These photos are from the three communities of Altamira, Illah da Fazenda, and Arara Da Volta Grande.  In Altamira, in some places the river will rise, while in Illah da Fazenda and Arara da Volta Grande the river will dry.  Faced with incredible uncertainty, these communities are still vibrant, beautiful, and living deeply connected with the river.  In just the past couple of weeks, the first section of the dam has been completed, drying out part of the river to enable the rest of the project to continue.

MYOO, a really amazing online community and project of creative storytellers, also went to Illah Da Fazenda.  They have put together an incredible collection of photos, and are working on a short film about the Xingu and about what may be lost.  The pictures that they captured are of many of the kids, people, and places that I came to love and spend my time with.  Check out their work- http://myoo.com/explore/2011/11/22/what-is-lost/

Altimira sits on the Xingu River, pronounced ‘shingu’, in the northern Brazilian State of Pará. As the city runs into the river, the sounds of boats being made, fish being sold, kids swimming in the river, horse draw carts, motorcycles, and garimpo boats (river gold mining) sifting through earth, drift up from the bank and create what feels like an entirely different world than the growing, sprawling, metropolis of Altimira.

Construction recently started on the mega Belo Monte hydrocomplex, and is charging ahead.  If completed, Belo Monte will be the third largest dam in the world. The dam, is being constructed by the consortium Norte Energia. The Belo Monte project was an idea first put on the table during Brazil’s military dictatorship, and after many years, the government finally approved the project, ignoring local, national and international opposition and the countless negative environmental and social impacts the dam will have.  The Xingu and its tributaries are home to a very diverse collection of riverine communities, including commercial and ornamental fishermen, garimpos, farmers, indigenous communities, and the residents of Altimira.  All depend on the river for fish, agriculture, transportation, and daily life.  According to Amazon Watch, if the construction continues, over 20,000 people will be displaced and 80% of the river will be diverted into artificial canals and waterways.   Completely destroying the way of life on the river and the diverse ecosystems.

The Xingu is one of the most incredible rivers I have ever seen.  In some places it is so large you can’t even see across to the other side.  It winds around islands, splitting into smaller channels, and meeting back up in a swirl of eddies. At times, the water seems to flow in all directions, churning and intense, while at others it looks so smooth and calm it is hard to tell it is moving.  There are beautiful sandy beaches, dense forests, huge rapids, and small glossy rocks that look like orange agates.  The river swells and shrinks with the rainy seasons. Houses that in the dry season are six feet above the ground, have water lapping at the door in the rainy season.

I spent about a month and a half in four different communities on the Xingu, falling in love with the way of life, the river and the people. Swimming with the children, washing clothes with the women, and fishing with everyone.  But I also felt like my heart was wrenched out and stomped on in the worst heartbreak ever, as every day the impacts and effects that Belo Monte will have and is already having on these communities became more and more clear to me.

In the city of Altamira, posters stating three options for relocation plastered the houses of fishermen, fish venders, bicycle shops, and restaurants in the section of the city closest to the river. Busses full of construction employees roared past the fish venders house I was living in early in the morning and at five pm every night.  On a small island in the middle of the river with a fisherman, his wife and three year old, a speed boat quickly stopped by to officially inform them that their home would be submerged. Helping him set a net on a beautiful spot on the river, I noticed a red and white striped stick, an indicator of future construction. While in an indigenous village, a boat load of 15,000$ worth of food and soap and oil arrived, a monthly payment all the indigenous communities receive from Norte Energia.  As the men got together to go and clean the soccer field, I was surprised to see each one emerge from his woven grass or wood home equipped with a brand new weed whacker, also gifts from Norte Energia.  When I asked a 10 year old in the riverine community of Illah da Fazenda, what she had heard about the dam, she answered that all she knew was that all the animals and a lot of people were going to die and she thought about it all the time.  I had to turn around so she didn´t see my eyes watering up. I heard the statement, ´Tudo va a acabar,´ which means, ´Everything is going to end’ almost every day.

While there is a deep sadness and a lot of uncertainty in the area, it is also overflowing with life and beauty. I was inspired everyday by the generosity of the people, by their strength and resilience, by their laughter and incredible knowledge of the river. And of course by the river itself. While the project is plowing ahead, I hope with all my heart that it will not continue.

