Wedged between the temperate rain forests of western Washington and the evergreen forests of northern Idaho lies a mostly barren region of scab-shaped rock formations, massive cliffs of columnar basalt, and trough-like valleys known as coulees. The region is hot in summer, bitter in winter, and windy much of the year. For many, it is an area to be driven across quickly en route to somewhere else. But if you stop and investigate – read road signs, visit small museums — you’ll uncover a most fantastic tale of a cataclysm that transformed a region and, within that tale, of a geologist who stuck to his theories in spite of the scorn of his peers.

Once upon a time:

Geological research provides evidence of enthralling sagas that have taken place on our planet, and none is more enthralling than that of the Ice Age Floods of the Inland Northwest. The story began during the last ice age, some 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. The climate was much colder then, and a vast ice sheet extended south from today’s Canada. A portion of the ice dammed the Clark Fork River in northern Idaho, forming Glacial Lake Missoula, some 2,000 feet deep and roughly the size of lakes Ontario and Erie combined. Eventually, rising water broke the ice dam. A wall of water hundreds of feet high surged over the region, sounding like thunder and resounding like mini-earthquakes. The water carried along ice, rocks, soil, and anything else that got in its path, scouring land from today’s northern Idaho, eastern and central Washington, and northern Oregon in its journey to the sea.

In a matter of days the lake emptied. This process – ice damming the river, forming a lake which eventually broke the dam – occurred as many as forty time over the course of several thousand years, until temperatures warmed and the ice age ended. What remained was  immovable basalt bedrock and a network of channels known as coulees: the channeled scablands, a phrase coined by a young geologist named J. Harlen Bretz.

I told you so:

In the 1920s, Bretz hiked among the strange formations of the Columbia River Plateau in central and eastern Washington. Born and raised in Michigan, he had received a Ph.D. in geology from the University of Chicago and was in eastern Washington doing field research. In 1923, he published a paper arguing that the channels snaking through the region’s barren landscape could be the result of catastrophic flooding in a not-all-that-distant past. The paper was the opening salvo of more than four decades of debate that pitted Bretz and one or two others against the geology establishment of the time, the Ivy League elite. Not only did those august men reject the hypothesis that the landforms were the result of a deluge of Biblical proportions, they also rejected the Midwestern outsider himself. However, by the 1970s growing evidence and a greater understanding of ice age forces gave credence to Bretz’s theories, and his hand-drawn maps of the region proved uncannily similar to later satellite imagery. The establishment nay-sayers had to eat crow. In 1979, at the ripe old age of 96, Bretz received the Geology Society of America’s highest award. By then, he told his son, “All my enemies are dead, so I have no one to gloat over.”

The wondrous formations:

Evidence of the flooding can be seen throughout eastern Washington. Drive on the highways and byways east and southeast of Spokane and you’ll see gargantuan bluffs and troughs and plunge pools that seem more fitting on the moon or Mars than Earth. In the next post we’ll look at the most monumental of these formations.

To learn more, type in ‘channeled scablands’ or ‘J. Harlen Bretz’ online, and you’ll find a wealth of information. If you prefer an in-depth look, I recommend Glacial Lake Missoula and Its Humongous Floods by David Alt, published by Mountain Press; and Bretz’s Flood: The Remarkable Story of a Rebel Geologist and the World’s Greatest Flood by John Soennichsen, published by Sasquatch Books.

 

 

Williams Lake kept me sane the summer of 2013, the year my husband and I moved from Puerto Rico to the Inland Northwest.

When I make that comment to people in Spokane, they immediately think of Spokane County’s Williams Lake. Located a half-hour drive south of the city, near the town of Cheney, that Williams Lake has long attracted Spokane residents on warm summer days.

Small at 317 acres, it’s shaped like a narrow bottle with a long neck. Scraggly pine forest and an assortment of boulders and cliffs ring the lake, one of dozens nestled in the region’s channeled scablands. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife stocks it regularly with rainbow and cutthroat trout, and fisherman can take their boats out from the public launch. There are also two resorts – Klink’s Resort with day-use facilities and a well-known restaurant and, on the far end, Bunker’s Resort. I visited here once in late spring, before the lowland region got too hot, and enjoyed a refreshing swim.

