On the Home Stretch: Breathtaking Forests, Meadows, Wetlands, and a Trout Stream Soon to Be Protected

Inland Northwest Land Conservancy is delighted to announce its next conservation easement. This incredible property, in Pend Oreille County, is truly unique. The land provides abundant wildlife habitat, a healthy forest, scenic views, and, most importantly, a glorious trout stream. Thanks to the anonymous landowner and the Conservancy, the property will be protected both from clearcutting and development. Given the size, this pristine wilderness could easily have been divided into ten or more residential lots—with roads, utilities, and a potential cellular communications tower, forever impacting the abundant wildlife who call it home.

This acreage serves as a buffer against development for Forest Service land, which borders it for three-quarters of a mile. In keeping with many easements, the owner has retained a small area for a home and outbuildings. As always, the owner has exclusive use and control of access to the property. The land is actually five parcels, but now it cannot be divided. The owner, who treasures the tranquility of the place, has tended the forests, meadows, and streams for over 25 years, and likes to spend time thinning the trees, pruning branches, and walking the property lines—in the winter, cross-country skiing along the roads through the woods.

The property is in the foothills of the Selkirk Mountains, where mountain streams emerge to replenish the rivers. Its diverse forest has trees of varied heights and ages. The property also has a large pond, an old orchard, broad alder wetlands, open floodplains, and stream corridors. A substantial cold, clear, shaded creek tumbles out of the mountain as it bisects the property. This is a native trout stream that flows into the Pend Oreille River and in turn into the Columbia River, providing water for much of the western United States.

The landowner eloquently states,

My wish is that this land remain with this definition for all of its historical stakeholders: the dominating tall groves, the creek and riparian zone, the pond and its forested island, the high overlooks, the scattered clearings, the varied stakeholder habitats (including a modicum for man). They all offer quiet, peaceful, secluded solitude for sitting, thinking, communing, retreating, and studying. This land shall be as enduring as the adjacent 1.1 million-acre Colville National Forest.

INLC could not be more grateful to play a part in protecting this stunning property that is a haven for wildlife and a source of clean water for many. To the anonymous landowner, we heartily say, “Thank you.”