The Memory of Fish

For more than 40 years, Dick Goin worked at the Rayonier pulp mill in Port Angeles, Washington. But to the locals, Goin, a Dust Bowl survivor, is an environmental legend for his tireless efforts to protect vital salmon habitats along the nearby Elwha River. Every year, Goin, who nurtured a lifelong love of sport fishing, would see the number of salmon returning to spawn on the Elwha dwindle, ultimately plummeting from 400,000 breeding pairs at its peak to just 3,000 by 2011. Alarmed, Goin began a decades-long campaign, even after his retirement in 1991, advocating for the removal of the main culprits - the Elwha and the Glines Canyon hydroelectric dams that had drowned the ancient spawning grounds. By the 1990s, the power output from the dams became so negligible that even the federal government agreed the crumbling structures had to go. Goin passed away from natural causes last year at age 83, but he lived long enough to witness the completion of the $325 million effort to remove the dams in 2011 - the largest such project in U.S. history. This documentary, narrated by actress Lili Taylor, shows how Goin's life was inextricably intertwined with the life cycles of wild salmon, and how the determination of one committed individual could restore the mighty life force of a dying river. (Seattle International Film Festival)