Monday's postcard, and a summer solstice field trip to a precious mountain lake

June 19, 2023

Blooming canola just west of the Viola, ID cemetery, photographed last Thursday

First and foremost—Happy Juneteenth, the day we get to celebrate the end of slavery in the U.S. by commemorating the belated arrival (two years later) of the news of the Emancipation Proclamation in Galveston, TX. Juneteenth is now a federal holiday, beginning today.

I’ll be away from my desk the next couple days on a field trip to Priest Lake at the invitation of Stan Miller. For those of you who don’t yet know of Stan, he’s a living legend in our region, especially in conservation circles. Among many other things, he’s the person who patiently schooled me on the Spokane-Rathdrum Prairie aquifer when I was a young reporter, three decades ago when Stan was the head of what is now Spokane County’s water resources program. I’m not the only one who walks around in awe of his knowledge and experience, so it is a treat, today, to be joining him for a trip to the lake.

Stan and his wife have had property on the lake for more than 30 years and (no surprise) he serves, today, as a board member and volunteer for Selkirk Conservation Alliance based in Priest River. The Alliance—whose work encompasses the Pend Oreille and Priest watersheds—has made the preservation of the Priest River/Priest Lake environs a priority. Part of that work is a fairly intense monitoring program on the lake and river that Stan is deeply involved in. So I’ll get to see and learn what that’s about. If you’d like to learn more about the Alliance and support their work you can do so here.

My son, Devin, on a kayaking excursion at Priest Lake in 2012

A summer question for anybody in Spokane is what they’re doing for the weekend. As often as not, they’re “going to be at the lake.” Well, yes, but which one? There are only dozens to choose from within 90 minutes of town. That said, Priest Lake has long been a family favorite of ours. One of my mother’s stories is her trip to Priest with other Wazzu cheerleaders to meet Bing Crosby, back in the early 1950s. I haven’t met any celebrities at Priest Lake, but it is my favorite spot (along with the fjord at Hawk Creek, near Lake Roosevelt) to swim in the summer inasmuch as the water is both warm (at least in comparison to the Big Eddy on the Spokane River) and remarkably clear. The setting in the Selkirks is simply stunning. I understand why people love it and want to preserve it.

Priest Lake was the backdrop for an important environmental case that the U.S. Supreme Court decided just last month—-Sackett v. U.S. EPA—that sharply curtailed the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (and state authority) to regulate wetlands under the federal Clean Water Act. The case was brought by an Idaho couple building a home on wetland property adjacent to the lake. So I’m hoping to learn more about how that decision effects conservation goals at Priest Lake. There is, of course, this dilemma—who, in their right mind, wouldn’t want to live on or near Priest Lake? Then how do you prevent people from destroying a beloved destination by the process of a million cuts and bruises to the lake and its environs?

It’s supposed to be unseasonably cold this week, so I’m not sure how much time I’ll spend in the water the next 72 hours. I have been back in the Big Eddy on the Spokane in the past week testing, among other things, a waterproof camera that my buddy Sharokh Nikfar gifted me after my underwater camera was stolen from my car last fall. (We should all have friends like Sharokh)

It’s been good to be back in the water. I couldn’t find a suitable pair of replacement fins at stores in Spokane, so I have a new pair on order that should be here by mid-week. Oh, you wonder why I need fins. Honestly, I don’t need fins to swim. I do need fins to swim with red band trout though. That’s just the way it is. They’re superior swimmers and I have to up my game to hang with them :)

—tjc