the river journal, august 2010

Local News • Environment • Opinion • People • Hiking • Veterans • Humor • Politics

August 2010 | FREE | www.RiverJournal.com

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and who will decide?

Is this a fair trade of Public lands for North Idaho?

Osprey Remodel

See story on page 8

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An unexpected life (p 2) BLM land exchange (p 4) New map (p 6) Petfest (p 7) Mobile food bank (p 7) Osprey remodel (p 8)

August 2010Departments12-15......Outdoors16..........Veterans18..........Education20-21......Other Worlds22..........Faith24..........Politics25..........Sandpoint Calendar26..........Obituaries27..........Humor

Editorial 9 Love Notes Teaching news literacy11 Currents Squabble Knob17 Politically Incorrect Tired of racism19 The Hawk’s Nest Lines Creek hike23 The Scenic Route Assimilation27 From the Mouth of the River Varmints-1. Boots-0

Cover: Nastassja Noell, a new writer to the RJ, delved into the complexities of a land exchange that, if approved, would turn

almost 9,000 acres of North Idaho land over to private ownership. The photos on the cover are representative of the types of property to be traded: North Idaho timberlands for southern Idaho foothills land. The story begins on page 2.

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| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 19 No. 8| August 2010

Like most people, Debbie Lyman was introduced to Shakespeare in junior high school and, as a young adult, had a book of his collected plays in the house. She was a fan, but she certainly never expected just how much time—a couple of months each summer, plus other time throughout the year—she would end up spending promoting his work. Debbie, you see, is the community coordinator for the Heron, Montana performance of Montana’s Shakespeare in the Parks, which takes place this year on Saturday, August 21.

Unexpected is almost a theme word for Debbie’s life. Born in Milwaukee, Wisc., she actually grew up in Southern California, where her family moved after her father got a teaching position there. In 1969, she attended the University of California at Berkeley, where she majored in anthropology and met her future husband, Dave Lyman.

“We grew up in cities, and it never occurred to me we wouldn’t live in one,” she said, but nevertheless, after graduation and a trip to the Heron area to help a friend building a house, Dave and Debbie moved onto a 90-acre parcel just out of ‘town’ and there they’ve settled, becoming almost as permanent a part of the landscape as the jagged peak of Sawtooth Mountain, one of Debbie’s favorite views and a signature image for the thousands of people through the years who have gathered on Heron’s ballfield to watch the professional touring theater that, through an outreach program of Montana State University, brings the Bard to the backwoods every year.

Like many who moved to the area in the 70s, the Lymans planned on building a home without benefit of a bank loan, and moved into an old outbuilding that stood on the property while they built. “Having no clue how long anything would take and never having built, we thought we’d have the house done by the end of summer,” Debbie laughed.

The house was, unsurprisingly, not yet complete when unexpected struck again soon after; Dave was badly injured in a car wreck their first winter in Montana.

“That was a life changer,” Debbie said. “There we were: no work and we’d lost our vehicle.” Then Dave, who had worked as a toolmaker before coming to Montana, was hired while he was still in the hospital to make hydro turbines for a local guy.

“We made ‘em in the kitchen,” said Dave. “It was about a 14x14 foot building, with our kitchen and food on one side, and the lathe

and equipment on the other.” At that point, with their house still under construction, an old grain storage shed joined the brood house as their ‘homestead.’

That accident set the direction for their future, leading to a job with benefits that lasted six years. The house was brought to a point in construction where they could move in ‘76 and Debbie settled in to raising the couple’s two children, Jessica and Nick. “I was really lucky, I got to be a stay-at-home parent,” Debbie said.

Debbie volunteered in the schools and in the mid-70s the couple helped others in their community with starting a fire department—Debbie even attended training to become a firefighter. Dave opened a business—IDA—making tools for companies in Spokane and doing small production jobs. And they continued to work on their house, a job that Debbie admits now, “will never be done.” And in 1987 they saw their first performance of Shakespeare in the Parks—The Rivals—at the Huckleberry Festival in Trout Creek.

Dave—who spent three years in college majoring in math before he realized he wasn’t that enamoured of it, and switched to Slavic languages—was a fan of Shakespeare (“a lot of Russian literature is heavily themed with Shakespeare) and the experience stayed with the pair. So when the area coordinator for Shakespeare in the Parks retired (it had moved to Noxon by then), Debbie “rather casually said, ‘I’ll do it’,” and the works of the man who is widely considered as the greatest writer in English of all time became an almost permanent bedfellow.

“To me, the thing about Shakespeare is he wrote to be seen, not read,” Debbie said, and she avers that nothing is a better introduction to, or reminder of, the universal appeal of Shakespeare than gathering on the ballfield with a picnic dinner and a bunch of friends to watch the talented performances of MSIP.