But it was not the lake that kept me sane the summer of 2013.

There is another Williams Lake, set in Stevens Country halfway between the city of Colville and the small town of Northport. At 34 acres, it is one-tenth the size of the Spokane County lake. The Williams Lake Road borders the water and opens onto a small dirt access. There are no homes, resorts, or concrete boat launches. On the opposite side, a forested hill swoops up from the water. Grasses on both ends provide habitat for ducks and other waterfowl. Trout live in the lake, but it is only open to fishermen in winter months. Dark rippling water, green forest, blue sky, white clouds—a tiny jewel amid the many lakes of the Inland Northwest.

While we still lived in Puerto Rico, my family and I often passed the lake on our visits to my parents-in-law’s cabin in Northport, Washington. Occasionally we would stop, inner tubes in tow, and use it as a giant swimming hole. The first time we went, we (coming from the Caribbean) expected the water to be liquid ice and were pleasantly surprised to find it only slightly chilled.

The summer my husband and I left Puerto Rico for the Inland Northwest, we stayed at the cabin in Northport. When I wasn’t looking for a home in the Spokane or Seattle area, I had long, hot days to fill. Leaving Puerto Rico after so many years had been wrenching, and I found myself homesick for friends, the beach, tropical mountains, lively street-life, island food, and the general routine I’d known for decades. A saving grace for me was Lake Williams. I’d drive there, blow up the inner tube, push off, and spend an hour or so floating on the water in the company of iridescent dragonflies. From time to time, I’d slip out of the tube and swim with the fish which, for the most part, stayed below me. Cars and trucks would pass, and the occasional family of bathers would stop, but for the most part I had the place to myself.

In October of that year we moved to Spokane. Now I have an inflatable kayak and visit other larger lakes when in the area, but I still drive by Williams Lake, and, when I do, I give it a very fond salute.

The personal connection:

The Spokane/Coeur d’Alene metropolitan area may be the largest in the Inland Northwest, but it is surrounded by dozens of small cities and towns, each with its own particular history and appeal. The one I know best is Northport, one hundred miles due north of Spokane, tucked into a valley along the Columbia River close to the Canadian border. More community than town, its population is just shy of 300 people. My parents-in-law built a log home near Northport around 1980, and I often visited with my husband and two daughters during the summer. When we left Puerto Rico, we stayed there until finding a house in Spokane.

Arriving:

The road approaching Northport, Highway 395, follows a dramatic landscape of low-lying mountains on either side of the Columbia River. Here, the river is wide and slow-moving as it makes its way into Lake Roosevelt, a large reservoir formed by the construction of the Grand Coulee Dam. On the far side of the river, hills ripple in a patchwork of short grass, evergreens, and jagged rocks. The highway passes through pastureland, small farms, two sets of railroad tracks, and a scattering of homes before descending into the town proper.

A bit of history:

The railroad plays an important role in Northport’s origins. In fact, the town’s name came from its location as the last stop before reaching Canada, both for the trains and for steamboats plying the river. But even before trains and boats, men settled here to mine the nearby hills, and a smelter was built along the river. By 1898, the railroad was complete, the smelter booming. Northport, now an official town, had a wild-west feel to it, complete with saloons, hotels, and a fancy train depot. In 1922 the smelter shut down, and boom turned to bust.

Residues:

Even in the early 1900s, evidence showed that fumes from the Northport smelter damaged nearby orchards and livestock. Another smelter and refinery complex across the border in Trail, British Columbia, has been in operation for over a century and has released large amounts of toxins into the air, ground, and river. Being downriver, and often downwind, of the smelter, Northport has received its share of pollutants. Some residents suffer from related health issues, and an advocacy program known as the Northport Project  has gained national attention in its work to deal with the effects of pollution.

Center Street:

Northport proper consists of one main street, and a dozen or so side streets on either side. Entering from the south, you pass a collection of homes and buildings that include the school, the Mormon church, a bed and breakfast, a Protestant church, a small library with WiFi reception, the post office, Tony’s Market, Rivertown Grill, the Mustang Grill, overnight cabins, and an unsightly collection of junk before the road curves onto a bridge over the Columbia. To the north, a small park borders the river.

