Confluence and Influence.

We Have Come so Far, One Wonders, How Far We Can Go?

The Klamath River Watershed is a convoluted landscape shaped by colliding tectonic plates, fire and ice. For Modern Man, it is ripe with political dilemmas, survival needs and ethical nightmares.

Clockwise: Klamath Marsh Refuge, Crooked Creek, Iron Gate Dam, Klamath River Estuary, Sugar Loaf Mtn - Ishi Pishi Falls and rafting on Upper Klamath River.

Anders Tomlinson spent 13 years looking, listening, filming and recording in the Klamath River Watershed. He had several watershed moments including the day he read in the newspaper that Sacramento River interests were fighting Trinity River interests over water to protect environmentally endangered salmon in both the Sacramento and Trinity Rivers. Both sides had federal lawyers facing off against each other in court. What does one do? What do we do?  

It Is Helpful To Know Where We Came From to Understand Where We Are..

Trinity River is Klamath River's largest tributary and important salmon habitat.

The first European miners-settlers, traveling from the mouth up the Klamath River enroute to build a mining settlement, which is now Happy Camp, thought the Trinity River was the main-stem and the Klamath River was a tributary. The underwater canyon that is carved in the ocean bottom off Klamath California was named Trinity Canyon not Klamath Canyon. The miners promptly set the forests on fire.  It was the easiest way to reach bare ground in a land of steep canyon walls.  When the winds were right the smoke choked Portland.  Nautical maps made note of smoke off the coast as a navigational hazard. That was then.

Today, there is a need to rethink our ideology on a host of issues including those considered politically correct or untouchable. Here is an opportunity to refocus man’s relationship in, not to, nature. Food, water and shelter are in jeopardy for all stake-holders and species. Welcome to the age of Anthropocene. Welcome to the Klamath River Watershed. This is now. For geographical and historic background visit Klamath River Watershed in pictures and words.

Watersheds are for flora and fauna. Watersheds change over time.

Mountain shadow and the Trinity River, photo by Anders Tomlinson.

This is what the Klamath River Watershed looks like. Where's the Basin?

The Klamath River Watershed, see linked video, is clearly defined. Waters flow downhill to creeks, streams and rivers that flow to the Klamath and Trinity rivers, which join some 40 miles from the Pacific Ocean, and empties into the sea. This is exact – no room for interpretation.  It is a place with absolute boundaries. Water flows this way or that way.  The Klamath Basin is a headline that means different things at different times to different folks. As example: in a judge’s decision that returned water management to the flows required by Hardy phase 2 she described the Klamath Basin as being the land that makes up the Klamath Reclamation Project and later on in the decision as being all the lands that are coho habitat.  Two different worlds.  If a judge is confused about where is where what can we expect from the general public or public servants?

George Lewis interviews Upper Klamath Reclamation Project farmer Ty Kliewer during the summer of 2001. Photo by Anders Tomlinson.

NBC's George Lewis interviews Ty Kliewer during the summer of 2001.


In 2001, several young farmers interviewed by national media kept trying to say the salmon issue was about a much larger watershed – not just the twenty some miles that makes up the Klamath Reclamation Project. The media would not listen. European media did listen and reported as such.  The National Academy of Science, 12 good scientists from around the country who spent three years studying the 2001 salmon-water shutoff, determined it was not a Klamath Basin problem – it was a Klamath River Watershed problem.  Few listened.

National Academy of Science at Chiloquin Dam, 2003. Photo by Anders Tomlinson.

A stop on 2003 NAS tour, the Chiloquin Dam, now removed, which blocked sucker habitat.

In the Klamath River Watershed there is little flat space. Where there is flat space with water running through it there are people, and there are few people living in the Klamath River watershed. The largest population is concentrated around Upper Klamath Lake in the Upper Klamath Basin where the Klamath River begins its 263 mile journey.

We Huddle in the Future’s Shade Waiting for Light.

bus tour of Klamath reclamation project for Klamath Indians sponsored by Klamath Waterusers Association. Photo by Anders Tomlinson

2005 tour of Klamath Reclamation Project for Klamath Indians.

The Klamath Water Users Association presented a series of tours from 2001 through 2008 to introduce Klamath River Watershed stake-holders to the Klamath Reclamation Project. Anders documented two National Academy of Science panel tours, along with Pacific Ocean fishermen, News media, Klamath Indian Tribe and Upper Klamath Basin resident tours. All present had much in common. They are humans capable of doing “good” things and “bad” things in pursuit of their needs and expectations.

Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge Centennial Celebration, August 8th, 2008. Photo by Anders Tomlinson..

Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge Centennial Celebration, 8-8-08.

The Centennial Celebration ended Anders’ shooting in the Klamath River Watershed.
Things had changed. The 114th Federal study of Upper Klamath Lake determined cattle should be kept away from streams and springs. Anders photographed in July 1995 cows wading across the Wood River that empties into Upper Klamath Lake. Access is now fenced off. Much has changed and much has stayed the same, it is the way humans do human things.

There are behaviors, relationships and synergies to celebrate. There are voices and concepts to listen to and consider. Polarization, ethnicity, projections, anticipations and fear of change shout louder, and have a larger audience, than seeking, understanding, embracing and compromise. It is here that these films of the Klamath River Watershed begin.

Anders Tomlinson walking in a forest near the klamath River in Oregon. Photo by Jeff Ritter.

All water flows downhill, without the aid of man, uphill is another story.

These are stories of human nature reconciling itself with human nature.

©2011 Anders Tomlinson

Anders, March 21st 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Watershed Moments Films

A Story of Balance

Life on the Refuge

The Klamath Basin National Wildlife Complex includes six diverse refuges that encompass over 200,000 acres. They straddle the California – Oregon border. Here, seven habitats offer food and sanctuary to over 450 species. This is an important stop along the Pacific Flyway.

Swans spending the winter on Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge.
photo-Anders Tomlinson

Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge, founded in 1908, was the nation’s first waterfowl refuge.
It was followed by five others: Tule Lake, Clear Lake, Upper Klamath, Klamath Marsh and
Bear Valley. Each serves a purpose. Connected, they are a complex refuge of services and needs.

Western grebe and baby move towards the future.
photo-Anders Tomlinson

There are summer days with bodies of water, large and small, shallow and deep, moving and still. Waterfowl, many of each, eat and rest, floating or standing. There are windy winter days when wildlife huddle in a frozen world, food is scarce and eagles eat the weak. In spring, man plants his crops and skies fill with north bound waterfowl. For many this is their last chance for food before reaching their arctic breeding grounds. Fall offers refuge to all heading south as man’s harvest comes to an end. This is home to resident mammals, fish, amphibians and birds seasonally migrating across the refuges.

Looking at Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge and Mt. Shasta.
photo-Anders Tomlinson

This is life on the refuges. Nature does what it does and everything else adapts or disappears. It is what it is. Mountains surround a vast parade of shifting life. And there are storms. And there are moments of absolute tranquility. This is what my cameras have captured. This is what I have seen and heard. This is what I want to share with the world, a micro-cosmos of life on planet earth.

Walking Wetlands

A two year old wetland once was, and will become, a farm field.
photo-Anders Tomlinson

Land for farming and wildlife refuge continue to be reduced by urbanization. “Walking Wetlands” on Tule Lake and Lower Klamath National Refuges documents a successful program that incorporates the two on a rotational basis. Farm land and refuge become one, a timely recipe for success. The concept is simple. Take farm fields out of production. Build containment and connecting water structures. Flood the fields. Let them grow, managing and mimicking nature’s way, into marshes Do so for three years. Drain and allow entry and exit for farmers and their equipment. Farmers remove the overgrown tules, not an easy chore, turn the soil and plant crops. There is no need to add fertilizers or weed killers, flooding did that work. Magnificent crops grow in reclaimed marshes. Farm until the soil loses it’s nutrients and pesticides are needed. Repeat the process. Flood, water manage and return to agriculture. At all times, wildlife find values in both the marshes and farm fields. Yes, it is a simple process. And yes, it is a complex interaction of various species and ways of life. And yes, it works.

Reflecting

Pelicans, seen throughout the summer, and grebes rest and feed on Tule Lake.
photo-Anders Tomlinson

We have so much to learn from nature. My greatest insights have come from field observations. These diverse refuges have taken me to many places in many times. Each of the refuges has a dominant feature that no other has. And each of the refuges share common features. Time is measured in seasons and epochs. These refuges are sustainable existence. Here, the little picture is the big picture. I have had the privilege of knowing these refuges for years after year after year. My greatest moments have been those where I blended into the landscape and became a simple component in a grand movement. A Year in the Life on the Refuges from tule-lake.com.

