Molli Myers was pregnant with her firstborn when the salmon began to die. It was 2002, during the depths of a yearslong drought, and farmers far upstream of her community on the Yurok reservation in Northern California had pressured the George W. Bush administration to divert water from the Klamath River in Oregon to irrigate their fields. Water temperatures rose as the river slowed through the summer, and in September, Chinook salmon returning to spawn began to die, littering the banks with as many as 70,000 carcasses.

Two years later, with her young son in her lap, Myers testified in Orleans, California, before a panel of Federal Energy Regulatory Commission officials charged with renewing the operating licenses of four hydroelectric dams that had contributed to the fish kill. None of the panelists looked her in the eye as she described the structures as an existential threat to the river and the salmon that have sustained her Karuk people since time immemorial.

When the meeting ended, Myers joined a handful of Native people and friends around a bonfire by the river in Orleans to lick their wounds and vent their anger. “That was when we made the decision to dedicate ourselves to dam removal,” Myers recalls. “And that has been our lives.”

The Klamath River flows 263 miles from southern Oregon to far Northern California, through ancestral lands of the Klamath, Karuk, Hupa, Shasta, and Yurok, whose traditions and way of life grew around the river and the abundance it provided. The Klamath once teemed with salmon, but the dams, built between 1918 and 1964 without consulting the tribes, blocked the fish from critical spawning habitat on the upper river and its tributaries. The dams provided no drinking water and almost no flood control. Toxic algae bloomed in their reservoirs, and they accounted for less than 2 percent of the electricity generated by their owner, PacifiCorp. Still, taking them down would involve the largest dam-removal project in American history. The tribes would accept nothing less.

They organized protests at PacifiCorp’s Oregon headquarters, then traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland, to lobby the utility’s parent company, Scottish Power, which proceeded to sell PacifiCorp in 2006. The new owner was Berkshire Hathaway Energy, controlled by Warren Buffett, then the planet’s wealthiest man.

The coalition shifted their protests to Omaha, Nebraska, where Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders meeting packs a 19,000-seat arena. In 2008, 23-year-old Karuk tribal member Chook-Chook Hillman waited in line all night, then sprinted for a microphone and the chance to question Buffett directly. As Hillman introduced himself in the Karuk language, a stunned hush fell over the crowd. Switching to English, he demanded Buffett sign an agreement to remove the dams as Georgiana Myers and Annelia Hillman of the Yurok tribe unfurled a banner proclaiming: BUFFETT’S KLAMATH DAMS = CULTURAL GENOCIDE.

“The world’s richest man doesn’t faze me at all, because in our culture I’m just as equal as any other being on the planet,” Chook-Chook Hillman recalls. “I got my moment and I took full advantage of it.” After two other Klamath River defenders spoke up, Buffett announced that he wouldn’t take any more questions about the dams, and security hustled the remaining activists out of the queue.

The protesters had made their point and could now engage Buffett’s people in a language they understood: the cost of adding fish ladders and bringing the dams up to spec for relicensing was more than it would cost to tear them down—and more than they’d ever earn back. The smart play for PacifiCorp was to walk away. Over the next 16 years, without easing the threat of direct action, the tribes worked with environmentalists, irrigators, commercial fishers, state and federal governments, and PacifiCorp itself to help the utility company do just that.

In 2010, nearly 50 parties signed a dam-removal settlement and an environmental-restoration agreement, only to watch them both die in Congress five years later. The tribes then took the lead in new talks, negotiating an amended agreement that didn’t require congressional approval. The accord formed the nonprofit Klamath River Renewal Corporation to manage the project, with the state of California contributing $250 million in dam-removal and remediation costs and PacifiCorp rate-payers covering the remaining $200 million.

The last major hurdle was approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the agency Molli Myers had testified to decades ago. In November 2022, as officials met in Washington, D.C., Myers joined friends by the river in Orleans, gathering around a Starlink connection to share the historic moment with their children, now grown, who’d witnessed the dam-removal fight their entire lives, and elders who thought they would never live to see it succeed. “We built a bonfire,” she says. “We pulled out all of our old banners from over the years, and we celebrated.”

Dam removal began the following spring and continued in earnest this year. The largest of the four structures, Iron Gate, stood 173 feet tall and 740 feet long. In May, excavators began reducing the earthen formation scoop by scoop, loading the soil into oversize trucks that would return it to the pit it was taken from decades ago. The same day, crews of young people walked the steep embankments, spreading native seeds as part of a habitat-restoration effort that will go on for years. By August, all four dams were gone, freeing the river to carry on the work of healing itself, and providing migrating salmon a clear route upstream for the first time in more than a century.

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In the days after Latvian émigré Angelika Graswald watched her fiancé slip from his kayak into the cold waters of the Hudson River on April 19, 2015, she posted a video of herself doing cartwheels on Facebook and .

When she returned ten days after the accident to place flowers on the island they’d visited in their kayaks, a detective was there to meet her. She told him she’d of her fiancé, Vincent Viafore. The next day authorities charged her with his murder.

