Paddling the Pend Oreille River

Spokane Canoe & Kayak Club members learned about wildlife, habitat restoration and Native American heritage as they paddled the Pend Oreille River with representatives from the Kalispel Tribe and Pend Oreille County PUD. For example, the river pilings that once held logs for mills along the river have become important perching and nesting sites for ospreys -- and in recent years, cormorants. Tribal biologists have counted 32 osprey nests on the pilings between Newport, Wash., and Box Canyon Dam while coromorants have claimed up to 152 piling nest sites. More isolated nest sites have been established to help ospreys hold their own among the invaders that come in from coastal waters. Check out the photos Outdoors editor Rich Landers captured during the day-long paddle trip.

Section:Gallery

Mon., July 18, 2011

Spokane Canoe & Kayak Club paddlers gather on the Pend Oreille River near the Cusick, Wash., boat ramp to paddle downstream toward Tacoma Creek and learn about wildlife habitat projects underway by the Kalispel Tribe and the Pend Oreille County PUD.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Spokane Canoe & Kayak Club paddlers gather on the Pend Oreille River near the Cusick, Wash., boat ramp to paddle downstream toward Tacoma Creek and learn about wildlife habitat projects underway by the Kalispel Tribe and the Pend Oreille County PUD.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Spokane Canoe & Kayak Club paddlers gather on the Pend Oreille River near the Cusick, Wash., boat ramp to paddle downstream toward Tacoma Creek and learn about wildlife habitat projects underway by the Kalispel Tribe and the Pend Oreille County PUD.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
A pike angler casts in the Calispell Creek area of the Pend Oreille River near the Cusick, Wash.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
An angler shows the northern pike she landed while fishing in the Pend Oreille River near Cusick, Wash. Pike are a relatively recent nonnative invasive species that's booming in the river between Newport, Wash., and Box Canyon Dam.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Spokane Canoe & Kayak Club paddlers paddle into the Calispell Creek area from the Pend Oreille River near Cusick, Wash. Calispell Creek is blocked from flowing into the Pend Oreille River by a railroad dike that keeps the Pend Oreille from flooding cropland during high water. Because of the dike, two powerful engines pump water from Calispell Creek over the dike so it can flow into the Pend Oreille.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
A sea kayak contingent of the Spokane Canoe & Kayak Club paddlers gathers on the Pend Oreille River downstream from Cusick, Wash., boat ramp to learn about wildlife habitat projects underway by the Kalispel Tribe and the Pend Oreille County PUD.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Lynn and Stan Mrzygod lead Spokane Canoe & Kayak Club paddlers out of the Calispell Creek slough area off the Pend Oreille River.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Cormorants perch on pilings in the Pend Oreille River downstream from Cusick, Wash., with Calispell Peak in the background.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Spokane Canoe & Kayak Club paddlers tour the swollen Tacoma Creek area of the Pend Oreille River on July 16, 2011. Normally by mid summer, the waters have subsided and this area of the creek would be only about 20 feet wide.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Two boys from the Kalispell Tribe use a large jar as a "live well" for a bass they caught while fishing from a dock on their 4,600-acre reservation along the Pend Oreille River.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Spokane Canoe & Kayak Club paddlers were allowed to picnic at a water access site on the Kalispel Indian Reservation along the Pend Oreille River.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Syringa cascades down from the rocky slope along the trail to the Manresa Grotto, where a stone altar still stands in the cool shade of the huge cave where ancestors of the Kalispel Tribe have had gathered for centuries above the Pend Oreill River before the Jesuits came in the 1800s and assembled them for services.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
The Manresa Grotto isjust north of the Kalispel Tribal headquarters on the Kalispel Reservation near Usk, Wash., off LeClerc Road.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
The sign at the parking lot along LeClerc Road reads “a beautiful grotto exists.” Used for centuries by tribal members along the Pend Oreille River, the Manresa Grotto also is the site of the first St. Ignatius Mission and Catholic Church founded by Jesuits. The cave is a focal point for the reservation and the Tribe continues to hold Mass there at least once a year. The Manresa Grotto is on the National Register of Historic Places.”

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
The Pend Oreille River's 2011 spring-summer flooding still inundated an access road to a Kalispell Tribe riverside recreation spot on July 16, 2011.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
Spokane Canoe & Kayak Clubbers had the perfect day to paddle the Pend Oreille River on July 16, 2011.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review
After paddling the Pend Oreille River, Spokane Canoe & Kayak Clubbers had to wait in line behind local teenagers for a treat at the drive-up window of the espresso-ice cream shop in Usk, Wash.

Rich Landers The Spokesman-Review