Over the next few days I will be posting some more pictures and stories of the people and fish of the Xingu.  I hope that this might give you a glimpse into the daily life of the Xingu, and show a piece of what will be lost if the Belo Monte Dam moves forward.

To learn more about the Belo Monte Dam, or to sign a petition against the dam check out Amazon Watch

These three brothers live in the riverine community of Illa da Fazenda.  Every afternoon one, two, or all three of the boys jump into these plastic buckets used to store and transport ornamental fish and paddle around the river.  The middle of the three spends hours, some times all by himself, floating up and down the river. His mom told me laughing, “sometimes I tell him to go take a bath, so he goes to the river, gets into the bucket, paddles halfway across the river and back, gets out of the bucket, and doesn’t have a single drop of water on him!”

The past month has been quite a whirlwind of events! I arrived at Tsimane fishing lodge in the Isiboro-Secure National Park and Indigenous Territories almost a month ago.  From the lodge I accompanied one of the Indigenous leaders of the area from community to community by boat recruiting people to go and join a march that was in its 55th day or so, from the city of Trinidad to La Paz in Protest of a proposed road that would cut across the Park.  With a group of about 39 adults and 9 children we left the park in a empty garbage/cattle truck with plywood makeshift benches on a 2 day drive to the march.  From there we marched with over 1500 other people from Santa Barbara to La Paz, climbing passes, cheering, waving flags, sleeping in abandoned buildings, bathing in rivers, etc.  Once we got to La Paz, many of us slept in the main plaza out side of the presidential building until the president signed a law stating that there would be no road through the territory and until the other points of the march platform were discussed and signed into law.

I am now running around Santa Cruz like a sweaty chicken with no head trying to buy knifes and bowls and rice and onion and tarps and bug spray before 8 when I get on a bus to Trinidad, where I will get another bus then a boat or a train back to TIPNIS, to descent the river once again, but this time a lot more slowly.  Learning how to fish, how to make bow and arrows and how the people live on the Secure river.

My camera disappeared, but here are a few pictures from the first week or so of my adventures.  To see some beautiful pictures of the March and get an idea of the experience go to Dario Kenner’s Boliviadiary.wordpress.com.  Dario is a journalist I met while watching in disbelief as tensions between police in riot gear and marchistas trying to get into the plaza rose, and the smell of tear gas wafted up the alleys.  More to come soon! Yay for amazing social movements and dedicated brave marchistas.

We spent the day cruising along the river in his handmade, wooden, bright yellow Dean River boat.  We would jet up a bit, and then drift back downriver so we could stand up and search for fish – Pinks, Chinooks, Steelhead.  Even after thirty years, Tony still got exited about seeing a shadow of a steelhead behind a log, watching two of them hold in the current, or seeing a massive Chinook glide underneath the boat.  “It’s like a game! Your knowledge of where the fish are is only good for a day or two, and then it changes…and it’s fantastic!”

Guides have an incredible amount of knowledge of the rivers and fish, as they are out there every day, memorizing the rocks, logs, and divits, where they have seen fish, or caught a fish.  They are constantly noting the levels, what the bottom of the river looks like, how the different species of fish are interacting, and how the river is changing.

Right before lunch Tony told me to fish a beautiful little run next to where we had pulled over.  The river bed was covered in soft, round, multicolored pebbles. Blue,red, tan – shining polished in the water.  The water was flowing nice and easy, meandering around a bend and a big logjam.  At the bottom of the run there was a bit of a drop off where the water went from light turquoise to – I don’t know how I would describe it – turquoise with depth and intensity and smoothness, a color with a lot more weight.  I casted out, and had a nice drift right over the pocket. Nothing. So I sent my line out again, and this time I could feel the anticipation like I never have before. The fly, a simple bright blue pattern that Tony referred to as the “Blue Kazoo”, drifted into the dark turquoise hole and started to sink. Tony was walking away to go fish a little lower down, but had stopped to watch for a minute. “That should get you something for sure,” he said. Less then a second later there was a tug, a pull, and  whiiiiiiiiiiizzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, the fish bit the Blue Kazoo and took off. After playing her for a few minutes, the fish arched out of the water, her powerful body glistening, and came back to the water with a splash. “There she goes!” said Tony.

I reeled in, stepped back, reeled in, stepped back, and finally got her up by the shore. I started to grab her by the tail and then she was off again.  I finally brought her back in and got a good hold on her. I don’t think I have ever felt so in awe of a fish before.  Maybe it was the exhilaration of catching my first ‘real’ steelhead, the beauty of the location, or just the hen’s own individual beauty and prowess.