Montana Shakespeare in the Parks is an outgrowth of the outreach provision for Montana’s land-grant universities. These institutions of higher education, funded through the sale of federal lands, are charged with a focus on agriculture, science and engineering, and are heavily involved in serving rural communities. MSIP is the only professional touring company in the state that produces Shakespeare’s plays, and the only Shakespeare company in the country that reaches out so extensively to rural areas. The

Like a Shakespearian play, much of Debbie Lyman’s life

has been “unexpected.”by Trish Gannon

| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 19 No. 8| August 2010 August 2010| The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol. 19 No. 8| Page 3

Heron ‘arm’ of this production takes place in one of the smallest participating towns in the state, and has one of the largest audiences; several hundred people show up each year for the show.

Local tour coordinators raise the funds to pay for and advertise performances, and Debbie and Dave, along with two other families, house the performers while they and a large group also feed them on their Heron leg of the tour.

“We cover a lot of territory,” Debbie explained. She plasters posters and press releases from Trout Creek, Montana to Sagle, Idaho, and play-goers come from areas even farther. Debbie raises around $1,400 each year in order for Heron to host the tour. Those donations, by the way, do not include what’s given on the field, as the field donations go directly to Montana Shakespeare in the Parks.

The best part of the season, for Debbie, “is when it’s all over!” she laughs. Although August is historically one of the lowest precipitation periods for Heron, records still show an average of 1.34” for the month, and Debbie spends the month prior to the show worrying about weather; rain is welcome on any day other than the third Saturday of the month. “When the actors take their final bows, and people begin to gather their things, and the rain has held off, then I relax,” she said.

Another occasional complication is the Festival at Sandpoint, a two-week music festival that starts on the first Thursday of August each year. At times, that means a Festival concert is taking place at the same time as Shakespeare in the Parks. “Luckily, we’re past that for a few years,” Debbie said, pointing out the Festival ends on August 15, six days prior to this year’s Shakespeare performance,

The performance this year is “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a comedy featuring fairies, a magical forest, a love story and mistaken identity. Joel Jahnke, MSIP’s artistic coordinator and a professor of theater at Montana State University, said the play set has been designed so that the “real” world of Athens, where the play is set, will have a monochromatic flavor while the world of the forest will be a “richly textured, magical world that although controlled by the fairies is also a place of danger, of dark shadows, of mysterious things that happen to the lovers when they least expect them.

“I have been strongly influenced by both Disney’s ‘Alice in Wonderland’ and Tim Burton’s new version of ‘Alice,’” Jahnke said. “I’m looking to create a world that is exotic and colorful with just the right amount of mystery and danger to keep it interesting.”

The performance starts at 6 pm (that’s Montana time), and the ballfield is located just behind the community center, right off the main drag. To reach Heron, take Hwy. 200 and, near mile marker 3, follow the sign for the turnoff. Heron is located approximately 30 miles from Sandpoint, Idaho and around 50 miles from Thompson Falls, Montana.

The production is FREE to the public, though donations are gratefully accepted. Attendees are invited to bring a picnic meal and the beverage of their choice, as no food is available on the field. Bring chairs to sit in, and be prepared not only for August’s occasionally tumultuous weather, but for an experience you’ll never forget.


by Nastassja Noell

Say Bye-Bye to Lots of BLM Land in North Idaho?

Companies, a real estate development company based in Eagle, Idaho, wants to build

a 6,000-acre, 17,000-resident planned community in this fast-growing area near Boise, and it wants 815 acres of adjacent land owned by the Bureau of Land Management in order to do it. So what’s that got to do with North Idaho?

M3 is willing to trade the BLM almost 12,000 acres of other land it owns to sweeten the deal, and because proposed land exchanges must be equal, it has identified about 8,500 acres of BLM land in six northern Idaho counties that it would receive as part of the exchange; land it would then turn around and sell to Idaho Forest Group, a local timber company. And, to be sure this version of the deal cannot be turned down by the BLM like their last two, M3 is trying to work with the public to create a widely supported piece of legislation which will congressionally mandate the exchange.

The proposal has its proponents, like the Bonner County Economic Development Council, the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation and Senator Joyce Broadsword, but has also seen significant opposition from both the Kootenai and Coeur d’Alene tribes, who are concerned about access for hunting and fishing. And others such as the Lands Council of Spokane are not ready to jump on board with a full endorsement of the exchange, which removes a large portion of local land out of the public domain in exchange for a benefit to southern Idaho. Bonner County would lose up to 6,208 acres, over half of its total 10,730 acres, of BLM land.

Some who have expressed concerns include the Coeur d’Alene office of the BLM.

“We never expected to exchange all the land in one deal,” says Stephanie Snook of the BLM’s Coeur d’Alene District, the local BLM office. In their 2007 Resource Management Plan the agency developed a list of possible lands for exchange in the district, and M3 has chosen all the parcels on the list for their proposed exchange. “Our [forest management] plan is for 10 or 15 years; these parcels were chosen to meet exchange needs for a long time,” explains Snook. “We wanted to do land adjustments to benefit the people

up here in North Idaho.”

BLM ConcernsFor the BLM district, ideal land

adjustments (exchanges) are local.“[M3’s proposed] exchange might not be

in the public interest for people in North Idaho,” explains Snook. “But the public is not involved yet so we don’t know. There are a lot of steps that have to take place before we are ready for an exchange, and right now this isn’t on our plate.” Due to limited staff and an already scheduled workload for this year, “the BLM has not yet spent any time or effort to verify the availability of these parcels.”