©2010 Anders Tomlinson, all rights reserved.

Anders, February 23rd 2010 | Tags: ,
Posted in Upper Klamath Basin Refuges

Tulelake- Intersection of Nature

Homesteading

Tulelake is the southern end of the Klamath Reclamation Project.
photos-Bureau of Reclamation and Anders Tomlinson

The United States in 1900 needed to expand and open new settlements for it’s growing population. It was truly time to go west. The concept was to dam and redirect river water to areas that could grow food and start towns. The harnessed water would also create much needed power. The southwest would become the new population frontier and resulting economic bonanza. Opening the southwest also opened opportunities for European emigrants to start new lives. Reclamation had global implications.

Here, in the Upper Klamath Basin there was water, a key element for settlement. In fact, there was an excess of water that had to be drained.
And so it was that Tule Lake and Lower Klamath Lakes became fertile farm land controlled
by diversions. Czech settlers migrated to farm. Lucky World War I and II veterans,
lottery winners, were invited to homestead. The Klamath Reclamation Project was successful.
Engineers were able to move, or remove, water, where and when needed. Upper Klamath Basin could support a larger human population. Settlement of the west had begun.

Tule Lake Basin in early summer, made green by the hand of man.
photo-Anders Tomlinson

Headline Makers

Tulelake Homesteaders were on the cover of Life Magazine in 1946. Articles on the
Japanese-American Segregation camp were in Life Magazine during World War II.
In 2001, Klamath Reclamation Project water shutoff made evening news across the nation
and the world. The last Indian War in California, and the first to be reported internationally,
was the Modoc Indian War fought in what is now the Lava Beds National Monument.
The Applegate Trail and Lassen Trail traveled through Tule Lake basin with eastern settlers
headed north and south. Earlier, tribes crisscrossed the basin.
This is an intersection of human nature.

We Learn from our Past

Reclamation brought farming and Tulelake to Tule Lake Basin.
photos-Anders Tomlinson

The Tulelake documentary provides an opportunity to witness migration. A film trilogy is underway. One, the spring waterfowl migration. Two, reclamation of the west. Three, the forced migration of Japanese-Americans. Other historic migrations include Native Americans, Czech settlers and the Hispanic influx. There is also an undertone of federal agency migration.
The rifts and faults of the land and the building and collapsing of mountains,
are also reminders that land forms themselves are migrating.

©2010 Anders Tomlinson, all rights reserved.

Anders, February 23rd 2010 | Tags: , ,
Posted in Tulelake California

A Year in the Life from Crater Lake to the Lava Beds

Visitors from Sweden enjoy Crater Lake's majesty.
photo-Anders Tomlinson

In Search of Majesty… a remarkable landscape

Upper Klamath Basin was once a large lake, Ancient Lake Modoc.
Today, the basin is enclosed to the west by the Southern Cascades,
Crater Lake- Mt. Mazama to the north, towering fault blocks to the east
and Medicine Lake Highlands to the south. Here are six National Wildlife Refuges,
Crater Lake National Park, Lava Beds National Monument, Modoc National Forest,
Winema National Forest, Mountain Lakes Wilderness Area and Sky Lakes
Wilderness Area. Several State and County parks and six history
museums dot the Basin. And there is water in all its many splendid forms.

Upper Klamath Lake as seen from a Running Y Ranch Resort ridge line.
photo-Anders Tomlinson

This is a land of four seasons. 30 to 50 degree temperature changes in a day
are common. Above the sagebrush, juniper, ponderosa, lodge pole, marsh,
lakes and rivers are moving skies that inspire one’s imagination.

History is here, protected by proud people. Geology is well represented by
evidence of many natural forces in action. This is a land of fire that has seen
flooding and drought numerous of times. It is not an easy place to live.
All must prepare for winter and a spring that can be harsh and seemingly unending.

Sparkling springs bubble up with cold clear water that turn into immediate creeks
and rivers. Migrating waterfowl find sanctuary and food here in the spring and fall.
One can learn much of the selfless effort required to raise young by watching the
wildlife care for there own during the summer and fall. It is not easy. Everything
has to be working together to make life sustainable. There have been times when
this wasn’t the case and wildlife, in all it’s splendid forms, left in search of survival.