Kuk’s Tavern:

When our daughters were young, we often had breakfast at the cafe now called Mustang Grill and shopped at Tony’s Market, but we did not enter Kuk’s Tavern, a two-storied gray clapboard building located a block away. Established in 1888, it survived several town fires and is now known as Washington’s oldest bar. I have to admit its appearance spooked me back then. Life-sized dolls appear in the upper windows, alluding to a former brothel from the wild-west days. Old and weather-beaten, the place seems to sag, reminding me of something out of Carson McCullers’s Ballad of the Sad Cafe. Years later, neighbor friends took us to Kuk’s for Taco Tuesday. Residents living in remote corners of the region congregate at the bar for this popular weekly event. Its interior, I discovered, is more inviting than the exterior, an eclectic clutter of posters, memorabilia, a shuffle board, and an old-fashioned ice box.

For more information about Northport’s history and the Northport Project, go to The Story of Northport. You can also visit the Northport Chamber of Commerce.

As my tagline states, this blog is about writing and the places that inspire. I’ve been focusing on places in the Inland Northwest: it’s now time to connect them with the writing part of the blog.

Back to the past:

To do that, we have to go back a couple of decades to the island of Puerto Rico. I started my first novel there, choosing the tried-and-true formula of writing about what you like to read and what you know well. I liked mysteries and knew the island’s rain forests, having written a book about one of them [Where Dwarfs Reign: A Tropical Rain Forest in Puerto Rico, University of Puerto Rico Press]. So I came up with this idea:

In 1942 Puerto Rico, a middle-aged American woman dies alone in the heart of a tropical rain forest. Who was she, and why was she there?

For a year or so, I worked on the novel, creating a primitive draft of part of the story. In it, a teenage boy takes on the challenge of finding answers, with unanticipated, often perilous consequences in wartime Puerto Rico. As I pondered the story line, I realized I had a problem: there were certain things the boy could never know if the book was to be at all realistic (no seeing the future in a dream, in other words).

At about that point, my daughters started school, and fiction writing gave way to more lucrative freelance writing and eventually to university teaching again.

On to the present:

After my husband and I moved to Spokane, I discovered employment opportunities here were few and far between. What to do? The answer—work on the partially completed novel. Dusting off the manuscript, I took stock (with much cringing) of what I had, joined a wonderful novelists group (more of that in a future blog), and started writing.

After reading Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins, a brainstorm came to me: Why not have a dual narrative? Have an American woman go to Puerto Rico decades later to take up the search, eventually piecing together the puzzle of the dead woman’s life. She could tell her story after she returned to the States. Where in the States? What better place than where I’m currently living.

And so, the Inland Northwest became the secondary setting of my first (not yet published) novel, The Irony of Tree Ferns.

 

A day on the bluff:

Tourism brochures tout Spokane both as a city ‘near nature, near perfect’ and one blessed with ‘four distinct seasons.’ Basically, all that is true [though I personally think winter here is top-heavy, and summer could go a bit longer …] If you’d like to combine these two concepts, spend some time on Green Bluff. It will be a day unlike any other – picking fruits, berries, and vegetables; sampling beer, wine, and mead; choosing a pumpkin, a Christmas tree, or a homemade pie; rummaging through country stores while breathing in good country air – and it’s all within a half-hour drive of most anywhere in Spokane.

A bit of history:

The front end of the bluff overlooks wheat fields and distant hills. Then the roads follow a couple of general loops around some 12 square miles of farmland. The bluff is a year-round community of over 30 farms, numerous farmhouses, a local grange, and a community church. It dates back to the 1800s. In 1902, growers formed an association, primarily to protect those growing strawberries from outside competition. Today, the association’s main mission is to promote agricultural tourism.

