The Elwha Klallam Tribe

Vanessa Castle is a member of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe in Washington, where her ancestors lived at the mouth of the Elwha River. After dams were constructed upriver throughout the early 1900s, the surrounding biodiversity — and especially the population of native salmon — were unable to thrive in the river as they once did.

It wasn’t until over a century of advocacy that the Elwha River Dam was removed in 2011, and the surrounding ecosystem has finally been given a chance to heal.