Wasting Away The Water Man Brought To The Columbia Basin Desert Formed A Waterway With Many Challenges And Rewards For Canoeists

Originally, a river did not run through it.

The desert southwest of Moses Lake was known as little more than a wasteland of sage, thorns, cactus and coyotes.

Wetness was elusive. Waterfowl found the area inhospitable, as did the Columbia Salish Indians, who clung to the Columbia River because they couldn’t find enough water in the scabland to make permanent camps.

The Columbia Basin Project created another world.

Once Grand Coulee Dam was built in 1934, water eventually would be pumped from the Columbia River to grow everything from circles of corn and potatoes to green lawns and grapes for wine.

But even as the once-brown land turned green, few people would have predicted that canoeists would someday travel hundreds of miles to paddle through the desert.

The water began to flow from canals to farmland in 1951. The irrigation eventually raised the watertable to produce seep lakes that attracted waterfowl.

Runoff from the fields flowed into channels that hadn’t seen moving water for millions of years. The first drips of irrigation runoff made their way east into what is now Potholes Reservoir in 1965. With a little help from the Bureau of Reclamation, which bulldozed a few short channels through sand dunes, the Winchester Wasteway was born.

And so was one of the most wonderfully obscure canoe adventures in the lower 48 states.

Spring is a magic time on the wasteway. Nesting waterfowl make a racket that goes on day and night: The trill of red-winged blackbirds, clamor of Canada geese, the whine of coyotes, the ratcheting of sandhill cranes.

It’s worth hauling extra drinking water, making a primitive camp in the sand and sage and spending the night here just to hear the serenade.

Our group paddled the wasteway in late March, before the leaves emerged to hide the thorns on bushes lining portions of the wasteway.

By April, the vegetation is considerably greener and water is warm enough in the off-channel sloughs to produce good fishing for bass and perch.

By June, small potholes will dry up in the desert. But the wasteway keeps flowing, boosted by increased irrigation to Basin crops.

The wasteway is for canoeists with a sense of humor.

It’s not always straight forward. You may hit dead ends in the dunes and have to backtrack to find the channel. A few miles later, the channel is so narrow and fast, you’ll be frantically draw-stroking to spin the canoe into a 90-degree turn. You might have to wade through cattails or duck under branches.

Remember those thorns. A bowman can avoid them with prayer and furious drawstroking. The paddler in the stern might put more stock in armor.

Nature seems to have designed the wasteway with a perfect tan in mind. The sun is on your left, then right, then left and right as the channel snakes through the desert.

The lazy nature of the Wasteway changes near a gauging station. Paddlers who haven’t put the first scratch in the bottom of their canoes will want to call it a day here.

The wasteway gets fast, narrow, twisting, rocky - and downright thrilling from the gauging station takeout to Potholes Reservoir.

Hugging the right shore, we easily ran the small waterfall upstream from the gauging station. But a hundred yards upstream from a second waterfall below the gauge, I could feel neck hair bristle against my life jacket. The water gushes over concrete-like caliche cliffs in a three-stage fall that roars 25-feet down into a deep bowl.

Some people won’t believe there’s a stream to canoe in the desert, much less a waterfall.

Bass anglers roared past us in boats equipped with 150-horsepower motors as we paddled through the maze of dunes and into Potholes Reservoir. The power boaters seemed to take all of that water for granted.

But then, they hadn’t spent two days wasting away where water first meets the desert.

MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: FIND YOUR WAY Check out the detailed map and description for canoeing the Winchester Wasteway in Routes: Classic Trips in the Inland Northwest, page G2.