October 17, 2004 in Outdoors

From Pristine sources Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness, Idaho

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The Idaho high country, above the town of Salmon, stunts most growth. Buds of lupine and paintbrush, penstemon and pines, even the paddling mallard ducks are tiny that high.

Late one May, songbirds had yet to lay their eggs, and winds still agitated Williams Lake. Fat trout spawned and lunged at lures. Mule deer, their coats the color of basalt, clambered up scabrock canyons.

Near the mouth of a stream that flows from the lake, my father Harold and I set up camp. In the vigorous water, amid fist-sized stones, an ouzel was searching for food. Goldeneye ducks gabbled and flashed past, pursuing and eluding would-be mates.

Williams Lake was deep and cold, one of the few waters in Idaho that still supported healthy numbers of native rainbow trout. Those fish swam from the lake each year to spawn, nosing west toward gravel beds in the protection of the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness.

At the opposite end of the lake, vacation homes lined the shore, half of them displaying “For Sale” signs. Their sewage, their detergents and human waste, flowed into the lake.

Eutrophication, the dizzy demand for oxygen placed on plant growth by nutrient loading, is known for strangling water bodies. It occurs when sewage seeps from drain fields, for instance, or when cow manure or fertilizers from croplands cause “blooms.”

Biology students learn early that bacteria in a petri dish will expire finally from their own wastes.

On Williams Lake, fishermen cast their bait from boats and banks. The most successful among them hauled home heavy stringers of native rainbows, their orange flesh firm and bright. The fishermen wanted their luck to last forever, just as immigrants and Indians hoped the salmon in the Salmon and Snake rivers would never end.

Our last day in camp, we drove high atop a ridge to get a new view of the land in and out of the wilderness. Suddenly a jet bomber bellowed past us, drowning the calls of chickadees and setting our teeth on edge. The blast sounded loud enough to fell a fir tree; alien enough to make a cow elk lose her calf.

Many miles from town, dozens from any military base, the ground beneath the feet of every animal trembled, and the air that buoys the birds gave way.

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