The BLM’s listing process can be counter-intuitive at first, but ends up making sense. Every 15 years each BLM district requests public input and rewrites their Resource Management Plan. During this three- to four-year process, the agency makes a list of lands to retain and a list of lands for possible adjustment. Once the RMP is passed, if the agency is to consider an exchange that involves a parcel on the RMP’s retention list, the agency must spend one to two years attempting to amend the plan, or must have Congress pass legislation mandating that the BLM trade that parcel. (The 815 acres of BLM land that M3 wants to develop near Eagle, Idaho is on the Four Rivers BLM District’s list of lands to retain.) So when the BLM is initially developing the plan they try to include any lands they might later consider giving to townships or other land agencies, or trading with private entities for land that would provide greater benefits to the public. And since the agency doesn’t expect to exchange all the parcels on the list for possible adjustment, they leave the costly process of verifying the availability of a parcel for later, when the BLM decides to do an exchange.

Proponents say the proposed 75 parcels for exchange are scattered and hard to reach, which meet some of the BLM’s requirements for including a parcel on that list of land for potential exchange.

But Snook says her agency is very able to manage these fragmented lands for multiple use, and has been successfully doing so for over 50 years.

“We’re used to managing these scattered lands up north. To somebody else elsewhere”—like down in southern Idaho where the BLM has huge tracts of land—“it looks like it’s not worth keeping, but these lands we have we think are valuable” says Snook. “[They’re] valuable to different people. How do you appraise wildlife habitat, a clean stream, how do you put a dollar value on open space?”

Snook expressed concern that the exchanged land would no longer be legally required to be managed for recreation, fish and wildlife habitat. “There are other values than the dollar value and those are what we manage for,” says Snook, explaining that the agency cuts less timber in elk wintering grounds, and nurtures rare stands of alder; the agency’s focus is not just timber production. “And right now with the timber market being depressed, the value of these lands will be less than it was five years ago, so if M3 has 11,000 acres in southern Idaho, and they want to trade it for 9,000, now is a good time.”

Environmental Concerns

“My big concern is that these northern parcels will be processed without an appropriate level of environmental assessment and by appropriate, I mean site-specific” says Jerry Boggs, an associate of the Selkirk Conservation Alliance of Priest River, Idaho.

“There is a potential, an unknown probability, that some of those parcels contain important habitats, sensitive habitats, rare habitats, habitats that might be part of a corridor used for travel by important wildlife,” says Boggs. “Those potentials can only be discovered by an objective ‘boots-on-the-ground’ evaluation and that would seem to be a time and labor expensive proposition that the proponent would want to avoid given the large number of individual parcels in the northern Panhandle.” Boggs originally found out about the exchange from a presentation given to the Coeur d’Alene BLM District Resources Advisory Council, a broad

M3


interest citizen group tasked with making recommendations to the BLM District Field Manager on projects such as this proposed exchange.

Recently, the BLM’s Coeur d’Alene Resources Advisory Council issued a letter to the BLM District Manager stating that they recommend the exchange go through the normal land exchange process instead of through legislation:

“The Coeur d’Alene district RAC is very concerned over any legislated process involving this exchange. If this proposal continues to evolve this RAC strongly recommends that the process be accomplished through the BLM land exchange process, be completely transparent, and embrace a full NEPA analysis that includes public input.” The RAC is a 15 member council representing wide interests—from local timber and grazing to recreation plus issues for environmentalists, public servants, and tribal officlals; members are reviewed and appointed by the federal Secretary of the Interior.

If the legislated exchange requires that a deadline be met, according to the BLM’s handbook, environmental reviews and other legal obligations do not have to be completed, even if the exchange legislation states that these laws be followed. This happened in the I-90 exchange.

Joe Hinson from the Northwest Natural Resource Group, a Washington based 501(c)3 organization that is facilitating the exchange, has taken these potentialities into account. He says that appropriate environmental review will not be truncated by a timeline; instead the legislation will require the full environmental analysis process be completed before the exchang is allowed.

Despite contrary reports in the press, the Lands Council, a Spokane based environmental group, has only given conditional support for the exchange. “I would say our support is conditional, depending on the outcome of the full environmental analysis,” says Mike Petersen of the Lands Council. “We believe it can make sense to consolidate land into larger blocks, but that the full impacts of what will happen on the traded parcels and their values must be disclosed.”

A full environmental analysis under the National Environmental Policy Act would include the agency’s discretion to decline the exchange if the public and the agency’s specialists find the cumulative effects of the exchange to not be in the public’s best interest. The current form of the legislation does not allow for such discretion, and NEPA allows for legislated land exchanges to be exempt from all or some of NEPA.

“We have said we want a full NEPA analysis,” says Petersen. “We are interested in looking at the whole package and would have to see the legislation before we would oppose or support.”

Public Access IssuesOther folks are concerned the BLM land

in their backyards will become some kind of gated suburban development, or private land that won’t allow tribes or the public access to the land for spiritual, recreational, or hunting and fishing purposes.