Custom-made visits:

My fruit picking has been very limited, done once during the month of July to collect raspberries and cherries with a visiting daughter.  We stopped at Beck’s Harvest House, where we were given small boxes and directed to two long rows of red raspberries in a gently sloping ravine. Pick and plop; pick, pick, pick, and plop. The sun shone down on the surrounding field and orchards, the work was easy, and we carried on a lively conversation. Pick, pick, and plop. Before long, we had collected enough berries to eat for a week and freeze for future use. [I did this by placing the berries in a single layer, without touching, on a baking sheet, freezing them overnight, then storing them in a zip-lock freezer bag.]  We brought the boxes to the store to be weighed, paid for, and put in the trunk of the car. Collecting additional boxes, we went on to the cherry orchard. Here we climbed ladders and filled one box with Bing cherries, the other with Raniers. Did the fruit picked by us taste better? Hard to say, but we had fun.

August is peach month (as well as apricots and plums). Peaches are the favorite fruit in our house, but since I’ve never found someone to pick with me, I opt for the easy way out, which is to let someone else do the picking and buy a box-load of peaches. Some hail from farms in the Tri-Cities area to supplement the Green Bluff supply, but all are juicy and delicious. Just about everything grown here can be purchased already picked. That includes huckleberries, but since they need to be carefully handpicked in the wild, they are expensive.

When at Green Bluff, I almost always buy a few seasonal fruits or vegetables—strawberries, squash, carrots, potatoes, and several varieties of apples—but that isn’t necessarily my main reason for going. At High Country Orchards, for example, I’ve looked for unique gifts for Christmas and birthdays and met friends for lunch at the café. It offers both indoor and outdoor seating and serves a variety of sandwiches, paninis, and salads. Another one of my favorite purchases are Green Bluff fruit pies—I usually buy at Harvest House or Walter’s Fruit Ranch. When I’ve visited with a younger generation, I’ve sampled mead at the Hierophant Meadery and beer at Bodacious Berries, Fruits & Brews. Last year I drove to Harvest House’s pumpkin patch to choose a carving pumpkin for Halloween; we haven’t yet cut our own Christmas tree on the bluff.

Exploring made fun and easy:

The number of Green Bluff operations and the open countryside could be daunting to the first-time visitor, but the association makes it easy with the Green Bluff Growers website and a brochure that has a map providing the locations and information about each operation as well as special events and useful tips.

Why do I keep returning to Green Bluff when I can buy fruits and vegetables at the supermarket and enjoy rural scenery in dozens of places around Spokane? I think in large part it is because of the people who man the operations. They are friendly and helpful, and many offer samples of the different varieties of the season’s most popular fruits. If they aren’t too busy, they’ll stop and chat for a while. That’s why.

 

The wages of greed:

During Coeur d’Alene’s wild-west years in the late 1800s, Tony Tubbs, a German immigrant, had his own get-rich-quick scheme. He bought a 138-acre hill alongside Lake Coeur d’Alene for a modest price and attempted to sell lots, making the land appear flat on his not-drawn-to-scale map. In reality, the hill slopes quite steeply into the lake. His scheme failed, and the hill remained undeveloped. In an ironic historical footnote, Tubbs’s greed may have helped preserve a jewel of urban wilderness known as Tubbs Hill.

An overview:

From an aerial view above the lake, Tubbs Hill looks like a giant mud pie of more-or-less circular boundaries and a narrow spillover on one corner, with evergreen trees sticking up everywhere. Elevation at the summit is 2,533 feet. Some two-thirds of the hill extends into the lake while the rest connects to McEuen Park and downtown Coeur d’Alene. The park and the hill, both maintained by the City Parks Department, greatly enhance the city’s recreational offerings.

Structures:

Although Tony Tubbs failed as a developer, two structures were once found on the hill. Austin Corbin, son of a pioneer entrepreneur in town, bought property next to a spit of land extending from the hill and built a home in 1906. Ten years later, he sold the home and thirty years later all that remained were the ruins of a fireplace, but the spit of land became known as Corbin Point. Around the same time Corbin built the home, a large grandstand was constructed nearby for the townspeople to view boat races and, later, to watch old steamboats end up as funeral pyres. The grandstand no longer exists.