The silver sheen of her body, the clear black spots covering her back, the reflection of the fly in the water, it was something. I’m not sure if the grin on my face was bigger, or the grin on Tony’s as we watched her swim back into the current.  

Lyle proving that he can indeed catch a fish as it jumps around in the holding tank

On the Babine there is a fish counting fence that stretches across the width of the river. As the salmon come up the river, they are funneled through small openings in the fence and into holding pens so they can be identified by species and recorded as they pass through.  They are generally counted from the first week in July until the middle of October.  Downstream of the fence, the river is full of red bodies bumping into each other as the fish try to make their way upstream before either the grizzly bears, the fishermen on the banks, the dip nets in the tanks, or time prevent them from getting to their spawning beds. 

The fence also serves as a commercial fishery and a traditional food fishery.  Members of the Lake Babine Nation can receive up to 100 fish per day to take home to process for their personal consumption.  Many families will freeze, can, and dry their fish and eat it through-out the year. Click to view slideshow.

The day I was there a commercial order was being filled. There were about ten men and one woman working to load up a semi truck with sockeye.  When the holding tanks are full, the workers will scoop out the fish with dip nets and then wheel them over to place in icy cooler boxes.  Then the boxes are loaded into refrigerator trucks to be sent to Prince Rupert where they will be processed.

While the holding tanks are filling up, the fishermen spend their time around a fire, drinking coffee, telling stories and eating barbecued fish.  At one point during the day, the refrigerator truck driver brought out his custom made six string banjo and it was passed around and played by a number of the men.  One said jokingly, “how much was it? Ill trade you for fish!”  I heard later that they didn’t finish filling the truck until around 10pm at night.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Bristol Bay mine could harm Oregonians’ jobs By Ken Morrish, from the Oregonian Published: Wednesday, July 06, 2011

 The building was once a wood shed.  Now three logs smolder in the middle of the dirt floor. An old trash can lid sits on top of the cottonwood, pushing the smoke out to the corners of the building.  Red embers softly glow and crackle, carving out the undersides of the wood.

            Dark poles stretch across the smokehouse, notched ends resting on the tops of the walls. The headless bodies of the salmon face upstream, ensuring their return in years to come, showing them respect. Thin strips of flesh hang over the dark wood siding, painting the walls in streaks of red. The flesh glistens and drips oil into the fire and earth below.

            Thin columns of light stream though gaps in the walls, and the smoke plays in the rays like dye running over silk. The smoke meanders its way from the logs and dances with each fish before it escapes to the sky through the gap between the walls and the ceiling. The smoke is comforting. I feel calm as I sit surrounded by salmon, lost in the movement and beauty of the smoke.

            As I sit in the smoke house of Yvonne Lattie, high chief of the Gitxsan house of Gwininitxw, I am blown away by the sheer beauty and power of her smoke house.  Her ancestors have been practicing this art for generations and generations, preserving food for the long winter months and keeping their culture alive.  You can feel the presence of the ancestors flowing through the smoke and the fish and the wood.

            For first nations in the Skeena watershed, the smoke house is a very important part of the culture.  The Gitxan on the Skeena are primarily catching and smoking sockeye salmon.   In fact, when they talk about salmon, though there are five species, they are really only talking about sockeye, which is prized for its rich red meat.  Smoking fish provide food for the winter and is a time to come together with friends and family to catch up, share stories and laugh. From catching the fish in the river to eating half dried salmon or huwkss, which are fully dried sockeye salmon strips, it takes about six days or so depending on the weather.  I asked Yvonne if there were any songs that people sang while smoking fish, and she just laughed and said “of course not, we are to busy talking and laughing!”

Click to view slideshow.

            I spent a few days with Yvonne as she shared her knowledge of how to clean, cut, and hang the fish, and then how to watch the smoke.  One lesson that I will always remember, is that when you do fish, you have to just do fish.  You have to set aside other things and make the time so that you can properly prepare and respect and smoke your fish and not forget about it and waste it.  This was definitely not a lesson that I immediately was able to hear, as I rushed around interviewing different people, running from fish to fish.  But in the weeks following, I keep remembering her saying that and am just starting to recognize the importance and power of that statement.