The Water Remembers: My Indigenous Family's Fight to Save a River and a Way of Life

by Amy Bowers Cordalis

Overview

A moving multigenerational memoir of Indigenous resistance, environmental justice, and a Yurok family's fight to protect their legacy and the Klamath River. 

For the members of a Northern California tribe, salmon are the lifeblood of the people—a vital source of food, income, and cultural identity. When a catastrophic fish kill devastates the river, Amy Bowers Cordalis is propelled into action, reigniting her family's 170-year battle against the U.S. government. 
 
In a moving and engrossing blend of memoir and history, Cordalis propels readers through generations of her family’s struggle, where she learns that the fight for survival is not only about fishing—it’s about protecting a way of life and the right of a species and river to exist. Her great-uncle's landmark Supreme Court case reaffirming her Nation’s rights to land, water, fish, and sovereignty, her great-grandmother’s defiant resistance during the Salmon Wars, and her family's ongoing battles against government overreach shape the deep commitment to justice that drives Cordalis forward.
 
When the source of the fish kill is revealed, Cordalis steps up as General Counsel for the Yurok Tribe to hold powerful corporate interests accountable, and to spearhead the largest river restoration project in history. The Water Remembers is a testament to the enduring power of Indigenous knowledge, family legacy, and the determination to ensure that future generations remember what it means to live in balance with the earth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316568975
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	10/28/2025
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	288

About the Author

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 Conservation Indigenous 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.

Editorial Reviews

A Civil Action meets Braiding Sweetgrass, a story of Indigenous survival and triumph from an Indigenous perspective.”—Ash Davidson, author of Damnation Spring

“Amy’s writing sings with urgency and purpose."—Josh "Bones" Murphy, Filmmaker/Director of Patagonia's Artifishal

"Triumphant story and ever widens the awareness of the dangers that threaten Indigenous people and their historic lands."—Congressman Jared Huffman

"A powerful interweaving of memory, history, and activism, The Water Remembers is a lyrical and uncompromising account of Amy Bowers Cordalis’s fight to protect the Klamath River and the sovereignty of the Yurok Nation. Told through a Yurok storytelling lens, this book traverses ancestral knowledge, ecological devastation, and legal resistance, revealing the sacred bond between people and river. Bowers Cordalis, an attorney and lifelong fisherwoman, writes with the clarity of lived experience and the heart of a riverkeeper. This is a vital work of Indigenous resurgence and environmental justice, brimming with spirit, truth, and unstoppable resolve."—Terese Marie Mailhot, author of Heart Berries

"In this moving memoir, Amy Bowers Cordalis shows what happens when ancestral memory joins forces with the law. The fight for the Klamath River is an important fight for tribal and environmental justice in the American West."—David Owen, author of Where the Water Goes

"The Water Remembers is a powerful, poetic testament to Indigenous resilience and reverence for the natural world. Amy Bowers Cordalis weaves history, activism, and sacred connection into a compelling narrative of communities fighting to protect what is most vital. This book is not just a call to action; it’s a song of survival and restoration."—Leah Thomas, environmental educator and author of The Intersectional Environmentalist

"A brightly written, driving narrative of tribal voices and many other people... this important book is a joyous and uplifting story."—Charles Wilkinson, author of Blood Struggle

"Water is family and activism is generational in Amy Bowers Cordalis’s moving account of the Yurok Nation’s long battle to save the Klamath River and enable unprecedented environmental restoration. Her own role in that story is bravely fought and beautifully told in The Water Remembers, which is a summons for more courage, connection, and community to save the places we hold dear."

—Tara Lohan, environmental journalist and author of Undammed

"Like Amy Bowers, I grew up learning the stories and values that have sustained my community for generations. In the high desert of New Mexico, we know water is precious, but nationwide, the exploitation of lands and waters and sidelining Indigenous Knowledge throughout history have dealt a heavy blow to the resources that sustain us.  Our future requires a drastic shift to the generational world view like the one Amy Bowers presents in The Water Remembers. Her personal story intertwines with the river, the salmon, history, and the present moment in a beautiful narrative that invites us all into the mission of protecting our waters and lands."—Deb Haaland, Former United States Secretary of the Interior

“Amy Bowers Cordalis story tells us how Yurok values are lived. The Water Remembers details how and why she assumed her responsibility to protect our homelands and all that we value. Her story can guide us all to meet our shared responsibilities to the world we have been gifted."—Judge Abby Abinanti, Yurok Tribal Court Judge (and first Indigenous woman licensed to practice law in California)

"Amy Bowers Cordalis proves determination can save a river. The Water Remembers is an important record of how the Klamath became a battleground and a blueprint for action for future generations."—Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia

"Her tribe's resistance is rendered here in potent prose. Bowers Cordalis moves fluidly between her own story, personal accounts of her family and tribe, and the mighty river itself. A moving and empowering account of an Indigenous tribe’s tenacity in the face of injustice."—Kirkus, starred review

From the Publisher

★ 2025-07-17
The story of the largest dam removal in U.S. history.

When Bowers Cordalis accepted a summer internship in her Yurok family village, in Northern California, she didn’t expect to witness the largest fish kill in American history. It was 2002, but well before her arrival the conditions had been primed for salmon loss on a massive scale. For nearly a century, a system of dams and canals had been used to convert the once-fertile salmon grounds and traditional Yurok territory into agricultural land. During that time, the U.S. government systematically reduced Yurok access to their native lands and fishing grounds, while increasing the amount of water diverted to farmers. By the time Bowers Cordalis steered a boat through miles of dead chinook piled three or four layers deep, the sickness resulting from the government’s water diversion had led to losses of between 34,000 and 78,000 adult chinook, losses that the colonial exploitation of the river had been building toward for a long time. Bowers Cordalis describes her Yurok tribe as people intrinsically connected to the salmon, people who consider the right to fish “as important to us as breathing.” Their way of life was at stake, as were the livelihood of the salmon and the health of the Klamath River. In trying to exercise their right to fish, her family had survived violence, intimidation, harassment, and an armed occupation on their reservation. The author’s path as an attorney and eventual leader in the successful removal of the Klamath dams grew out of that suffering. Her tribe’s resistance is rendered here in potent prose. Bowers Cordalis moves fluidly between her own story, personal accounts of her family and tribe, and the mighty river itself.

A moving and empowering account of an Indigenous tribe’s tenacity in the face of injustice.

Kirkus Reviews