The trail:

A two-mile trail loops around the coastline of Tubbs Hill, with an alternate trail across the hill to the summit. Shortly after arriving in Spokane, I heard about the trail and the beautiful lakeside views, and one drizzly spring day decided to check it out. Two or three fellow hikers were also out. The trail winds around boulders and occasional trees, with views west on the wide northern extension of the lake, looking toward the Coeur d’Alene Resort, the City Swimming Beach, and, closer, old pilings remaining from the lumber days. At Corbin Point, side trails lead down to several small beaches bordering the spit that fans out to large boulders in the water. I vowed I would return to swim one day. The trail continues, some twenty feet above the water. It opens onto northeastern views of the lake, including mansion homes set back from Sherman Beach and, in the distance, the floating green of the Coeur d’Alene Golf Course. At this point, the trail heads inland, through thicker forest and a variety of shrubs.

The second time I visited the hill, I came prepared with a brochure put out by the  Tubbs Hill Foundation, which supplied me with much of the information used in this post. The third time, one June, a friend from southern California and I sported bathing suits under our clothes, determined to take a swim at a Corbin Point beach. It turned out to be a forced dip into ice-cold water. This led to a debate on which was colder – Lake Coeur d’Alene or the Pacific Ocean. My friend got out her smart-phone: the water was officially 59 degrees. Two months later, I returned for a much more pleasant swim.

Next time, I’ll visit in winter, perhaps when the resort is awash in Christmas lights – but that will be another post.

 

What’s in a name:

Coeur d’Alene is a small city in northern Idaho with an exotic name. This lilting French phrase refers not only to the city but also to a lake, a river, and a tribe of Native Americans in the area. How did that happen? The answer goes back to the turn of the 19^th century, when trappers and fur traders from French Louisiana made their way here in search of pelts. They found a spectacularly beautiful lake, thick evergreen forests, rugged mountains, and a tribe of Native Americans who lived along the lake and called themselves ‘the people discovered here’ in their Salish language. The French found the tribe to be highly skilled traders, shrewd in business skills. Their name for them was coeur d’alene, ‘heart of an awl,’ which is a sharp tool used to pierce leather. Over the years, the French name won out.

A bit more history:

In the latter half of the 19^th century, Coeur d’Alene became a freewheeling town catering to the rough-and-tumble miners and loggers who worked the region’s two most important industries. Soon trains transporting silver from mines to the east and steamboats plying the 25-mile-long lake became common sights. As is true of all booms, this one didn’t last forever, and by the mid-20^th century, Coeur d’Alene was a quiet community frequented by Spokane vacationers in summer months.

A recreational mecca:

Today, Coeur d’Alene sits at the eastern edge of the greater Coeur d’Alene / Spokane Valley / Spokane metropolitan area. Lovely lakefront homes half-hidden by evergreens line the jagged edges of the centipede-shaped lake. The downtown district encompasses the city park and beach, an elegant resort, a large grassy park, and a nature trail circling a protected hill that juts into the lake. Virtually any sort of lake activity – from boat cruises to para-sailing to hitting a golf ball on the world’s only floating green – can be found here. The city’s main street features trendy restaurants, shops and galleries. As an aside, the street is named for the Sherman who marched to the sea during the U.S. Civil War and came west afterwards: a fort of the same name was established on the banks of Lake Coeur d’Alene, present-day site of the University of North Idaho. Biking, hiking, and jogging trails extend around the lake and to points east and west. A chain of lakes along the Coeur d’Alene River attracts fishermen and kayakers. The formerly named Silver Valley in the mountains to the east still has a couple of working mines, but it is now better known for several world-class ski resorts.

In 1970, some 15,000 people lived in Coeur d’Alene. Today, there are 50,000 strong. The Lake City is growing. For more information, go to Visit Coeur d’Alene.

 

 

 

Every Spokane tourism brochure worth its salt includes   Manito Park as a must-see destination. When I first read about the park, I – fresh off the plane from San Juan, Puerto Rico – thought, ‘how nice, the Park of the Little Hand,’ mano meaning ‘hand’ in Spanish. I was soon corrected – manito, with the accent on the third syllable, not the second, is a Native American word meaning ‘spirit in nature.’ Ironically, the word pertains to the Algonquins, not the local Spokane tribe. It was chosen by the park’s developers.

