It was a collaboration that was meant to be. RiverSpeak and the Spokane Riverkeeper have partnered for this month's creative challenge, fortuitously happening during GetLit! These are exciting times for literature in Spokane, and this is your chance to express your voice about OUR river - a river that is beautiful, abused, and in need of awareness. (Our own Earth Day submissions will be published soon.) Below are some more details from both groups on this project and I will post my own entries next week. Also, check this student film about the river by Kari Johnson.

The Spokane River from Kari Johnson on Vimeo.

Do you love the Spokane River? Have you had some memorable experiences on or near our wonderful local river? Then this month’s creative challenge is for you:

The Challenge

Finish one to all five sentence starter fragments below, staying conscious of the broad theme which is, “What does a clean Spokane River mean to you?” The hope is that through this exercise, a narrative will unveil itself:  an interesting story about the person and about what the Spokane River means to our community. What can we learn about somebody when we only give them 20 words to start? There are no length limits, but please be reasonable.

Email your writing piece to riverspeak.net@gmail.com by April 17th. Be sure to include your NAME and TITLE of the piece. We’ll publish the submissions online, and there will be a reading at Earth Day (see “The Event” below).

Event

Participants will be encouraged to attend Spokane’s Earth Day event on Saturday, April 23rd and read their narrative at the open mic that will be set up on Isabella’s Rooftop OR maybe on the main stage.  There will be a specified time for this portion of the open mic, and the event will be publicized as a feature of Spokane’s Earth Day event which annually draws well over 1,000 people to downtown Spokane.

The Sentence Starters:
1) Every time I see the Spokane River I….
2) I’ll never forget….
3) The most powerful….
4) I’m happiest when…
5) I never asked…

Why the Spokane River?

“A good friend of mine, Dr. Bill Youngs, who is the chair of the history department at EWU and author of the definitive history of Expo ’74 “The Fair and the Falls” once told me that he has yet to lose an argument with anybody that the Spokane River is the most unique and beautiful city-surrounding river in the world.  And Dr. Youngs is a well-traveled man.


It’s a unique river in that offers so many variations in flow and surrounding landscape as it flows its 111 miles from Lake Coeur d’Alene to the Columbia River.  Recreational opportunities on the Spokane River are extraordinary.  Take it from someone who spent every Saturday and Sunday growing up on rivers in Montana.  You can’t beat having a put-in spot 10-minutes from your home, 10 minutes from your work, and 10-minutes from first-class lodging, eating and entertainment.

But it wasn’t always this way.  In the 40’s and 50’s the Spokane River was an open sewer, a calculated loss for a growing community.  There was no connection between the city and this resource that was the sole purpose for there even being a city.

Fortunately things started changing.

It took the vision of a group of business people who wanted to capitalize on the Spokane River, it took the energy and diligence of a one “King Cole”, it took the fortunate timing of the beginning of an environmental movement across the United States, and it took the will of businesses leaders and the community to make the Spokane River a political issue.  It took Expo ’74, the World’s Fair.

From that moment on the Spokane River was celebrated.  It was loved.  Downtown Spokane was saved; it opened up, light shined in places that hadn’t seen light for decades.  Expo ’74 attracted new energy to Spokane, new ideas. There was a direct and noticeable connection between the river and the city, the river and the community.  There was great joy and revelation to the fact the Spokane River served both an environmental and economic benefit.

And it still does.  Consider this.  There was a designed decision to come up with a new motto for Spokane.  The motto chosen by economic people in our community was, “Spokane: Near Nature, Near Perfect”.  The fact that business leaders in our community chose this is a perfect living example of what this resource means to our city.

In short, the Spokane River became the city’s transformative natural resource, upon which it is currently building its cultural and economic future.

At first the river provided, then we took too much.  We learned the moves for this fragile dance, then forgot and began to take too much again.  What history clearly is telling us is that going backwards is not an option. Our investment in a cleaner, healthier river is an investment that pays us back tenfold in terms of the economic, recreational and spiritual benefits that the river affords us.

We know that now. We shouldn’t have to learn it again.”

-Bart Mihailovich, Spokane Riverkeeper

Well said. For other writing examples, visit the latest edition of Monday Morning River Stimulus.