After years of protest by Native Americans, massive dam removal project hopes to restore salmon population in Northern California river

Copco, California — The Yurok Tribe has been tied to the Klamath River in Northern California, and the abundant salmon that once swam through it, for 10,000 years.

"One of our oldest stories talks about the connection between us and the river and the salmon in it," said Frankie Myers, a member of the tribe.

But the essential artery was blocked more than a century ago when construction started on four dams along the Klamath in Northern California and Southern Oregon. The dams generated power that fueled western expansion but devastated the salmon population, which could no longer swim upstream to spawn.