01/14/2026
Yurok Tribal member, fisherwoman, and attorney Amy Bowers Cordalis’ memoir detailing her family and her advocacy protecting the Klamath River and Yurok way of life, “The Water Remembers,” is now available across the US.
“I am very proud to be Yurok,” she said. “I have been honored to represent the Yurok people over the last 15 years. I hope my book teaches other Yurok and non-Yurok people about our history, the strength and resiliency of our culture and people, and inspire others to live in balance with the natural world.”
Amy shared that while she wrote about her family’s story, many Yurok families have fought hard for Yurok rights and have similar histories. She explained, “as Yurok people we have sacred responsibilities and duties to live in balance with the natural world and steward it. Yurok people have dedicated their lives to the preservation of our culture and environment through colonization, genocide, assimilation, and ecocide. Each generation has fought these forces consistent with our duties.”
Cordalis’ first memoir, the book has received acclaim from readers across the nation, ranging from Deb Haaland, former U.S. Secretary of the Interior, to American singer turned television host Kelly Clarkson.
Cordalis is a member of a Mattz-Brooks family, Yurok ceremonial family from Rek-Woi, at the mouth of the River. Like many Yurok families, hers has advocated for salmon restoration, indigenous rights and environmental improvements in Yurok Country since the arrival of non-Indians. Cordalis’s great uncle, Aawok Raymond Mattz, landmark Supreme Court case reaffirmed the Yurok Nation’s rights to land, water, fish, and sovereignty. The ruling set the stage for the Tribe to create a government by and for the Yurok people. It also laid the groundwork for the Tribe to manage the tribal fishery and regain authority over the Yurok Reservation.
The Klamath River is an inextricable part of the Yurok identity. The Yurok people rely on the River as much as the salmon, steelhead, sturgeon and Pacific lamprey it supports.
“I was motivated to share our struggles and successes to inspire future generations,” Cordalis said. “I was able to grow up fishing on the Klamath River because of the hard work, fight, and determination of my ancestors.”
Cordalis wrote the book now because Klamath Dam removal, the world’s largest river restoration project, is major victory for the Yurok and other Indigenous nations of the Klamath Basin. “I wanted to share an Indigenous perspective and change the narrative about what is possible when Indigenous culture, knowledge, and leadership take the lead; we can renew the world. We are powerful.”
Cordalis tells the story of her great-grandmother’s defiant resistance during the Salmon Wars, as well as her first-hand experience witnessing the fish kill in 2002, when excessive water diversions created the perfect conditions for two fish pathogens caused the death of more than 60,000 adult salmon before they reached the spawning grounds.
This fish kill was a catalyst for Cordalis’ own life trajectory and career as an activist, fisherwoman, lawyer, and mother. Witnessing the dying fish, she felt her culture was at risk and vowed to go to law school with the hope of providing legal representation to the Tribe to help restore the river. After law school, Amy returned home to serve as the Tribe’s first tribal member and female general counsel, running the Tribe’s legal affairs. She and her office with Council direction filed numerous lawsuits to help the river and assert Yurok rights, declared personhood rights for the Klamath, worked to recover land in the reservation, dam removal, and uphold the Yurok constitution and tribal member rights.
As Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Ridges to Riffles Indigenous Conservation Group, she leads efforts to support tribes in protecting their sovereignty, lands, and water, and continues to represent the Yurok Tribe on Klamath River issues. Amy’s work, alongside many indigenous advocates throughout the Klamath watershed, was instrumental to the historic Klamath Dam Removal project, which was successfully completed in 2024. Amy shared there are thousands of champions of Klamath Dam Removal who all made very important contributions to Klamath Dam Removal. She hopes her book will inspire others to write about their experiences.
Despite the hardships depicted in “The Water Remembers”, there is a strong current of hope as she details the Klamath River’s return to its natural state and the surprisingly fast remigration of fish to hundreds of miles of formally inaccessible streams and spawning grounds. “The Water Remembers” can provide important lessons for indigenous and environmental activists around the world seeking to restore their lands and waterways.
“The response to my book has been amazing,” Cordalis said. “It shows me how powerfully the message resonates with people around the world. It’s about hope and working together as humans to heal nature. The Yurok people and Klamath Indigenous peoples have shown the world how to live sustainably on planet earth.”
Cordalis is former general counsel for the Yurok Tribe and an attorney at the Native American Rights Fund, and has earned honors as a UN Champion of the Earth, Time 100 climate leader, and Loreal Paris Woman of Worth.
Learn more about the “The Water Remembers” here: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/amy-bowers-cordalis/the-water-remembers/9780316568951/
Please consider purchasing online a copy of the book from Northtown Books, which recently burnt down in the Arcata fire. A link to purchase is here: www.northtownbooks.com/book/9780316568951
The following is an excerpt from the book:
This is the creation story of my nation, the Yurok, our aboriginal territory, and my home village of Rek-woi, at the mouth of the Klamath River in what is now known as Northern California. Our aboriginal territory spreads from the rich and rugged coastal ocean waters and beaches of Northern California up the mighty Klamath River and into the High Country, our sacred spiritual lands in the first coastal range of the Klamath Mountains. This is our world. It is everything.
It has everything that anyone or any creature could ever need to survive, just as the Creator promised. This extraordinary area of the world includes redwoods—the largest trees on the planet—rare freshwater lagoons, wild Pacific Ocean coastline, and the mighty Klamath River, the lifeblood of my nation. The Yurok word for the Klamath River is Heyl-keek ‘We-roy, which means the “River that comes from the mountains,” named such for its geographic origins. These powerful ecosystems support many life-forms: in the River, the third-largest coho and chinook salmon runs in the continental United States, and historic runs of green and white sturgeon, steelhead, trout, eels, candlefish; along the coastline, mussels, seaweed, abalone, whales, seals, birds, crabs, and much more sea life; on land, iconic elk herds, deer, bear, cougars, and smaller animals, and acorns and all types of plants. This area is one of the most biodiverse places on the planet.
While we respect and treasure all, salmon has always been our primary food source. The Yurok word for salmon is nepuy, which translates to “that which is eaten.”
The Creator told my ancestors, the Yurok people, that all of this was made for them, that they would never want for anything if they lived in balance with this world, never taking more than they needed to survive.
You live this way, the Creator said, and you will thrive here forever. You will never want for anything. But you have to take care of it. You’ll know you are doing good because I will reward you with resources to support yourselves. Use these gifts as a guide.
The Yurok people agreed.
In doing so, we formed our first binding obligation, the first covenant between the Creator and the Yurok people. This was a reciprocal relationship with the Creator, the natural world, and the Yurok people to maintain balance in the world. We each had duties and responsibilities to uphold. The Creator bestowed on the Yurok people the inherent sovereignty to regulate the core components of society within Yurok Country to fulfill our duty to the Creator. It charged us with inherent responsibilities to steward the land, water, and Yurok’s other natural resources to ensure their regeneration each year. In return, we have the great privilege of being the beneficiaries of the natural abundance of the lower Klamath Basin. The Creator would continue to care for us by providing an abundance of first foods—seafood, salmon, game, wild vegetables, nuts, and berries in the natural world. This reciprocal relationship is so sacred to us that our stories teach that if the Klamath salmon and the Klamath River die, so will the Yurok people, because there will be no purpose for the Yurok people on earth.
