Easy Does It: Little Spokane Guide

Considering the Internet has put the world at our fingertips, it’s startling to realize how many gaps there are in our understanding of what is local.

For example, students under the tutelage of Discovery School’s Mary Haberman recently learned there is no single text that pulls together the rugged-to-elegant history of Spokane.

“There’s a big and worthy book there waiting for someone to take on,” Haberman said.

As vast as that project might seem, the gaps are even larger in our comprehension of wild things.

Consider what might have transpired if all the information available about salmon in the Snake and Columbia rivers had been pulled together into one volume BEFORE the first of 18 dams were built.

This would have been a tall order.

Occasionally, however, someone with a deep interest in a special place steps up to the task. They take on the thankless but potentially important work that no professionals, foundations, universities or government agencies are willing to tackle.

Meet Easy.

This complex Spokane conservationist with the simple name has pulled together the efforts of dozens of naturalists, birdwatchers, mushroomers, historians, photographers, artists and teachers to shed light on the Little Spokane River.

“Critters of The Little Spokane Watershed,” (Little Spokane Watershed Council, $25) is a 320-page text and photographic tour of the watershed’s native plants, fungi, wildlife, habitats and their inter-relationships.

It includes more than 275 black and white photographs and more than 50 illustrations.

“I’ve spent several years compiling decades of work by other people,” Easy said.

A glance at the watershed map reveals that the snow enjoyed by skiers on Mount Spokane eventually melts and drains into the Little Spokane River. So do the toxic chemicals dumped at the old Colbert landfill.

Insight on plants warns of the price a watershed pays when exotic species are introduced.

Non-native yellow iris has spread to engulf the river’s shores in many areas, the book explains. This has displaced native cattails, contributing to a decline in birds that had adapted to the native cattail environment.

“I’m trying to show what’s going on in the watershed,” Easy said. “I’m not pointing fingers.”

Awareness of the species, habitats and inter-relationships is a step toward understanding how people and nature can flourish together, he said.

“Critters” identifies more than 1,700 species that make their living in the Little Spokane Watershed. Not counting the smallest forms of life, such as bacteria, nearly 500 plant species, more than 400 fungi and lichens and more than 700 animals are found in the watershed’s 13 habitats, Easy said.

A chapter explores each habitat, citing the most common species as well as species that are at risk.

More than 300 insects, 200 birds, 70 mammals and nearly 50 fish have been identified in the watershed. About 80 of these species have been introduced.

The spotted frog, loon, pileated woodpecker and Western bluebird have declined in the watershed and are considered at risk.

“Still, this is at magnificent watershed,” Easy said, pointing out that surveys have ranked it among that top habitats in the nation for bird diversity.

“The great floods that shaped the channeled scablands of Eastern Washington missed the Little Spokane,” he said. “That’s why it’s so different than the Spokane River Valley.”

Most of the research on the Little Spokane has been in the lower seven miles, which is managed by Riverside State Park. “The book expands the perspective to a watershed that’s roughly 20-by-50 miles,” Easy said. “What’s upstream has an incredible impact on the lower part of the river.”

Historic photos give some glimpses of changes over the years. “What’s most remarkable,” Easy said, “is how much of the natural watershed remains intact.”

Critters isn’t necessarily bedtime reading, nor is it destined for any best-seller list. But Easy hopes schools will take advantage of the book, as well as anyone who has an interest in the watershed.

“I hope people who get serious about nature mapping will send me their information so I can enter it in our data base,” he said. “The value of the data and this book may not be apparent for 50 years.”

“Critters of the Little Spokane Watershed,” is available at bookstores, or through the Little Spokane Watershed Council, P.O. Box 413, Spokane, WA 99210, telephone (509) 747-5738.

, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: 2 color photos