Ashia Wilson

Director

Ashia Grae Wolf Wilson was raised by her mother and father, both enrolled members of the Klamath Tribes, and carries a lifelong love for the waters of her homelands. Her earliest memories come from gathering wocus and making mud pies along the Williamson River at Rocky Ford near the Klamath Marsh. She grew up in canoes on Wocus Bay, learning first foods and the teachings held throughout the Upper Klamath Basin.

Her deeper paddling journey began in 2017 on the Klamath River, where time on the water helped her reconnect with the places her family has lived, gathered, and prayed for generations. In 2018, during a cultural exchange in Cochrane, Chile, she paddled a whitewater kayak for the first time and fell in love with forming a new kind of relationship with the river. When she returned home to Chiloquin, she began finding boats and teaching herself to paddle her home rivers, reconnecting to place through movement, water, and community.

Ashia has spent years supporting Tribal youth in revitalizing their own relationships to paddling and to the Klamath Basin. She is the Director of Maqlaqs Paddle—founded in 2018 and now an independent nonprofit as of 2025—where her work focuses on creating opportunities for Klamath, Modoc, and Yahooskin peoples to reconnect with their waters, lands, and first foods practices. Her commitment is rooted in family: helping Tribal families return to their rivers and homelands for generations to come.

Ashia currently resides in Fort Klamath, Oregon, where she continues to deepen her relationship with the Basin’s waters and communities. She is a proud mother of two children. Her oldest son has been on the water since he was eight months old, rafting the Klamath River alongside youth during early beginner paddling cohorts. She looks forward to watching both her children grow up with a deep love for their waters, hoping that paddling and being on the river become a natural part of their lives and her family’s future—just as it once was for her grandparents.