Hinson, who has been working with the Kootenai and Coeur d’Alene tribes and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation, is trying to meet these concerns. The current version of the legislation will require that tribal members and the public will have access to the parcels for hunting and fishing in perpetuity.

As far as future suburban developments are concerned, the Idaho Forest Group says it would consider having the legislation require conservation easements on the parcels of land; however the company does not want to pay for development rights and then have the land’s value drop because of the easement. “We’re okay with the limited rights as long as they’re addressed in the appraisal process,” says Bob Boeh, the Vice President of the Idaho Forest Group.

What about the public losing their ability to participate in the land management process as well as their ability to access documents pertaining to actual management practices?

Boeh cited that the public can get involved in modifying the terms of the Forest Practices Act of the state of Idaho, which sets the regulations for private timber management. He stresses the public would get to determine the management practices for M3’s land down in southern Idaho.

Boeh adds that folks who are living near their company’s lands are informed about any future plans. “Part of our standard practice is to contact the neighbors to inform them about what we’re going to do.” Boeh explained that they take neighbors’ concerns and modify their plan for that parcel accordingly. “We always try to be a good neighbor and that’s part of being a good neighbor, letting them know what you’re up to... it’s a long standing practice.”

Economic BenefitsProponents of the exchange say that the

deal will enhance local economic growth by increasing the amount of timber produced on these parcels, thus producing jobs and helping the counties generate more income tax and sales tax revenue.

“Transfer of the (North Idaho BLM) land will allow it to become part of the commercial timberland that will support sustainable jobs in our communities,” said Karl Dye, executive director of the Bonner County Economic Development Corp. “At the same time, we are confident that the Idaho Forest Group will manage this land responsibly, maintaining the wildlife and recreation opportunities offered on these parcels.”

The Lands Council also states they feel the Idaho Forest Group will practice sustainable forestry on the land.

Addressing the issue of what will happen in the future to the land if it is sold to a company who manages the land for short term economic gain, Boeh says “We’re in business for the long term. We own four mills up here; our business is to be here for the long term.”

Additionally, Bonner County may not make more money in property taxes from the exchange. The federal government is required to pay counties $2.40 per acre of federal land under the “Payment in Lieu of Taxes” program, and that is about $.40 more than Bonner County receives from property taxes on commercial timberland. So, from a property tax perspective, Bonner County makes more money from federal lands than from privately held commercial timberlands.

Cumulative EffectsM3’s North Idaho-West Foothill’s land

exchange is not the only proposed federal land exchange affecting the Panhandle; others include the Hope-Sagle Land Exchange and the Upper Lochsa Land Exchange. The latter currently involves 28,212 acres of Forest Service land in northern Idaho, including over 700 acres along Hwy 41 north of Blanchard in Bonner County. One of the requirements of an environmental analysis is to examine the cumulative effects of all land exchanges and use agency discretion to protect the environment if the effects cannot be mitigated by terms of the trade.

“Land trades that are expected to be particularly controversial may... be taken through the legislative route and, as demonstrated by the I-90 Exchange, stopping or changing these proposals can be extremely difficult for citizen activists,” says Janine Blaeloch of the Western Lands Project, a federal land exchange watchdog group. “Even more than administrative exchanges, legislated land deals often sail through with little or no public awareness. ”

To learn more about the which specific parcels of land will be affected, and to view a large-scale map, visit our website at www.RiverJournal.com.


New Map of the Selkirks a Must for Hikers and

BackpackersFrom the Canadian border to Fault and

McCormick Lakes is just over 30 miles, line of f light for a raven in a hurry. But between Upper Priest Falls, less than half a mile south of Canada, and McCormick Lake, some 25 miles north of Sandpoint, Idaho, on the Selkirk Crest, are hundreds of miles of National Forest trails and dozens of peaks and lakes.

Hikers, campers, berry pickers, hunters and fishermen now have a new resource for finding their way around this highly-glaciated, rugged and beautiful place. In the spring of 2010, the Idaho Conservation League, in collaboration with Blue Creek Press of Heron, Montana, produced a map brochure that provides a beautiful and accurate topographical rendering of the Idaho Selkirks as well as critical access information and education about flora, fauna and wilderness. In addition, the brochure describes 13 popular hikes in the Selkirks.

Brad Smith and Susan Drumheller of ICL provided pictures and copy for the project, as well as the map, which was entirely produced

by Smith. Blue Creek Press provided design, production and printing services. The result is an attractive, colorful piece that provides solid information to outdoor enthusiasts, and acts as an outreach piece that ICL hopes will generate awareness and enjoyment of the Selkirks.

“The Idaho Selkirks are a majestic landscape,” said Smith. “If you haven’t taken the opportunity to explore them you’re missing out. This map and guide will help you do that.”

Smith also hopes that this map will serve to create a community of people who care about long-term protections for the Idaho Selkirks. The U.S. Forest Service has begun the process of revising a management plan for the area. The existing plan is twenty-three years old, but recommended to Congress that the Selkirk Crest should be protected as part of an official wilderness area. Congress has not yet acted.