That happened in 1904. Ninety-five acres were donated to the city, a commission was formed, and the firm of the Olmsted Brothers, sons of the famous Central Park landscaper, made suggestions for the park’s design. Manito soon became known for its exhibition gardens, including a sunken garden, conservatory, and small zoo. The zoo closed during the Depression (1932) for lack of funding. The park was spruced up for the 2004 centennial. Today, it is Spokane’s premier garden setting and one of the nicest small parks in the U.S., with over 150,000 visitors annually.

Though I don’t live near Manito, I’m often in the area and make an effort to walk through its grounds at different times of the year. Parking near Grand Boulevard, I usually cross a tree-shaded grassy field and pass Mirror Pond. A place for watching ducks swim and children frolic, the pond, though in a lovely setting, suffers from a murkiness most of the year. Beyond is the Lilac Garden. Lilacs grow throughout Spokane, thus its nickname, The Lilac City. In late spring, the bushes flower and give off a perfumed scent. With more than 20 distinct species, this is considered one of the best lilac gardens in western U.S.

My next stop is a favorite – the Nishinomiya Tsutakawa Japanese Garden. Named for one of Spokane’s sister cities and the person who championed the designation, the garden features a koi pond, waterfall, shelters, benches and statues set amid graceful trees and shrubs that bloom in a riot of color in the spring. The traditional asymmetrical design creates a delicate and soothing beauty. It is closed November through March. Nearby Rose Hill features 150 varieties of roses in a dizzying kaleidoscope of colors, sizes, and petal arrangements, and then it’s on to what I consider the heart of the park.

Centered in the heart is Gaiser Conservatory, a traditional glass building which serves as both a greenhouse and small botanical garden. Tropical species are found on one side, desert species on the other, and a central dome showcases lofty rain forest greenery. For Gaiser’s holiday light show before Christmas, the plants turn magical with the addition of tens of thousands of tiny lights.

The conservatory overlooks Duncan Garden, Manito’s best-known feature – three acres designed to reflect a formal European Renaissance-style garden, with symmetrical plant beds and a central fountain. Planted in late May, when Jack Frost can no longer destroy the annual plants, the garden reaches its most colorful exuberance in the hot days of August. Behind the conservatory, the informal Ferris Garden celebrates grasses, plants and flowering perennials in semi-circular beds separated by grassy walkways.

Manito Park is more than a series of celebrated gardens. People also come here to walk and jog, to sit on shady benches or under a picnic shelter, to get a bite to eat at the Park Bench Café. Children run around at two separate playground facilities. There are occasional concerts and recreational events. In winter, families snowshoe along paths, sled down hills, or skate on Mirror Pond. In the spring they delight in nature’s rebirth, and in the summer they come here to escape the heat and enjoy nature.

It is a park for all seasons.

 

 

Spokane is the largest city and the hub of the Inland Northwest. In spite of its spelling, the city is pronounced as if the final ‘e’ didn’t exist – Spo-can, not Spo-cane. The word means ‘children of the sun’ in the Salish language, and it refers to the Spokane people who settled in the region thousands of years ago.

Recent history:

With the arrival of the Great Northern Railway in the late 1800s, the city took off. Regional mining, farming, and logging fueled the economy, and many elegant homes and buildings in the downtown neighborhoods date back to the turn of the 20^th century. Eventually, growth slowed and the economy stagnated. In 1974, Spokane hosted the World’s Fair, and an eye-sore network of train tracks downtown transformed into the lovely Riverfront Park. Since then, Spokane has been on a modest but steady upward trajectory.

Initial looks can be deceiving:

When my husband and I first arrived here, our realtor told a story of a potential client. Scheduled to meet at a certain hour, the client didn’t show. When the realtor finally called her, the woman said she had taken one look at the city from her car on I-90 and decided to keep going. Of course, that wasn’t fair. How many cities look good from an interstate? From there, Spokane does resemble a small rust-belt city crammed with yesteryear brick buildings, where bowling alleys and drive-in theaters might highlight local entertainment.

