In Earshot of Water: Notes from the Columbia Plateau

Introduction

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Introduction I do not know which to prefer, The beauty of inflections Or the beauty of innuendoes, The blackbird whistling Or just after. —wallace stevens S ounds were the stuff of imagination for me as a child, the textures of a life that might be well or poorly lived depending on one’s aural fortune. And so I have always found my breathing space within earshot of water, whether in the Seattle suburb where I came of age, on Vashon Island in Puget Sound, or in the arid inland Northwest where I live now. There was a pond, its water muddy and calm. No surface water fed it. No stream bled it into Walker Creek or drained it to salt water. Its lifeblood flowed in an aquifer beneath the ground. Home builders dumped fill dirt to make foundations for houses nearby, my family’s house included; they poured concrete foundations, driveways, patios , and walks. The rich hydrology of that low spot in soggy western Washington found outlet where it could. A seep of a pool in the bog welled up. Willows flourished, their slivers of leaves electric in the spring and summer, their thin red bark luminous in the winter and fall. Beside that pond I liked to crouch in all four seasons, amid those leaves I climbed. Mud in the process of drying, I learned, makes a murmur as moist as the noise of parting lips in the thick of kissing. Raindrops striking the surface of a pond sometimes bounce first, as if indecisive, but one must hug the mud to see such a feat. Within the murky subtlety of that water I planted catfish, netted tadpoles and dragonflies, and watched winging swallows with their mouths wide open skim the surface to snap up scudding bugs. Such memories continue to bubble up, especially now that I live in a strikingly different part of Washington. My bioregion lies at the edge of three ecotones—transitional areas between adjacent ecological communities. To the north and the east, the topography rises and yields to stands of massive conifers, staggering canyons, muscular rivers and mountains, enormous lakes named Priest, Pend Oreille, and Coeur d’Alene. To the south ranges the milder Palouse, one of the planet’s most productive wheat-growing regions, with its steep rolling hills and deep, rich volcanic loess soil. To the west lie channeled scablands and shrub-steppe desert, relieved in places by potholes and seep lakes. The word channeled recalls the remnant paths of prehistoric floods that coursed across the volcanic basalt rock and took the topsoil with it to the coast. The phrase shrub-steppe identifies the scab-rock basalt lowlands and treeless scrub brush threaded by badger burrows, rodents, and reptiles. These regions include parts of both northern Idaho and eastern Washington. The entire geographical spread has gained a political identity known as the “Inland Empire”—a name that makes me fidget for its hints of “Manifest Destiny” and old imperialism. At one time this region depended for its stability on natural resources— timber, mining, ranching, agriculture, and traditional fishing by Indian tribes. But extracting those resources forever is neither possible nor wise, because they are limited. The latest culture war, since the Pacific Northwest spotted owl battle of the 1990s, concerns flagging salmon species in the Snake and Columbia rivers. This battle is an intimate aspect of my place. Dams erected from the 1930s through the 1970s have come to function less as flood control and irrigation than as ports, hundreds of miles inland, for barging crops and tree fiber. Indian tribes enjoy legal standing to restore the fish, but those Spokane, Kalispel, and Coeur d’Alene people are holding back; they share a history of being treated unfairly in the courts. Just as unsustainable are the eroding farm fields, the soil reservoirs that are failing due to chemical inputs and other efforts to boost short-term earnings. Tons of precious topsoil blow and flow to parts viii Introduction unknown. This part of the world now is coming to rely more upon recreation, tourism, and manufacturing than on natural resources. When natural resources dwindle, quality of life erodes, and the nature -based resources become more precious than jobs or gold. One trait of these western provinces has been a reprieve from social obligations, a respite from moral codes. Many people here will not be told what to do...