While the proposed revised plan released by the Forest Service would add the treasured Long Canyon to its recommendations, the draft also drops a significant portion of the Selkirk Crest from the agency’s wilderness recommendations, including Fault Lake, Chimney Rock, Beehive Lakes, Harrison Lake, Pyramid Lake, Ball Lakes, Trout Lake, West Fork Lake and the Lions Head—all popular backcountry destinations — many of which are accessed by trails described in the new map brochure.

“Long Canyon is a great addition,” said Smith. “But we hope that people who care about the Idaho Selkirks will ask the Forest Service to enhance or at least retain the existing areas recommended for wilderness designation in the 1987 forest plan.”

You can request a free copy of this map online at http://bit.ly/selkirksmap and ICL will mail you a free copy. They are also available at the ICL office in the Sandpoint Business and Events Center at the corner of Pine and Euclid.

Map Cover, top left: New map from Idaho Conservation League is a great resource for outdoor recreation in the Selkirk Mountains of Idaho.

Photo, left: A group of backpackers labors up Parker Ridge in the Selkirk Mountains west of Bonners Ferry, Idaho (photo courtesy Brad Smith, ICL)

Sam Owen Fire District Pancake BreakfastAugust 14 • 8 am to 10:30 am

Just off Hwy. 200 in Hope, Idaho$5.50 adults/$2.50 children under 12


Pet Fest a Community SuccessThe first Pet Fest, a special event of the

Thompson Falls Market, brought a variety of people to the market. The day started out with Mayor Parks reading the official City of

Thompson Falls proclamation that the last full weekend

in July will now and in the future be officially Pet Fest weekend. A feature of the event

was the Pet Parade which was attended by 40 human

participants and close to 50 pets, including Sheriff Gene’s horse and dog Bear, an unbelievable variety of dogs, chickens, goats, a cat and a bunny in a baby buggy. All participants received awards for such categories as largest pet, cutest

c o s t u m e ,

smallest pet, and most unique pet. Throughout the day Nat Burgess played a

wide variety of music and there was even an impromptu song by Jan Manning, the trainer of the Huckleberry Hounds Agility Club and Dave Oliver the official announcer of the day and the owner of D&D Liquors.

The Huckleberry Hounds Agility Club did a demonstration of the skills that area dogs and their people learn as members of the club. Dr. Mindi Wilson announced the winner of the Biggest Loser Contest, which the Thompson Falls Veterinarian Clinic launched earlier this spring. A food drive for TRACS brought in dog and cat food, plus some cash contributions. The market vendors sold a variety of pet related items including log dog beds, catnip toys, dog treats and toys, dog sweaters and scarves.

The special event, new to the Thompson Falls Market, showed the community does indeed love their finned, furry and feathered friends. “We will definitely work to expand the Pet Fest for 2011. We were all pleasantly surprised at how many people and pets came to the market. There were many new faces all of which had smiles as they watched the demonstrations, petted the different dogs and shopped,” shared Katrina Campbell the market coordinator, “The Thompson Falls market really is a community thing.”

The Thompson Falls Market takes place every Saturday through the end of September (except Huckfest weekend) from 9 am-1 pm on the west lot of the Falls Motel. Upcoming special events include: August 28 Brownie Bake Off, September 11 Tomato Festival and September 25 the Cinnamon Roll Challenge. For information or to sign up for the weekly newsletter go to ThompsonFallsMarket.com or call Katrina at 406-827-3559.

With more people turning to food banks and meal centers for assistance, Second Harvest and Thrivent Financial for Lutherans are bringing a mobile food bank to the Clark Fork area next week.

The free, perishable food distribution will take place from 10 am to noon on Wednesday, August 11 in the parking lot of the Clark Fork Jr./Sr. High School, at the corner of Highway 200 and Main Street.

Area families and seniors in need are encouraged to stop by and receive nutritious food items, including fresh produce and other wholesome perishable items.

The 24-foot refrigerated truck loaded with fresh produce for the area’s hungry, dubbed the “Thrivent Homegrown Help Truck,” represents a collaboration between the Northern Rocky Mountain Region of Thrivent Financial for Lutherans and Second Harvest Inland Northwest to provide produce to under-served communities.

Food will be distributed in a “farmer’s market” set-up. The truck, which holds up to 9,000 pounds of food, is being used by Second Harvest to collect, inventory and deliver produce to the region’s hungry.

About 20 volunteers from Living Water Lutheran Church, Clark Fork Lutheran Church and the Bonner-Boundary County Chapter of Thrivent Financial will assist in distributing the produce.

Nearly 197,000 Inland Northwest residents receive emergency food assistance one or more times each year from Second Harvest’s network.

Many of these families have to make choices between food and everyday necessities such as utilities, rent, medical bills or food. In addition, nearly 80 percent of client households report income below the federal poverty level, and 44 percent of emergency food clients are children age 18 years old or under.