All sorts of attributes:

However, if you get off the interstate and look more closely, you see something else. Low evergreen mountains in the distance encircle much of the city. As in Valdivia, Chile, a river runs through it, the Spokane River, somersaulting in a wild series of waterfalls past downtown. The yesteryear brick buildings have their own classic charm, and many now house breweries, wineries, boutique stores, and upscale restaurants.

A quarter million people live in Spokane proper, with three-quarter million in the larger metropolitan area encompassing Spokane Valley and Coeur d’Alene in northern Idaho. The region boasts any number of enviable attributes – museums, orchestras, regional theater, parks,  universities, and a wealth of places to worship, wine, and dine. A short drive away are dozens of lakes; numerous mountains for hiking, biking, skiing, and snowshoeing; rolling hills of farmland; and basalt formations that tell a fascinating geological tale. What’s more, homes and other costs of living are reasonable; traffic, for the most part, moves; the airport, though petite, is cute-as-a-button and very passenger-friendly; and British Columbia, Canada is less than a three-hour drive away.

Small wonder, then, that Spokane’s modest upward trajectory has become a bit more dramatic in recent years. For more information, go to Visit Spokane.

 

 

My new posts focus on the Inland Northwest U.S. But what in fact is this?  Also, why do we sometimes hear it called the Inland Empire? And how does it relate to the region known as the Pacific Northwest?

When I first arrived here, I assumed Inland Northwest was a sort of regional branding, similar to the phrase ‘near nature, near perfect’ blazoned across Spokane’s tourist magazine. The alternate nickname, the Inland Empire, seemed an old term for the region, no longer in vogue because it conjured up (to me at least) other images, such as Star Wars episodes. Over time, I realized the term Inland Northwest is ingrained in the region, used by banks, health services, councils, religious groups, and a variety of businesses and organizations. Tourism has co-opted the term, not the other way round.

Pacific Northwest

Let’s start with the better-known phrase, the Pacific Northwest. Located in the western coastal region of North America, bounded (according to most definitions) by the Pacific Ocean and the Cascade Range, it primarily takes in western Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia, Canada, although some people extend the borders farther north and south. It is a region of lush temperate rain forest and dramatic mountains and volcanoes, similar to what I saw during my month in Valdivia, Chile. Historically, cities in this region, particularly around the Puget Sound, were known for radical labor organizing in the lumber, shipyard, and mining industries, and the populace remains among the most politically progressive in North America.

Inland Northwest

Much of central and eastern Washington and northeastern Oregon differ markedly from the Pacific Northwest. A semi-arid region of rolling hills and vast plains, the barren other-worldly Columbia Plateau shares the landscape with rich farmland irrigated by water from the Columbia River. Farther east, northern Idaho is known for pine forests, lakes, and mountain ridges. Though different geographically, the two regions find common ground in their history and in being sparser and politically more conservative than their coastal counterparts. On occasion, politicians threaten to form a new state, the state of Lincoln, an idea that has been batted about since the mid-1800s. This is the Inland Northwest. Its boundaries extend roughly west to the Cascades, north to Canada, east to the Bitterroot Mountains in western Montana, and south to mountains below the Columbia River.

Inland Empire

The Inland Empire designation dates back to the late-1800s, when James J. Hill, the ‘empire builder,’ established the Great Northern Railroad through the region, linking the northwest with the rest of the U.S. To this day, Amtrak’s long-distance passenger train connecting Chicago with Portland and Seattle, by way of Spokane, is known as the Empire Builder. Highly lucrative mining and lumbering industries, particularly in northern Idaho, and vast wheat farms created their own empires and turned Spokane, the largest city in the region, into a wealthy boomtown. Profits for a few rivaled those of the commerce barons back East, and ornate mansions lined many of the city’s streets.

Apparently, some of Spokane’s native residents consider ‘Inland Empire’ to be the correct term for the region, believing ‘Inland Northwest’ is used primarily by newcomers preferring something more neutral. Oops — guilty as charged.

For a spirited exchange about this topic, visit Wiki Talk: Inland Northwest.