Kettle Range Pine-Larch Hills support a rich variety of wildlife in Washington's Colville National Forest.

Since the dawn of time, native peoples of the Upper Columbia Basin have used the land of the present-day Colville National Forest for fishing, hunting and gathering roots and berries. The great salmon runs at Kettle Falls, like those at Celilo Falls further down the Columbia, provided a major source of food for the people who lived in the nearby pine-covered Kettle Range and Selkirk Mountains. At the time of Lewis and Clark, and for eons before, native people gathered at Kettle Falls to fish for salmon, dry racks of fish for winter use, and celebrate the bounteous return of these splendid wild fish to their spawning grounds. Trading within and beyond the Columbia system was inevitable and, as Clark remarked, dried fish provided the peoples of the Northwest with a "great mart of trade."

Bears, wolves, cougars, deer, wolverines, bobcats - species from east and west - came together in the Kettle Range, a transitional province between the Cascades and the Rockies. Within a few years of the Lewis and Clark expedition, the abundant wildlife resources of the Upper Columbia Basin began to draw trappers. So rich was the area, in fact, that the Hudson Bay Company established a fur-trading post at Fort Colville in 1825.

The Columbia River/Roosevelt Reservoir today snakes along the southern and eastern boundaries of the Colville Indian Reservation and marks the eastern edge of the westernmost half of the Colville National Forest. But the salmon are gone from traditional fishing grounds above Grand Coulee Dam, gone from Kettle Falls. Members of the Colville Confederated Tribes remember the days of the great salmon runs with a celebration each May called "Kanakannawa." That was the name of the last "Salmon Chief" who was elected to preside over the salmon catch and distribute it evenly among the people.

What's at Stake

Today's Kettle Range provides an island of wildness surrounded by the wheat fields of the Columbia Basin to the south, and by logging, roads and farming to the west and east. This area is a unique combination of high, windswept ridges, pristine meadows and the Kettle Crest's 20-plus mountain peaks of 6,000 to 7,000 feet, which still provide wild habitat for an amazing array of wildlife species, including cougar, lynx, bobcat, black bear, fisher, wolverine and elk. Some of Washington State's finest mule deer hunting is found in the Kettle Range, which offers high quality hunts for older, branch-antlered "muleys" no longer found in most other areas. Occasional sightings of grizzly bears and wolves have been reported in recent times, suggesting that the area could aid in recovery of these wild species.

Stretching 30 miles north and south across Sherman Pass and Highway 20, the string of Kettle Crest roadless areas comprising the proposed Kettle Range Wilderness offers excellent camping, hunting, horseback riding, hiking and Nordic skiing. The area is typically more thickly forested with Western larch, spruce, Douglas fir and sub-alpine fir in the northern part of the range, giving way to the open park-like mosaic of "yellow-bellied" ponderosa pine groves in Thirteenmile Basin on the southern end.

The Threats

Logging, mining and roadbuilding activity are the greatest threats facing the Kettle Range. The Forest Service has made numerous intrusions into the roadless areas during the past three decades. This damage has effectively reduced the size of the area, making the remaining roadless acreage much more valuable. Over the years, the Forest Service has provided some protection for the Kettle Crest, along which the Kettle Crest National Scenic Trail winds its way, but the forested valleys leading down from the crest are in real danger of being lost.

The Solutions

The Kettle Range was the major roadless area in eastern Washington that was left out of the Washington Wilderness Act of 1984, despite an ardent following of supporters. An organized citizens' group has worked to protect the Kettle Range for over 20 years.

Today, the salmon are gone from the Colville National Forest, but we still have the opportunity to protect the wild habitat of big cats, black bear and wolverines of the Kettle Range. Permanent wilderness protection of this prime land of gigantic ponderosa pines and windswept ridges is long overdue.

Photo by Dick Slagle, courtesy of Kettle Range Conservation Group

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