Where does a river truly begin? Sometimes the answer is obvious, as with British Columbia’s Fraser. It empties a pond atop a mountain divide, and the growing stream is immediately labeled on the map as “Fraser River.” All tributaries are smaller than the mainstem, and there is no doubt which river is THE river.

 

Fraser River source

More often, the answer is not so clear. Rivers are a watery collection of contributors, and what we might assume as “the source” is not, actually. Eleven years ago, my friend Rocky Contos identified a new source for our greatest river, the Amazon. Step aside, Apurimac, the Mantaro is now generally considered the mother of Earth’s biggest watercourse.

Rocky Contos in his element

The Klamath presents a special conundrum in the source game. It debauches from Klamath Lake, so in practical terms this is the start, but it’s called the Link River here, which is immediately siphoned into a myriad of canals serving fields of wheat, barley, potatoes, kale. Besides, the Link is a medium sized river, hardly the tiny rivulet or gushing spring we might define as a source.

Klamath Agriculture

The Klamath does have plenty of big springs, too many to easily single out a definitive source. Crooked Creek Spring, Tecumseh Spring, Fort Creek Spring; all are clear, cold, and abundant. When I paddled the Klamath from source to sea in 2008, I started at Spring Creek Spring—a 400 cubic feet per second picture of perfection. The Paddle Tribal Waters team began their source to sea journey this month at Wood River Spring, the largest of these idyllic liquid birthplaces feeding Klamath Lake.

Wood River Springs

By volume, these springs are the greatest single suppliers of Klamath water. By distance—that farthest tentacle of drainage basin where water finally wends its way to the Klamath—the answer is the Sprague River headwaters.

Head of River Spring—North Fork Sprague River

I had no intention to begin my downstream voyage at the distant Sprague, but I did feel compelled to at least visit those embryonic trickles. The North Fork of the Sprague bubbles forth at 6,781′ above sea level, a tiny tike of a spring compared to the giants near Klamath Lake, but no less pure. The Bootleg Fire of 2021 burned most of the surrounding lodgepole pine and white fir forest, but the springs here and at the head of the Sycan—a Sprague tributary—maintain green valleys amid the harsh dead terrain nearby. From its very beginnings, the Klamath brings life to a battered land.

Sycan / Klamath River source