The media couldn’t get enough, for all the usual reasons—a man-eating foreign ingénue, likeable everyman victim, and sexy motive. She stood to gain a $250,000 insurance payout, but news reports focused on her claim that he’d pressured her for a threesome.

When Graswald’s trial starts March 13, the prosecution will present no eyewitnesses, little physical evidence, and a questionable theory. Their case will rely heavily on the statement Graswald gave to the investigator on the island and in which she strikes yoga poses, hop-scotches across the room, and finally tells a detective, “I wanted him dead, and now he’s gone and I'm OK with that.”

The prosecution will paint Graswald as a sociopath, and the defense will counter that we all have our own way of mourning. Ultimately, the case will turn on expert kayak testimony, says attorney and veteran kayaker Adam Van Grack, who has been watching the case closely. To convict Graswald of second-degree murder, or even the lesser charge of manslaughter in the second degree, prosecutors will have to convince a jury that the drain-hole—an opening the size of a penny—caused Viafore’s boat to take on water and flip. Even though the cockpit is a far more likely source for the water. 

That’s why she’s going to walk.

Graswald told investigators she took the plug out weeks before the accident to use as a cat toy. Unless prosecutors can prove otherwise, that means that on the day of the incident Viafore had already paddled more than a mile to Bannerman Island without the drain plug, arrived safely and decided to paddle back, despite rising wind and waves.

Graswald’s defense will argue that Viafore disregarded almost every safe paddling rule in the book. Of that there is no question. Here are eight than paddling without a drain plug.

1.     No immersion protection in 46-degree water. Without a wetsuit or drysuit, Viafore would have experienced cold water shock the instant he went in the water. Within minutes he would have lost the effective use of his arms and legs. In 30 to 60 minutes, he’d have lost consciousness.

2.     No spray skirt to keep water from coming in through the cockpit. The drain plug covers a hole three-quarters of an inch in diameter; the cockpit opening is 22 inches wide and 46 inches long. Both are on top of the kayak, above the waterline. If the kayak filled with water, most of it would have come in through the cockpit.

3.     Cheap box-store kayak without bulkheads or flotation. Very few kayaks actually sink; Viafore’s  is one of them. That’s critical because when the kayak goes under it takes away your best chance of being spotted, says Paul Kuthe, program director at Alder Creek Canoe & Kayak in Portland, Oregon.

4.     No life jacket. Viafore had a cushion-type flotation device. He would have needed at least one hand to hold onto it, and as hypothermia set in maintaining his grip would have become increasingly difficult.

5.     No idea about what he was paddling into. The Hudson kicked up violently that day because the wind was blowing about 15 miles per hour against the tidal current, creating 2- to 4-foot waves. We don’t know whether Viafore checked the weather report or tide chart, or if he knew the combination of the two could cause hazardous conditions.

6.     No clue how to help himself. There’s no evidence that Viafore had practiced or even knew about techniques for getting back into a kayak in deep water, such as the .

7.ĚýĚýĚýĚýĚý´ˇ±ôł¦´Çłó´Ç±ô. Both Viafore and Graswald knocked back a few Modelos on the island. The coroner calculated Viafore’s blood-alcohol concentration at 0.066 percent, just below the legal limit. That’s not much for a guy  but alcohol affects judgment and speeds the onset of hypothermia.

8.     No reasonable expectation that Graswald could help him. The first rule of rescue is not to become a victim. No matter what was going through her mind as Viafore struggled in the Hudson that day, Graswald didn’t have the skill or training to save him. Viafore was nearly twice her size and may have been panicked. He could have swamped her kayak and killed them both if she let him get close. That’s not very romantic, but it’s the truth.

Jeff Moag is the former editor of Canoe & Kayak Magazine.

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Perception Triumph 13

Best Sit-On-Top Kayak
THE GIST: Because they’re stable, easy to paddle, and less expensive than decked boats, sit-on-tops (SOTs) are ideal for recreational paddling. BEST FOR: Cruising, fishing, and messing around on lakes, rivers, and sheltered bays. WHY THIS ONE: Most SOTs are designed for stability, so they’re fat, slow, and—ironically—prone to flipping. Perception’s new puts a shot of performance-touring DNA into the SOT gene pool. 13’5″, 58 lbs.

Liquid Logic Deuce Coupe

Best Recreational Double Sea Kayak
THE GIST: These stable kayaks have modular seating, allowing you to paddle alone or with shipmates. BEST FOR: Your local beach or lake with the kids and all the cousins. WHY THIS ONE: Liquid Logic’s spins on a dime, tracks true with the skeg down, and, with two swappable seats, hauls up to 325 pounds of people and dogs. Paddled from the center, it also compares favorably with any solo sit-on-top we tested. 13′, 71 lbs.

Necky Manitou

Best Day Tourer Sea Kayak
THE GIST: Shorter and wider than expedition boats, these versatile 12-to-15-footers are great beginner craft. BEST FOR: Coastal exploration; inland touring. WHY THIS ONE: Likened by testers to a good-natured pony, the Necky is plenty stable, yet intermediates will be slow to outgrow it. Lay it on an edge and it responds like a thoroughbred. And unlike many boats in this class, the cockpit doesn’t feel like a huge pair of Wal-Mart pants. 14’4″, 49 lbs.

