Amy Bowers Cordalis author of The Water Remembers at SOU Stevenson Union

Tuesday  April 7th  5:00 to 6:30 pm at SOU Stevenson Union

Join fisherwoman, attorney, and Yurok Tribal Member Amy Bowers Cordalis to learn about her family’s multi-generational struggle to preserve the health of the Klamath River, along with the people and animals who depend on the river, as told in her new book, The Water Remembers: My Indigenous Family’s Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life.

The mighty Klamath River and its salmon are the lifeblood of the Yurok Nation in Northern California, who have called the Klamath Basin home for millennia and have lived just as long in harmony with their environment. The health of the Klamath River and the people who have always lived there was severely impacted in the 20th Century by the construction of four dams along the Klamath, denying fish access to hundreds of miles of historical habitat and resulting in increased water temperatures and toxic algae pollution, which killed hundreds of thousands of salmon. For generations, Amy Bowers Cordalis’ family has been at the forefront of the fight to remove the dams and restore the Yurok Nation’s rights to the River, with her work as General Counsel for the Yurok Tribe directly resulting in the removal of all four dams in 2024 – the largest dam removal project in world history.

A stunning blend of memoir, activism, indigenous history, and family tradition, The Water Remembers speaks passionately to environmental justice and conservation, as well as responsible stewardship. Cordalis propels readers through generations of her family’s struggle, where she learns that the fight for a survival is not only about fishing—it’s about protecting a way of life and the right of a species and river to exist.

Ashland resident Amy Bowers Cordalis is a mother, fisherwoman, attorney, and a member and former General Counsel of the Yurok Tribe—the largest tribe in California.  Formerly a staff attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, she is the currently the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group, a nonprofit representing Native American tribes in natural and cultural resource matters where she works on advancing tribal sovereignty, water rights, fisheries, and the undamming of the Klamath River. She is also the recipient of the UN’s highest environmental honor, Champion of the World Laureate, and has been named to the second annual TIME100 Climate list (2024), featuring the 100 most influential leaders driving business to real climate action. Cordalis has received awards for her work from The Equator Prize, Conscious Media, the National Center for American Indian Enterprise Development, and Rachel’s Network. She’s a popular speaker at Stanford, University of Oregon, and University of Montana

This event is co-sponsored by the Institute for Applied Sustainability at Southern Oregon University, SOU’s Community Resilience and Leadership Student Fellows Program, Jackson County Library Services, and Trout Unlimited.

It will take place at Southern Oregon University’s Stevenson Union and is free and open to all. Copies of the book will be available to purchase at the event, courtesy of Bloomsbury Books.