Simple facts
Where is it? White Tail Butte, Priest River, Idaho [48.411815594, -116.84501960]
What do you see in the photo? Grid-based land management system divides parts of the forest into squares
Who took the photo? Nameless astronaut on the International Space Station
When did you take it? January 4, 2017
This fascinating photo of the astronaut shows a patch of Idaho land that looks like a giant chessboard when viewed from space. The strange pattern comes from environmental initiatives that were about 200 years ago.
Aerial shots show land along the Priest’s River in the mountains of northern Idaho, about 40 miles (65 km) south of the Canadian border. The closest point is the White Tail Butte. This is a bushfire watchpoint at a large bend in the river (almost half along the waterway shown in the picture).
The “Chessboard” is about 5 miles (8 km) at its widest point and contains around 185 squares, but not all of them are shown in this photo. Each square covers approximately 1.4 million square feet (130,000 square meters) and is roughly the same size as the 24 football fields.
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This pattern arises from a grid-based forest management initiative established in the 1800s. According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, alternating squares of wood are being cleaned up, leaving enough trees to maintain the forest ecosystem while new trees are growing.
New trees are then planted in empty squares. Once the tree is fully matured, alternating square trees are harvested and the cycle begins again. This photo may have been taken years after the latest harvest.
This pattern is emphasized by snow and settles on “empty” white square saplings. Checkers will also be displayed during the summer. However, there is a much less distinction between some bright and dark squares, but this will result in different shades of green.
Related: See all the best images of Earth from Space
This photo was taken just before sunset, so some mountains glow, while others are covered in long shadows due to the low angle of the sun.
The Priest River, part of the Columbia River Basin, was previously used to transport timber from the area to sawmills in other parts of Idaho. This was traditionally done through log driving. “Log Driving” contained floating log rafts on the surface of the river. Many people would stand on top and use long poles to redirect the rafts to prevent them from getting clogged.
However, this practice stopped in the 1990s, allowing for more recreational uses on the river.
The logs are transported by road, and if you look closely you can see a faint line of a dedicated trucking road that passes diagonally through multiple squares in the Checker Forest.
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