This is a photo I took from a dock in Upper Klamath Lake of the algae.
It is a leaf-like organism which circulates through the water on its
own. It is a rich source of vegetarian protein which has the same amino
acid profile as human breast milk, readily absorbable vitamin B12, is
a rich source of omega-3 essential fatty acids and contains a blue pigment,
rich in antioxidants.
One
of the exciting nutritional "discoveries" of the 20th century
is one made by many of the indigenous peoples millennia ago. AFA or Aphanizomenon
flos aque used to be found in a number of freshwater lakes around
the world.
One, Lake Chad in Africa used to have clean water and was a wonderful source
of AFA. Anthropologists tell us stories about the peoples of this area harvesting
AFA and adding it to their daily diet. The peoples there were healthier than
many of their counterparts and (possibly due to the Omega 3 oils found in
AFA) are said to have used written pictograms early in history.
Similarly, AFA from Upper Klamath Lake in Oregon has been present for millennia
and is thought to have survived the last ice age and had been used by the
indigenous tribes who scooped algae out of the lake and dried it on lakeside
stones.
Upper Klamath Lake is protected to the west by the cascade Mountains
to the South by legendary Mount Shasta and by spectacular Crater Lake. (Map
and photos )
Set at about 4200 feet in what is otherwise a high desert, the watershed
feeding upper Klamath Lake depends greatly on the winter snows, which often
reach over sixty feet at crater lake. 
Springs, like the one pictured above, gush from the earth, between
boulders at the feet of the mountains and feed, ice cold, and rich in minerals,
into sparking rivers like the Jameson and Sprague.
Downstream, they wander, crystal clear into Upper Klamath Lake, pictured
below.
This lake is vast, covering about 240 square miles, about 32 miles long..
The water is clean. There is no industry in the watershed except a small
sawmill. The farms in the fertile soil around the lake are fertilized by
the algae in the water. There are cattle, but they range freely and at numbers
which do not threaten the purity of the water. Boating is mostly wind powered.
Because the algae is so prevalent in the lake, when you swim, you come out
green, thus the lake is not sought after for cottages and there are virtually
none around the lake.
AFA 'blooms' best in cool water and is harvested by barges which use paddle
wheels, instead of propellers which would break up the algae, propel them
to the optimal locations, and then use them to gently lift the algae out
of the water to be rapidly cooled and transported cold for cleaning and processing.
For
information about obtaining AFA, please click here.
