The Upper Skagit Indian tribe are fighting Seattle to remove the Gorge Dam, and return the river to the section the city de-watered
Scott Schuyler doesn’t need to see the Skagit River to know something is wrong. As he walks down the river’s steep embankment, wet rock and moss under each step, he can hear the problem. “The river should be singing to us right now, it should be free flowing,” Schuyler says as cold February rain drops silently disappear into his quilted blue jacket. The riverbed below him, once home to one of Washington’s greatest rivers, sits eerily quiet and nearly empty of water, even in the middle of the state’s famously wet winters.
As Schuyler explains it: “The river has been stolen from us. It has been harvested for money.”