Mobile Food Bank to Roll into Clark Fork

Sundance Realty • Doug WardPO Box 827 • Bayview, Idaho

[email protected]

WILDERNESS PLAYGROUND… Nicley Forested 6.3 acre wilderness retreat on Crystal Peak area near Fernwood, Idaho. Adjoins large parcel of Government Land and is quite private, has nice views and is perfect for all your outdoor recreational needs! ONLY $19,950 WITH OWNER FINANCING

WHISPERING PINES…3 1/2 acres adjoining Government Land near Sasheen Lake in Northeast Washington. Good access, utilities at hand, nicely forested and varied terrain including rock bluffs together with hidden hollows make that make this parcel quite special. $39,950/TERMS

COUNTRY CLOSE TO THE CITY… Very nice 5 acre parcel just a few minutes south of Spokane, Washington. Farmland plus a nice little bubbling brook. Good year-around roads, utilities, plenty of wildlife and views out over the countryside. $59,950 –TERMS

THE VERY BEST THAT NORTH IDAHO HAS TO OFFER YOU !!! 10 acres just off well- maintained country lane near Sandpoint, Idaho. Very nice forest lands, springs and bubbling brook, wildlife everywhere and good neighbors – you could easily get lost on this one as it adjoins large block of timber company lands $69,950 WITH OWNER FINANCING AVAILABLE

NATIVE FISH IN THE CREEK… 10 acre parcel adjoining Government Lands with nice little creek just outside of Bayview, Idaho and Lake Pend Oreille. Good access and hundreds of acres to wander around on – this is an unusual opportunity for all outdoor recreational opportunities and is easy to get to. $79,950-TERMS

CABINET MOUNTAIN WILDERNESS… 45 remote acres tucked away into a mountain valley and completely surrounded by National Forest Lands. Bubbling brook, large spring, good access and nicely treed. Lots of animals including Elk, Deer, Bear, Moose, Mountain Lion, Bob Cat, Ruffled and Blue Grouse and Turkey and, of course, lots of other forest critters. A BARGAIN AT $159,950

JUST ONCE IN AWHILE…At the end of the road but close to town – 25 acres, creek, beautiful forest, large spring, adjoin large timber company holding and a small, cozy log cabin. Very private, serene and really special. $150,000


No one knows how long this particular pair have lived high over Memorial Field in downtown Sandpoint but, given that osprey can be long-lived birds—up to 30 years in the wild—the oldest of these raptors might well have been delighting audiences ever since the Festival at Sandpoint began holding performances on the field back in 1983.

“They’re so vocal they sing along with the music,” observed Chris Quayle, who then laughed. “That’s really anthropomorphizing the birds, but it sure sounds like that to us.” Chris, the jury commissioner for Bonner County, is a raptor expert, though she disputes the characterization (“I’ve been out of the field too long to be considered an expert anymore.”), and has a unique vantage point on the birds that nest at Memorial Field, as she’s been a volunteer in the information booth there for the past 18 years. Appreciative as she is of raptors, she says not all might consider their call to sound like song, but it’s long been music to her ears. “Based on my observation, they really like the symphony,” she said. “At least, they seem to sing along more when the symphony plays.”

If they’re not the original birds, then there’s a chance one of the adults viewed on the field is the offspring of those original birds. Osprey mate for life, and their young stick around for a couple of years helping to raise the fledglings before going off to create a nest of their own. Osprey typically hatch three or four young each year, and both mama and papa help with the raising. That raising includes providing plenty of fish to eat, as fish are the primary component of an osprey’s diet.

Say “Festival” locally and people think of music, but get them talking about the Festival

experience, and before long the osprey stories start to be

told. Having volunteered in

that information booth alongside Chris these past 18 years, I have several of my own.

Given that the osprey at Memorial Field are so habituated to the Festival and its audiences it’s hard, as Chris pointed out, not to anthropomorphize their actions. So I won’t even try to refrain.

Take the osprey that, one year, was returning to its nest with a fresh catch from the river. A packed field, waiting for the music to begin, caught sight of the bird and began to applaud. In response, the bird began to circle the field to show off its catch, triggering a partial standing ovation.

Or the fight between the osprey and the crow over a fish; fascinated watchers staring up at the spectacle will not long forget the rain of fish parts they were showered with.

Or the stories like my own of seeming to be an apparent target of osprey droppings. “You must be lucky,” said Becky Haag, an assistant environmental biologist with the Idaho Department of Fish and Game, who insists it is good luck to be hit with osprey droppings. When told how many times it has happened to me, she clarified, “You must be very lucky.”

Becky, by the way, will be on the field for much of this Festival season, along with her husband Matt (a Dept. of Fish and Game warden and columnist for the River Journal), as well as others knowledgeable about raptors. They’ll be manning an ‘osprey’ booth on the field, where the city is hoping to help raise some of the enormous cost of replacing the field’s light poles a number of which are topped with osprey nests.

“We will accommodate those birds,” said Kim Woodruff, Parks and Recreation Director for the city of Sandpoint. “It’s the right thing to do.”

It’s Woodruff who has the responsibility for maintaining the city’s parks, of which Memorial Field is one, and for maintaining the structures within them—like light poles.

“I brought Fish and Game into the picture to make sure whatever we do helps to maintain our resident osprey,” he said. “They’re a community resource.

“I am so appreciative of the partners who have stepped up to help accomplish this,” he added; “groups like the Festival and the school district, and this awesome community we live in who always step in

to help with what’s needed.”

