Sears: I'm so glad you asked that. When I started this film, I knew I wanted to make it all about the paddlers, who were doing this for themselves, for their communities, for their ancestors. I wanted them to be center stage. This is about them. As a documentary filmmaker, I don't want to go somewhere and tell a story that isn't mine. I wanted them to have as much say as possible. I had read a lot of articles about what they were doing, and I wanted to ask them what it meant to them, outside of everything in the news and everything other people were saying about it. They really responded to that. I gave them the full ability to say everything they wanted to say. You could tell they were doing this for something bigger than themselves, and when you're doing something for something bigger than yourself, you can feel the impact from that. Then at the end, while I was editing, some of the pieces weren't falling together. I thought I was going to have to narrate it myself, and I didn't want to do that because it's not about me. So I brought Tasia and Julian into the OPB studio and recorded some voiceover with them to put the pieces together. It really worked. They were happy to do it, and from what I've heard, they're pretty happy with how it turned out.
Dunne: Youth is a journey, from childhood to young adulthood, and I'm thinking your documentary really embodies this idea of a journey. What do you think that journey said about the river itself, the dam removal and the Indigenous kids who made this almost mythic journey?
Sears: It was incredible to see them on this journey, because I've never met teenagers like them, doing something that is greater than themselves, something outside themselves and for a bigger purpose. I didn't go on any journeys like that when I was a teenager. I was worried about very mundane things, and here they are making history. We don't see journeys like that often.
Dunne: One of the young people, at the very beginning, talked about a relative saying, 'Go, be historic.' It was really almost the first line of the film. And for most of us, the history here is simply a big engineering project to remove some dams. But for these people and their ancestors, this is about freeing a river. Talk about the history you recorded, and this idea that many generations have never seen this wild river.
Sears: We're living in such a remarkable time right now. We're getting difficult news constantly, and with social media and nonstop distractions, we sometimes lose the bigger picture of why we do things. I think getting to step back and see some good that is happening can give us hope for the future. That's how I see this film and the journey these kids went on. The triumph and their success matter, but the work isn't done. We can celebrate the success of now, and the joy and happiness of now, because it gives us hope to approach what's next. Getting the dams removed took decades, and that was a huge triumph. Then to have these teenagers kayak the entire 310 miles of the river is another success. It's like, OK, what's next? That can give us hope for whatever we need to do next.
Dunne: And watching kids triumph, there's something about that that really emboldens older people, to see 16- and 17-year-olds doing something that many of us as adults couldn't do. Talk about that, and about representing a people who have experienced so much hardship and tragedy for hundreds of years. It's not a closed circle of triumph, but it is emblematic of their spirit, isn't it?
Sears: Absolutely. Watching teenagers do something that us adults don't often do gives us even deeper hope. It gives them power for themselves and for the future. I'm in my 30s, dealing with what has been left to us as a society, trying to find my place in that and see how I can make the world a better place. I find myself getting really worried about the younger generation, about my younger brothers, wondering what I can do. So to see young people being so historic, and doing something that is greater than themselves, it's just this glimmer of hope. It says they've got it, and I'm going to help and support in any way that I can. They're not hopeless. They understand what they need to do.
Dunne: One of the supporting characters in your documentary is youth itself. Yes, these kids are doing something historic and important, but they're still kids, and you capture the joy, the goofiness. There's a great scene where they circle up all the kayaks and they're running on top of them. Talk about that, this idea that your subjects are still kids, and that letting them just act the way kids are supposed to act was really important in this film.
Sears: It was so funny, because we would be sitting there having this really deep conversation on camera, and Tasia or Julian or Jaden would be saying these profound things, making me rethink my life and see the world in this big picture way. Then when the cameras were off, they'd go make jokes and use slang I didn't know, and it was just so fun. I learned a lot from them, from the success of this journey and all the great big-picture things they did. But I also learned from them that life is fun. Life can be fun, and we don't have to take everything so seriously all the time. I was learning from them every day, even when they were just being goofy kids. I learned to be in the moment.
Dunne: And turning 180 degrees, you did have this great moment where you're talking to one of the kids, and he was talking about healing. This journey, healing for himself, but healing for his community. Talk about that, because in many ways, removing the dams is a story of healing the Klamath River.
Sears: That was Julian who said that, and it was really profound. I remember that day like it was yesterday. This idea of healing the river: when you see your environment heal around you, it means something deeply personal. From Julian's perspective, and that of a lot of other Indigenous people, when our rivers are sick, we are sick. When our environment is sick, we are sick. Our ancestors had to go through that and fight for so long, and are still fighting, and will most likely continue to fight for a while. Healing takes time. When the dams came out, when four of the six dams came out, part of the river began to heal. With that, the fish are coming back. You feel this balance starting to return. Then you start to look around and realize a lot of things are still out of balance. As we begin to heal and gain momentum from healing, the work's not done. Tasia says it very well in the documentary: How can I be so hopeful and joyful when so much is still happening? We have to take this momentum of healing and look to the future and see where else healing can start. It begins to heal a whole lineage and generation, like a domino effect.
Dunne: The dam removal, your documentary, what these kids did, it fits into a fairly new narrative sometimes called rewilding, returning natural places scarred by human activity to something closer to their original condition. Hopefully the Klamath dam removal can take on a life of its own, and other communities can see that there's a lot to be said for the natural world. What are your thoughts on that?
Sears: I don't think anyone could argue against the fact that we are very out of balance, as I said. This idea of rewilding is about working with the land, working with the river, working with wildlife. It's looking at the land not as something we take from endlessly without giving back. I see it as working alongside our natural environment, helping it, giving back what we take in a more sustainable way. I think a lot of people are catching on to that idea and realizing it's what's needed, because we are definitely very much out of balance, and our environment is getting the short end of the stick.
Dunne: My last question: As a documentarian, you make films so that people feel certain things. What do you hope audiences take away from watching this documentary?
Sears: When I went into it, I wanted audiences to just be in the moment with the youth. By the end, I want a lot more than that. I want the audience to see this great thing these teens are doing, but I also want them to hear what the teens are saying and put themselves in a position of realizing that good things take time, and that maybe all of us need to consider how we can work toward something greater than ourselves.
Dunne: Jessie Sears, the producer and director of the new OPB documentary "First Descent: Kayaking the Klamath." Congratulations on the documentary, and thank you so much for taking time to talk with us.
Sears: Thank you so much, Michael.
Dunne: That's the show for today. All episodes of Oregon on the Record are available as a podcast at KLCC.org. Tomorrow on the show, you'll hear from a reporter with The Bend Bulletin about the controversies over the city's diversity program, which has now seen two diversity directors leave their position. I'm Michael Dunne, host of Oregon on the Record. Thanks for listening.