Epic 18X

Best Expedition Sea Kayak
THE GIST: Designed for wilderness adventures, expedition kayaks are 16 to 18 feet long and stow weeks’ worth of provisions. BEST FOR: Multi-day trips. WHY THIS ONE: Designed by an Olympian and a surf-ski champion, Epic’s is an intermediate-friendly expedition boat with plenty of cargo space and a bombproof rudder system. Purists questioned whether it would handle rough seas; then Freya Hoffmeister paddled hers around Australia. 18′, from 36 lbs.

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HIKERS

whitewater rafting shoes: Salomon's Pro Amphibian

whitewater rafting shoes: Adidas Mali

whitewater rafting shoes: Teva Gamma Pro

If you’re into fording streams during Heart of Darkness rainforest treks, forget about keeping your feet dry. Instead, try these shoes that take in agua—then send it on its way.

1. SALOMAN‘s PRO AMPHIBIAN is what you get when you cross-pollinate a running shoe (Kevlar laces, low-profile design) with an amphibious shoe (sandal-style exoskeleton, quick-draining synthetic mesh). Cinch the collapsible heel’s ankle strap for hiking—or fold the heelpiece flat for a mellow tube run. ($85; 800-225-6850, )

2. Evidently, ADIDAS is code for “All Day I Dream About Steepcreeking.” The proof is in the MALI, which looks like a track trainer from the seventies but is surefooted enough to keep you upright on slime-covered boulders. Credit a super-sticky rubber and flow-through outsoles that drain in a flash. ($75; 800-448-1796, )


3. With a hydrophobic synthetic-leather upper and mesh side panels, the TEVA GAMMA PRO is bomber but not needlessly beefy. Wraparound sticky-rubber outsoles cling to wet stone when you’re hoofing it on rocky streambeds. Minor bummer: The water-hogging insoles can turn toes into prunes. ($60; 800-367-8382, )

whitewater rafting shoes: Nike ACG's Toketee Mid

whitewater rafting shoes : Tecnica Immersion FLT

whitewater rafting shoes: Five Ten's Tennie

BOOTIES
Whether you’re creek boating or stalking spring steelheads, cold water shouldn’t chase your river fun away. These booties combine state-of-the-art traction with time-tested neoprene to keep your toes toasty and your footing dependable.

4. Expedition kayaker Brad Ludden custom-tweaked his paddle shoes on a 2002 descent of Zambia’s boat-munching Luapula River. The upshot: NIKE ACG‘s TOKETEE MID, which sports a neoprene upper and supertough Velcro straps. With a climbing-shoe-style outsole, it’s sweet for slippery cliffside traverses. ($60; 800-344-6453, )

5. As any fly-caster will tell you, nothing grabs a streambed like a felt sole. TECNICA dressed up a high-density polypropylene version of the old-school fabric for its rugged all-purpose, amphibious IMMERSION FLT. The aqua-grip rivals the best rubber on the market, while the neoprene and adjustable straps deliver superior support and fit. ($80; 800-258-3897, )

6. FIVE TEN‘s alchemists modified the company’s best-in-the-business AquaStealth sticky rubber specifically for the WATER TENNIE, and the new stuff hugs the wet and mossy like a jealous lover. Zip-tie-style plastic buckles may foil fingers numbed from winter creeking, but beefy soles are welcome on long, rocky portages. ($89; 909-798-4222, )

whitewater rafting shoes: Columbia Titanium Interchange

whitewater rafting shoes: Chaco Z/Rivative Zong

whitewater rafting shoes: Bite Vstream

SANDALS
We’d all rather go barefoot, but tough aquatic terrain sometimes demands otherwise. Count on these sandals to provide the right mix of performance and comfort.

7. File the removable heel on COLUMBIA‘s TITANIUM INTERCHANGE under “Gimmicks That Work.” Go fully strapped to enjoy the full-on performance of the Vibram outsoles, or pull off the heelpieces for slide-in, kick-off comfort. However you configure them, stretch panels built into the synthetic-leather uppers, plus the ultra-grippy snakeskin-textured insoles, will keep your feet firmly bedded. ($65; 800-547-8066, )

8. Comfort and simplicity are the bedrock of CHACO‘s sandal empire, and the new Z/RIVATIVE ZONG delivers plenty of both. Thanks to the form-fitting footbeds and Vibram outsoles, these backless wonders breeze through pushy terrain. Just right for sipping a riverside cappuccino or breaking trail to the swimming hole. ($75; 970-527-4990, )

9. In designing the VSTREAM, the folks at BITE evidently started out with a shoe and, Michelangelo style, removed everything that wasn’t a sandal. Full-coverage midsections and speed laces ensure superior fit, while the sticky-rubber outsoles deliver traction galore. Plus-size footbeds give your waterlogged dogs room to swell. ($80; 800-248-3465, )

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