Legend: Salmon once migrated all the way up the Klamath River watershed to Upper Klamath Lake.

Status: True.

Discussion: This topic is of particular interest to those following the debate over whether to remove the four major hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River, and the proposal to establish salmon runs in the Upper Klamath Basin.

It has been well documented that anadromous fish migrated into the Upper Basin until their passage was blocked by the first major dam on the Klamath River in the early 1900s.

For historical references, see 1966 report by the Oregon Fish and Game Commission and Pacific Power and Light.

See a 2005 Synthesis of Historical Evidence by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

A report issued by a group of scientists in December 2010 concluded that prehistoric fish bones recovered from archaeological sites in the Williamson River watershed provide evidence that Native Americans harvested chinook salmon in both the Williamson and Sprague river drainages ("The Use of Archaeological Fish Remains to Establish Pre-development Salmonid Biogeography in the Upper Klamath Basin," Virginia L. Butler and Alexander E. Stevenson, Portland State University, 2010)

The photo above, taken on Link River in 1891, shows three men holding salmon.