Curlew Lake State Park History

Curlew Lake State Park is perched in a high valley in northeastern Washington that owes its landform features to Ice Age glaciers. The lake, six miles long, half a mile wide, and reaching a depth of 130 feet, is centered in the valley of Curlew Creek. The creek drains to the Kettle River, which wanders back and forth across the US/Canada border to its confluence with the Columbia River near Kettle Falls.

Kames and Kettles

During the most recent Ice Age, the southern edge of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet ground its way into the valley of Curlew Creek, eventually thickening to a depth of more than one mile, covering even the highest summits of the Kettle River Range on the east side of the valley. The ice scoured the trough that is now filled by Curlew Lake.

When temperatures warmed and the massive ice began to melt, giant meltwater streams carried loads of sand and gravel through a labyrinth of ice caves to be deposited where they flowed out of the ice. Much of the meltwater flowed along the edges of the ice and was deposited against the foothills of the Kettle River Range, forming flat-topped terraces geologists call kame terraces.

Ice blocks calving off of the front of the ice were quickly covered with gravel carried in the rushing meltwater. These ice blocks later melted, leaving sunken kettles when the gravel caved into the space left by the melted ice.

The Ferry County Airport, adjacent to today’s Curlew Lake State Park is located on a kame terrace, while the hills and depressions that form the landscape back from the park’s lakeshore are the remains of glacial kettles.

Indigenous Land

The park lies within the traditional territory of Interior Salish-speaking Indigenous people whose present-day descendants include members of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.

For thousands of years the lands and waters of the Okanogan Highlands have provided a habitat for a diverse community of life that forms the basis of their cultures. Uniquely, Curlew Lake hosts a freshwater mussel species, Anodonta californiensis, which was harvested by local Indigenous people.

Members of the tribes occupying this area were not represented at the Walla Walla Treaty Council held by Territorial Governor Isaac Stevens on June 9, 1855. Subsequently, an Executive Order of President Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1872, created a reservation, covering the area bounded by the Columbia, Spokane and Pend Oreille Rivers. The order stipulated that the reservation was designated for the Indigenous bands specified in the order, and for “such other Indians as the Department of the Interior may see fit to locate thereon.” On July 2, 1872, the reservation was relocated to the area between the Columbia and Okanogan Rivers and designated as the Colville Indian Reservation. The new reservation included the area of today’s Curlew Lake State Park.

On July 1, 1892, the north half of the reservation, including Curlew Lake, was eliminated after mineral prospectors discovered gold in the area. In a congressional report, the justifications for the change were given as follows:

1. Sixty miles of the reservation being on the international boundary, the Government does not have the security there which it ought to have, the consequences of which are seen in the constant passing over the line from British Columbia and the north of Indians that have no right on the reservation, the illicit sale of whisky, and a state of constant trouble and disorder which constitute a menace to the peace and progress of the State of Washington as well as a danger to the entire country.
2. The concentration of the Indians on a diminished reservation, that would be surrounded by civilized communities all belonging to the United States, and the erection of school buildings, blacksmith shops, and sawmills as provided in the treaty would, while giving the Government more complete control, bring to bear more immediately and effectively the influences of education and civilization upon the Indians and save them in a greater degree from the demoralizing and ruinous traffic in illicit whisky.
3. The reservation as it stands today is a great obstacle to the development of the State of Washington and the general progress of the Pacific Northwest. So long as it continues to be the sporting ground of so sparse, thriftless, and irresponsible a population its lands will remain untilled and its mines will remain unopened…yielding no revenue to the General Government and being of no taxable value to the State of Washington…

Some Indigenous residents of the north half of the reservation were granted individual land allotments and continued to live in their homes; all members of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation reserved the right to hunt and fish on the former north half of the reservation.

Land Disposal

The lands of the former north half of the reservation were sought for mineral prospecting and production. The eventual development of gold mining properties in the region provided the primary economic base for Ferry County for many years.

Government surveys were completed in 1896 (showing the lake as “Karamip Lake”) and the land in today’s Curlew Lake State Park was transferred into private ownership by 1909 as Cash Entry patents, a type of direct sale of public domain lands. A large parcel stretching from today’s park swimming area to the Ferry County Airport was purchased by Peter C. Jager in 1903 and a smaller parcel that includes the park’s primary camping area was purchased by Frank B. Wilson in 1909.

In 1917, Governor Ernest Lister approved Senate Bill 163, granting the Curlew Irrigation District the right to overflow the lake’s state-owned shorelands “up to and including the high water mark.” A three-foot-high dam was built at the lake’s outlet in 1926, stabilizing the lake’s level at 2,333 feet above sea level. Farms, residences, vacation homes and a lumber mill were built along the lakefront, and public access to the lake was diminished.

Making a Park

On August 2, 1948, the Ferry County Board of Commissioners authorized the sale of a 37-acre parcel of county-owned property (part of the original Cash Entry patent of Peter C. Jager) adjacent to Curlew Lake to the Washington Department of Game for $93.29, for development of a public fishing access site.

On January 28, 1955, the Washington State Parks and Recreation Commission (WSPRC) received a resolution from the Ferry County Democratic Central Committee recommending that a state park be established, but no action was taken at the time. On June 24, 1958, after follow-up resolutions were received from local grange organizations suggesting that the fishing access site be turned over to the WSPRC, the Department of Game and the WSPRC concluded an agreement for the use of the land for “state park and recreational area development.”

On July 31, 1958, the WSPRC purchased an adjacent 24.5-acre parcel (the original Cash Entry patent of Frank B. Wilson) from the Republic Chamber of Commerce for $5,000. On May 11, 1959, the WSPRC purchased another 58 acres (the remainder of the original Cash Entry patent of Peter C. Jager) from Fred O. Heckly for $6,000. The park was opened for camping, swimming and boat launching in the summer of 1960.

In 1971, the Ferry County Board of Commissioners asked the WSPRC about the possibility of leasing the eastern portion of the park property on the level grassy surface of the kame terrace for the construction of a runway for a new county airport. Staff recommended approval of the lease, citing the opportunity to provide a new recreational experience with fly-in campsites to be established as part of the development.

The lease was approved on December 17, 1973, with one dissenting vote from Commissioner James W. Whittaker, who said he did not believe an airport was needed in a state park, especially “in view of the current energy crisis and anticipated decline in the use of light planes.” He also doubted that park visitors “would care to see an airstrip in that location any more than they would want a television antenna in a park.”

On October 22, 2012, the leased land was sold to Ferry County for $83,000, allowing the county to qualify for grants to upgrade the facility.

Fish Stories

Ever since its establishment, Curlew Lake State Park has been a favored fishing destination. In 2012, retired fisheries manager Bruce Bolding recalled that “every single adult I spoke to was there because their parents took them to Curlew when they were children and now they are taking their children there to enjoy a family fishing experience.”

Naturally reproducing fish species in Curlew Lake include Northern Pikeminnow, Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass, and Kokanee, the non-migrating form of sockeye salmon. For many years, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) stocked up to 200,000 Rainbow Trout in the lake each year for a “put-grow-and-take” sport fishery.

Tiger Muskellunge, a sterile hybrid of muskellunge and northern pike, were introduced to Curlew Lake by the WDFW in 1998 to prey on the lake’s Northern Pikeminnow, with the intention of controlling the pikeminnow population that had become a threat to salmon and steelhead smolts in the ponded stretches of the Columbia and Snake Rivers. Around 250 “tiger muskies” are added to the lake each year to maintain the population.

Yellow Perch were illegally introduced into Curlew Lake around 2011, and the population increased 500-fold by 2019, becoming the primary fish species caught by sport fishers in the lake.