Look for the “Operation Osprey Tent” on the Festival field or send your check to FAS Osprey Fund, PO Box 695, Sandpoint, ID 83864

-Trish Gannon

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Osprey need a ‘re-model’Funding needed for new light poles at Memorial Field


This month William Love is substituting for his mom, Marianne, while she is on vacation.

I promise you, I am not that bad of a guy even if I am a journalist.

It seems I have to keep reminding myself of that these days because the profession in which I worked full-time for six years and now teach to the students at Sandpoint High School, is seemingly under attack.

Journalists have become a favorite target for politicians and for commentators on cable news networks or talk radio. The argument usually revolves around journalists having an agenda (seemingly always of the liberal persuasion) and practicing “gotcha” journalism.

I don’t pretend to speak for all my colleagues—besides teaching I do some freelance work as a reporter—but most of the journalists I worked with directly are professionals who take what they do seriously and religiously follow the basic tenets of journalism in an attempt to report the truth in a fair and balanced way.

But I also fall into the category of news consumer (a junkie at that) and understand the realities of an industry that changed drastically during my six years as a newspaper reporter.

Technology has altered the role of the reporter and has opened the playing field beyond the traditional media sources. We no longer rely on just our local newspapers or TV and radio station to get the news. Consumers now have any number of ways to get their information—be it from a blog, on social media Web sites such as Twitter or Facebook, or by clicking on agenda-driven news organizations—and in some cases the consumer actually becomes the content provider.

Considering all these avenues, the amount of content available to us is overwhelming.

“There are 20,000 minutes of mediated material available to you every minute of the day,” said Dean Miller, Director of Stony Brook University’s Center for News Literacy. “There are 24 hours of new video uploaded to YouTube every minute.”

As Miller pointed out during an interview, the work is just starting for news consumers when they find the content. Little things I have taken for granted such as understanding the difference between a news article and a column, I am now teaching to the students in my journalism classes. But viewing the media from the outside, I understand why my students—and many adults, for that

matter—can have a hard time determining if the news they are consuming is reliable and if the source is credible.

This past year, for example, IdahoReporter.com started providing coverage on all aspects of state government as well as our state’s congressional delegation. It should be noted that IdahoReporter.com strives for “accurate, fair and complete coverage” in its reporting, according to its Web site. I don’t follow IdahoReporter.com enough to know if that is indeed the case or not, but I see its content—they encourage all of Idaho’s media outlets and citizen journalists to “steal our stuff”—linked to regularly on the Spokesman-Review’s “Huckleberries Online.”

IdahoReporter.com is funded by the Idaho Freedom Foundation, an organization that “advocates the principles of individual liberty, personal responsibility, private property rights, economic freedom and limited government.” Executive Director Wayne Hoffman, who regularly lobbies the state legislature and writes opinion pieces seen in newspapers across the state, told the Associated Press in April that he does not dictate to the IdahoReporter.com reporters what to cover, but he does want the staff to write “from the viewpoint of taxpayers.”

That type of coverage certainly isn’t a new concept in journalism—I will always remember my first boss telling me to “follow the money!” But as the AP story points out, IdahoReporter.com is part of a trend across the country of organizations with political agendas creating and funding news services at the state level. It is an important factor to consider when reading content from IdahoReporter.com or a similar news organization from the left. It should even be considered with content from traditional news organizations or in an e-mail forward from a friend.

In his role at Stony Brook, Miller is part of a movement to make news consumers better news consumers, especially when it comes to information they find on the Internet.

You might be familiar with Miller, who spent 25 years in the Northern Rockies as a reporter and editor. Miller, 49, worked 10 years as a reporter for the Spokesman-Review, for five of which he was based in Sandpoint. (Yes, a long time ago the Spokesman had a full-time reporter and office in Sandpoint.) He helped found Idahoans for Openness in Government and is an Ethics Fellow at The Poynter Institute.

He now teaches the News Literacy course that has become popular on campus, even for students not involved in Stony Brook’s School of Journalism. Miller said the curriculum from the Stony Brook course is being used for similar classes at the college and high school

levels throughout the country, including in Idaho and Montana.

Miller also oversees the school’s Center for News Literacy, which is the first of its kind in the country.

“News literacy is a course that was developed here at Stony Brook in response to people’s fears about what happened to the truth in the digital tsunami,” Miller said. “One of the ironies of the Information Age is that people actually seem to have a looser grip on the truth.”

The course is intended to give students the critical thinking skills to “make judgments, take action and make decisions” when it comes to news content they read, watch or hear, Miller said. That can mean anything from understanding the difference between a news article and a column to recognizing a quote that may be taken out of context.

Miller just had to use a news story that played out last month to show how news literacy works.

“The idea of a news literate consumer is that when you saw the story about Shirley Sherrod, the USDA official,” Miller said, “the 18-year-old who had taken my course would say, ‘Hmm ... What’s the context of that comment of hers?’”

Of course, Sherrod’s comments were later shown to be taken out of context—after she was asked to resign from her position. It is an example that shows even some involved in the industry should consider a course in news literacy.

