The Year Without Salmon

The Snake River did not go dry this summer. Mount Rainier did not blow its stack. But perhaps an even greater disaster emerged in the Pacific Northwest in 1994.

We’ve apparently lost our soul.

The Northwest’s first summer without salmon fishing came and went, and not a “Top 10 Stories” list east of the Cascades makes note of it.

The dams that stopped the salmon from coming to Spokane Falls decades ago apparently have cut us off spiritually from what was once the lifeblood of the region.

Even in Western Washington, people have become so absorbed with crime and gridlock that they barely realize the unthinkable happened in 1994.

The Pacific Fisheries Commission ordered the first complete closure of ocean salmon fishing off the coasts of Washington and Oregon.

The ruling was an economic disaster to many fishing-related towns.

Even Westport’s advertising slogan went belly up. The “sportfishing capital of the world” couldn’t live up to its reputation.

Traditional salmon centers such as Sekiu struggled to survive. Just before Labor Day, Arlen Olsen stood in the vast empty gravel parking lot of the fishing resort his father founded in 1934.

“I should have grossed $15,000 today,” he said. “But all I’ve sold is two bags of ice.”

The closure of salmon fishing and the economic losses were but a symptom of the real disaster. The Pacific Northwest is replacing its wild icons with pavement and pesticides - and there’s no unified voice to say, “Whoa.”

Voters responded by electing the likes of Helen Chenoweth, the new Idaho Congressman (she prefers not to be called Congresswoman), who said she doesn’t take seriously the endangered species status of Snake River sockeye salmon.

“How can I when you go in and you can buy a can of salmon off the shelf in Albertsons,” she said during the campaign.

Of course, life as such can go on, even without a soul.

Although record dry weather set the stage for Washington’s worst forest-fire season on record, 1994 was a banner year for camping, with a virtually rainless season that ran through October.

The continued decline of neo-tropical birds worried ornithologists throughout North America. But North Idaho biologists identified 20 active bald eagle nests in the Panhandle, the most since the turn of the century, Fish and Game officials said.

The region’s ski resorts began cashing in on the still-growing interest in mountain biking. Schweitzer and Silver Mountain were taking the sweat out of the activity by opening their lifts to bikers.

Mountain biking got another boost from the U.S. Senate, which approved $390,000 to reopen the 1.7-mile long Taft Tunnel on the Montana-Idaho border. The gentle grade of the railless old railway combined with the tunnel should establish Lookout Pass as a prime mountain biking destination.

Indeed, 1994 might have been the biggest year for tunnels since the engineering marvels were built.

In Washington, the 80-year-old, 2.3-mile Snoqualmie Tunnel was opened to recreational use in October, providing a vital link to the established Iron Horse Trail.

About 1,500 people a week used the longest hiking tunnel in the country before it was closed for the winter at the end of October.

A good currency exchange rate and the inability of people to keep a good outdoor secret spurred another 4 percent increase in visitation at Canada’s Banff and Jasper national parks.

“If you have a water glass half full and you add 4 percent, it doesn’t seem like much of a difference,” Doug Wellock, chief of Jasper’s visitor services, said in August. “But if your glass is 98 percent full and you add 4 percent, I think that gives you a better picture of the position we’re in. We’re overflowing.”

Even demoralized salmon anglers found their diversions.

“The unprecedented salmon fishing restrictions of 1994 have turned the industry inside out,” said Tony Floor, a salmon angler and spokesman for the Washington Fish and Wildlife Department. “If people who live west of the Cascades want to continue in year-round fishing, they need to show diversity. And I guarantee these guys aren’t going to take up golf. They’re gong to go fishing, somewhere.”

That somewhere turned out to be Alaska king salmon waters, British Columbia coho runs, lower Columbia sturgeon holes and prime walleye waters east of the Cascades as well as the region’s top trout lakes.

Growth in all sorts of outdoor recreation forced land and wildlife managers to consider new restrictions from field to stream.

Fees were proposed for climbing Mount Rainier in order to deal with the tons of human waste deposited on the peak each year.

Tougher regulations on fishing contests may have deterred some anglers from entering Washington’s first major walleye tournament based out of Kettle Falls.

Responding to a lawsuit filed by several environmental groups, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service refused to renew livestock grazing permits at several wildlife refuges in Idaho and other western states.

The Idaho Panhandle National Forests became the last forest in the Northwest to adopt a 14-day maximum stay for camping outside of campgrounds.

The Panhandle Forests also proposed restrictions on the numbers of hikers and horse riders using the backcountry of the Selkirk Crest.

Most controversial, however, was a Forest Service proposal to restrict road access to vast areas of the Selkirks to protect endangered grizzly bears.

The decline of elk in the Blue Mountains and elsewhere in Washington continued, leaving wildlife managers no choice but to enact even tougher hunting regulations.

Even outdoor photographers faced more regulations and fees. Photo access on wildlife refuges continued to be curtailed, and federal officials hammered out plans to charge photographers a fee for snapping photos on BLM, Forest Service and Park Service lands.

For the first time, the Nez Perce Tribe required anglers to purchase a tribal permit before fishing the Clearwater River within its reservation. The rule, coupled with a midseason closure on the Clearwater, staggered Snake River system steelheaders who faced one of the worst steelhead runs in years.

North America duck populations rebounded slightly from historic lows of recent years.

But the record dry summer could make it tough for ducks next spring. It certainly made life difficult for trout. Montana fish managers closed fishing on the Big Hole and other streams that became so low and warm that trout couldn’t survive.

But a more permanent travesty unfolded as Montana trout waters continued to suffer from illegal plants of non-native fish. Lake Mary Ronan in Western Montana, the state’s prime source of kokanee eggs, appears to be doomed by illegally introduced perch.

Idaho’s prime fisheries suffered, too.

Hayden Lake, well known for producing big trout and some of the best bass fishing in the Panhandle, appears to be changed forever by people who introduced northern pike.

“This year, the pike population has gone ballistic,” said Ned Horner, Idaho Fish and Game Department regional fisheries manager. “Unfortunately, some folks will never be satisfied and their selfish actions cause irreversible ecological changes.”

Spokane conservationists tried to hold some ground in the wave of development that’s changing the landscape.

The county sought lands to secure for its new Conservations Futures program, funded by a new and controversial property tax that should net $748,000 a year.

Some citizens took conservation into their own hands.

The Dishman Hills Natural Area Society purchased 170 acres for preservation in the Tower Mountain area, putting down $50,000 and agreeing to pay $6,467 for 10 years.

Tom Rogers, the 80-year-old retired biology teacher who has led the charge for preserving the Dishman Hills for more than 30 years, led the campaign, proving he’s more consumed with a piece of nature in the Valley than he is with his own ailing heart.

Said Rogers, “It’s a more worthy cause in the long run.”