The long river

Though you won’t find too many songs that say so, a body of water doesn’t always have to be swiftly moving to be called a river.

That’s what a group of us found out on Saturday as  I put another notch in my belt of previously unexplored Spokane River sections that I now lay claim to.  My wife Sara and I joined the Spokane River Forum for a kayak trip from the Lake Spokane boat lunch site, which is just downriver from Nine Mile Falls Dam, to Tum Tum – all part of this year’ s Meet Me at the River Raft and Kayak Passport Series.

It was a beautiful day to be on the water with temperatures staying in the comfortably warm to comfortably hot range throughout the nearly six hours we were paddling.

Being that I’m a stickler for details, the thing to note here is that though it’s still called the Spokane River, this particular stretch is very much flat and lake-like, or reservoir-like to be more accurate.

Often called Long Lake, Lake Spokane is a 25-mile reservoir between Nine Mile Falls Dam and Long Lake Dam.  It’s a community of lavish lakefront homes and two-stroke recreation.  Artificial beaches and manucured lawns that stretch right to the shoreline are common, as are massive patches of lily pads that are the result of low dissolved oxygen.   Being that this year has been cooler than usual the algae blooms didn’t appear to be as prevalent as year’s past.   But low dissolved oxygen, excessive algae blooms and the degradation of down river water quality remains  a problem

I digress.

Kayaking this stretch of “river” certainly reaffirmed by understanding of the diversity of the Spokane River.  Wide and flat, it is an understatement to say that this stretch is different than the Spokane River you see in downtown Spokane.  That’s what’s great about this river though.  It’s big and diverse and offers something for everyone.

The trip with the Spokane River Forum and the 15 or so paddlers that signed up was a great way to spend a Saturday.  I was feeling it Sunday with tight abs, sore elbows and strange burn spots on my knees where the sun found a way to creep in to the kayak bottom, but it was so worth it.

Many paddlers on the trip had great questions about shoreline protections, water rights and the role of the Spokane Riverkeeper, so I walked away both confident that there are plenty of people that care deeply for the river, and excited to get to work on developing some education pieces for the public.