Petroglyph Point in the Lava Beds.
photo-Anders Tomlinson

There are many reason this film should be seen?

The Upper Klamath Basin is a microcosms of planet earth. Shield volcanos
of Hawaii are mirrored by Medicine Lake Highlands. Water features from across
the world are here. Desert, seasonal and permanent marsh, forests, alpine features,
the earth is alive and growing with stratovolcanos and towering fault blocks.
And here, man has made his mark. Human settlers have been coming through here for
12,000 years. This area gives one opportunities that few places offer.
Here, is a story of an ever changing earth. And here is a reflection of man.

Anders on Klamath Marsh National Wildlife Refuge.
photo-Jeff Ritter

Producer – Director: dedication, discipline and desire.

Anders Tomlinson spent 12 years filming the Upper Klamath Basin. Projects included
films for Oregon Institute of Technology, Running Y Ranch, University
of California, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, Klamath Chamber of Commerce, Volcanic
Legacy All American Road, Oregon Governor’s Conference on Tourism,
Klamath Water Users and the California Waterfowl Association.
All of these films blend nature audio with music. Several musicians, song writers
and composers have visited me over the many years of this project. Their work
is the backbone to all my films.

©2010 Anders Tomlinson, all rights reserved.

Anders, February 21st 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Crater Lake - Lava Beds

Tulelake: Farming and Refuge working together.

Millions of visitors come each year to a land of harvests and growing families.

Tulelake, Tule Lake, Tule Lake Basin… you say potato, I say grebe, you say coyote, I say horseradish, you say harriers, i say cattle, you say pelicans, I say grain, you say mint, I say osprey, you say antelope, I say alfalfa and on and on and on… here is the nature of reclaimed lake bed used by farmers, wildlife and nature watchers. This land is alive in many more ways than controversial media sound bites and headlines you may have seen and heard.

Pelicans rest on the bank of a flooded field as farm equipment passes by. photo-Anders Tomlinson

Delivering water to soil that was once a lake bed.

Tule Lake Basin is crisscrossed by Tulelake Irrigation District’s 600 miles of canals- that’s 1,200 miles of shoreline. Water is moved back and forth from farm fields to drains, back to farms, or the lake or U.S. Fish and Wildlife projects. Today, the amount of water used in a year could be less than what naturally evaporated from old Tule Lake. Seasons dance under passing clouds and deep blue skies. A Year in the Life through photos and words from tule-lake.com.

Around the year, if there is water in irrigation canals there is wildlife.
photo-AndersTomlinson

A modern relationship between man and migrating waterfowl.

I have had people tell me that other people have told them that Tule Lake National Wildlife Refuge is too geometric with all the rectangular farm fields. Everywhere there are right angles, so unnatural for wildlife. I laugh. I wonder where those people live. The chances are their homes were built on land that was once wildlife habitat. It is also possible the land was graded and plated into grids. And in Southern California the lush landscaping, fueled by borrowed water, strived to break up the squares. How can these folks look at wildlife thriving in Tule Lake Basin and say their Tule lifestyle is unbecoming?

Wildlife takes advantage of everything it is aware of. It has been said what is good for the goose is good for the gander. Can it be said what is good for man is good for geese? Or what is good for geese is good for man? There are few habitats left that migrating waterfowl can use. Places like Tulelake are all that these migrations have. Wildlife use Tulelake refuge and farmland to survive.

Looking south from hills behind Merrill and Malin, Oregon.
photo-Anders Tomlinson

Mother nature does what she does.

The springs of 2007 and 2008 in the Upper Klamath Basin were wet. Relatively undeveloped refuge such as Upper Klamath Lake and Klamath Marsh National Wildlife Refuges had so much water there was no where for birds to put nests. Nests were being built on canal fed Tule and Lower National Wildlife Refuges. Man’s ability to manage water levels provided wildlife with safe nesting areas. Free flowing nature can be a killer, as well as a provider. Despite man’s researched predictions, whatever the research intentions may be, the world doesn’t always follow projected mathematical models. The story of Tulelake is both ancient and modern. It is a story of accommodation and cooperation. One needs to visit, linger, listen and watch with willing and open eyes. The future of man and wildlife plays out before you.

©2010 Anders Tomlinson, all rights reserved.

Anders, February 18th 2010 | Tags: , , ,
Posted in Tulelake California
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