Jim Kershner: Channeled scablands don’t deserve bad rap

The name sounds vaguely like a dermatological diagnosis.

“I don’t know how to break this to you, young man, but you’ve got yourself a nasty dose of the channeled scablands.”

Even if you were already aware that “channeled scablands” is simply a descriptive name for the flood-scoured landscape to our west, these words still contain no romantic poetry. Let me put it this way: No developer is ever, EVER, going to name his subdivision The Channeled Scablands Chateaus.

However, after spending a couple of days exploring the country south of Sprague, east of St. John and north of not much, I want to speak out in praise of the channeled scablands.

The channeled scablands are, in fact, beautiful this time of year. They are green with new grass and scented with sage. Look closely and you’ll find wildflowers everywhere. The jagged black hunks of exposed basalt – the “scabs” themselves – provide what an artist would call contrast and texture.

Still, I will admit that the channeled scablands might have trouble competing, in the beauty department, with the Grand Tetons or the Grand Canyon or even Grand Avenue where it touches Manito Park. But few places in the West can compete with it when it comes to the richness of the wildlife.

That’s right, I said “wildlife.” Out in the middle of the barren nothing.

If you want to see birds and critters of all kinds, especially this time of year, you need to point yourself away from the mountains. Find yourself a little creek in the channeled scablands and you’ll discover something surprising: This is where Noah should have gone to stock his ark.

Put yourself in the mind of a bird, especially a migrating bird. You’re flying north over a lot of desert and a lot of farmland and suddenly, in the middle of nowhere, you see a beautiful stretch of oasis with everything you need: Water, fruit, bugs, bushes, trees, and cliffs to perch on. You’re going to hang out there as long as you can.

A little stretch of creek-bottom land in the middle of the channeled scablands has clear-running spring water, huge meadows of waist-high grass, bushes of all kinds, from wild rose to willows, and enough chokecherry and cottonwood trees to keep the woodpeckers and owls happy.

On our last trek up a scabland creek, seagulls and terns were swooping over the water as happy as if they were on Puget Sound. An owl flew off from a thicket of trees. Hawks and falcons did stunt flights overhead, streaking across the basalt cliffs.

At one point, my daughter and I stopped and just listened to the bird songs. It sounded like a symphony tuning up: The warblers twittered to our left, the meadowlarks trilled arias to our right, the swallows squeaked above us and a pheasant made a klaxon noise below us. I couldn’t have blocked out this bird symphony with a pair of aviation earmuffs, assuming I would even want to.

And that bounty is nothing compared to what you’ll find in the hundreds of ponds and small lakes scattered across the channeled scablands. On these little potholes, you’ll find thousands of water birds: the ducks, the geese, the swans, the avocets, the phalaropes, and all of those wading birds that most of us just call sandpipers.

The ponds and creeks are loaded with fish, frogs and salamanders. Meanwhile, if you walk up a channeled scabland valley, chances are you will scare up a surprising number of bigger critters. Deer are everywhere. Badger holes puncture the meadows. Coyotes will eye you warily.

I can’t believe I once thought that the channeled scablands were dead. I can’t believe I once thought that the mountains were the only interesting part of our landscape.

OK, I’ve talked myself in to it. If I ever do find lots for sale, I’m putting a down payment on The Channeled Scabland Chateaus.