Columbia Gorge News

A PROCLAMATION

Editor’s note: On September 3, 2009, the 45th anniversary of the Wilderness Act of 1964, President Obama issued this statement applauding the Act and proclaiming September as National Wilderness Month. It comes shortly after he took his family on a quasi-vacation to see some of the wonders of our national park system such as Old Faithful and the Grand Canyon. Enjoy....Bill Schneider

The American wilderness has inspired wonder and imagination for centuries and is an irreplaceable part of our Nation’s heritage. Even before the birth of the United States, visitors from near and far were struck by its splendor and purity. The unaltered American landscape stood apart from any other in the world. During the years of westward expansion, the wilderness frontier became synonymous with pioneer values of steadfastness and rugged independence. This month, we celebrate this history and renew our commitment to preserving the American wilderness for future generations.

COMING SOON AND ON TRACK

On August 13, 1967, exactly 42 years ago, as I start to write this column, everything changed for the grizzly and everybody managing the national parks where the bears live. It’s a well-known tragedy--two young women killed and partly consumed by two separate grizzly bears in two separate locations on the same frightful night, all so expertly chronicled by Jack Olson in Night of the Grizzlies, which might be the best selling outdoor book ever.

I was in college at the time, spending my summers working on Glacier’s trail crew. The park usually pulled us off the trails in August to fight forest fires. That’s what I was doing on that night, sitting in a fire camp on Apgar Mountain a few miles away from Trout Lake and Granite Park, the sites of the fatal maulings. All of us on the fire crew were huddled around a campfire listening to bits and pieces of broken transmissions coming over our fire radios, trying to figure out what was going on, but knowing it was bad.

SASKATCHEWAN FISHING LODGES

“Eventually, all things merge into one, and a river runs through it.”

That’s Norman Maclean’s frequently quoted brilliance from his book, A River Runs Through It, and what you can’t help thinking about when staying at Twin Falls Lodge in northern Saskatchewan.

It isn’t Montana’s Blackfoot River Maclean made famous, but the mighty Churchill River, which flows freely through a series of sprawling lakes long-gone glaciers gouged out of the Precambrian Shield. These lakes essentially become wide spots in the river. The Cree name for the river is Missinipe or Great Water, and I couldn’t imagine a better description.

THE GOOD OF THE MANY OUWEIGHS THE GOOD OF THE ONE

“The good of the one is outweighed by the good of the many.”

That’s one of my favorite quotations ever because it applies to so many issues. It comes from The Wrath of Khan, my favorite Star Trek movie (yep, still a Trekkie, even at my age), and so brilliantly offered by none other than Mr. Spock.

But what does it have to do with bears? A lot, it seems.

PARADISE FOUND

Attention road cyclists. Where can you ride 90 miles straight on smoothly paved, pothole-free roadways; almost devoid of motor vehicles; all lined with fantastic scenery, but no fences, telephone poles, or buildings?

We cyclists all know the answer to that, right? Not many places. But I found one right here in northwestern Montana.

Having been an avid cyclist for decades, I'd frequently heard about the terrific cycling opportunities in Kootenai Country, but for some reason, I never made time to experience it. I finally had my chance this summer. [more]

ROADHOUSE REBORN AS BISTRO

For decades I've been hearing about the Dirty Shame Saloon in Yaak, Montana. Some of the stories I heard sent a shiver up my spine and made it sound like one of those rowdy roadhouses of the Deep South where hippies entered and never were heard from again. It is, so the stories go, the type of establishment non-locals might want to avoid, especially if you're decked out in Lycra, and if you dare enter, don't accidentally have eye contact with the wrong person or his girlfriend.

Finally, at least two decades late, I had my chance to check it out, and it was almost a disappointment to learn that, nowadays, the most dangerous thing in the Dirty Shame Saloon is Double Haul IPA. [more]

SASKATCHEWAN FISHING LODGES

The first thing you do when going to Pine Island Resort for the fishing adventure of a lifetime is go to the Osprey Wings floatplane base in Missinipe, Saskatchewan. If you're lucky, you'll get to chat with Gary Thompson, owner of both the floatplane service and the resort.

Thompson has been around a long time, and along the way, he has fielded all the stupid questions anglers can ask and has answers ready. For example, when we went in to check in for our short flight to Pine Island Resort, we could hardly find a place to park, so, stupid me, I asked why so many vehicles parked around the base. He quickly replied, "Those belong to all the people we flew out somewhere, but forgot where we took them."

He was joking, eh?

[more]

THE FLIP SIDE OF ENERGY INDEPENDENCE

Last week, I was down on the mighty Yellowstone, the longest, free-flowing river in the Continental United States, drift fishing with Trout Unlimited (TU) and talking energy independence.

Unknown to many anglers, the federal government, through the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), is currently developing management plans for oil and gas leasing on land it manages, mostly in western states, 32 million acres right in Montana, including 906,000 acres in the Billings Resource Area where we were fishing. Three blue ribbon trout streams (Yellowstone, Stillwater and Boulder) and many key tributaries flow right through it. [more]

A LOCAL COLLABORATION, MOSTLY

Most of us have mistyped URLs, using .com instead of .net or .org instead of .gov. So, when you want to go to the website of the Montana Wood Productions Association, be sure to key in montanaforests.com. If you inadvertently type montanaforests.org, you go a promotional website for Senator Jon Tester's (D-MT) new Forest Jobs and Recreation Act of 2009, S.1470.

Shortly after the website went up last month, I received a couple of emails claiming this was just another example of the heavy hand of the Campaign for America's Wilderness (CAW) had in crafting Tester's wilderness bill. And sure enough, it turns out the domain name was registered by David Chott, CAW online coordinator. [more]

THIS JUST IN

Ninth Circuit Court Magistrate Judge Elizabeth D. Laporte ruled today that the Bush administration unlawfully repealed the Clinton-era Roadless Rule. The ruling puts the National Roadless Rule back into affect in at least the states covered by the Ninth Circuit Court, but it is unclear if the ruling applies to other states.

Today's ruling basically reaffirms a September 20, 2006 decision by the same court, but that has been under various appeals ever since. [more]