Love NotesFormer area reporter teaches news literacy

William [email protected]

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Heron, Montana

Saturday, Aug. 21

6 pm (Montana time)

A boat ride around Lake Pend Oreille will show any newcomer why people move here: great water clarity, sparse development on large portions of the shoreline, and an angler’s paradise. But the lake is facing problems. Residents have noted an increase in shoreline algae decreasing the clarity we all enjoy.

Algae has its place in the lake and is the food base for zooplankton, which feed progressively larger fish and eventually the angler and friends. As important as algae are to the natural food chain, excessive algae causes the formation of scum, foul odors, low oxygen in water that can suffocate fish, and unpleasant views.

What does this have to do with shoreline fires? Simple answer: ash feeds algae. Wood ash contains nutrients required by any plants for growth. Burning wood creates about 8 percent ash. The contents of ash are 1 to 2 percent phosphorus and 5 to 10 percent potassium. Here are some facts additional facts about phosphorus, wood, and ash:

One ton of wood produces 160 pounds of ash. 160 pounds of ash produces 2.5 pounds of phosphorus.2.5 pounds of phosphorus produces 1,250 pounds of wet algae.You can prevent algae growth by burning at least 40 feet away

from shore. A thick strip of healthy vegetation between the fire and the shore will ensure no ash blows or washes into the lake. Use a metal fire pit to limit any damage to soil and contain the ash for easy disposal. Watch your ash! A clean lake begins at your doorstep.

-Tri-State Water Quality Council

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The social science question of which most influences human behavior—nature or nurture—is a fascinating subject. To further cloud the issue, I offer the influence of geography.

In a very broad sense it is easy to understand how geography shaped culture. In Mexico’s high valley and the land between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers the perfect conjunction of land fertility and reliable water created the opportunity for agriculture. It is easy to demonstrate that geographical location influences culture; the Inuit didn’t invent farming, they invented tools for hunting walrus.

We seem to think that we modern Americans have reached the apex of development and our behavior is shaped by rationality, not our location. I submit that where we live—our habitat—still affects our behavior in subtle ways.

We attended a wonderful outdoor wedding, set in a flower-filled yard with the Cabinets rising beyond the hay field. Large tents provided shade on this particularly hot day. It was catered by Hope’s Floating Restaurant with great music by the Livewires. The groom, born and raised in Heron, has packed a lot of life and made a lot of friends in his 30 years. The bride has a large loving family and many friends from their home in the east attended the affair. Probably about three quarters of the two hundred or so guests were from out of town and obviously enjoying the beautiful rural setting.

As much as the Washingtonians, Oregonians, and even Missoulians may have been enjoying the day’s festivities in such glorious surroundings, they still carried the tight mistrust that is a result of their habitat. Every out-of-state—even every out-of-county—car parked in the hay field on that hot afternoon had the windows rolled up and were presumably locked. All of the Sanders County cars had windows rolled down and most had the keys in the ignition—in case it had to be moved.

Sure, locking a car is just a little thing, an unconscious good habit. When your location is filled with untrustworthy strangers, you had better learn to lock your doors and windows. Forming this habit, though, takes a certain mode of thought. And the mode of thought becomes a way of life.

Habitat manipulation of behavior can occur quickly. The country kid who has his 15-speed mountain bike (bought with a summer’s bale bucking) stolen on his first day of college, changes his trusting ways pronto. It isn’t just cities, though, that change our behavior.

There is a narrow strip of land tight up against the north facing bulk of Beaver Peak that has earned the local name of “Squabble Knob.” The land was first settled and farmed by Finns who, perhaps being accustomed to dark winters, were not affected by living in the winter shade. Later residents, for the most part, seem to suffer from living under the mountain’s six-month long shadow.

Since the 1970s Squabble Knob has been the scene of a stabbing, uncountable lawsuits, disputes over water, damage to property, and so far this summer, what appears to be two incidents of armed assault. The folks who live along the shade strip, in the words of a long-time observer, “do not play well together,” and at times, that statement appears accurate.

With imagination, one could pretend that the mountain’s winter shadow draws argumentative, aggressive people. But, no, I submit that while the mountain shadow does not recruit jerks, it can create jerks. It can change normal folks into suspicious, combative, difficult people.

One Squabble Knob resident who seems to have escaped the curse of negativity has a fulfilling job in Sandpoint and can afford winter trips to Mexico and Hawaii. While the rest of the Heron community cannot afford to ship Squabble Knob warriors to sunny climes, maybe we should chip in and buy them a bunch of those light doodads that imitate sunshine to brighten their gloomy thoughts and soothe their savage ways.

CurrentsSquabble KnobLou [email protected]


Most everyone has probably heard of the Baltimore Orioles. They are a professional baseball team that plays out of Baltimore, Maryland. And their mascot is—duh—a Baltimore Oriole. Some people know this, too. Even more, the Baltimore Oriole is an actual bird, which spends its summers in the eastern part of the United States, where it is quite common. Some people know this as well. But what many folks around here may not realize is that there is an oriole that calls our neck of the woods home in the summertime, too —the Bullock’s Oriole. Yes, we can boast of our own oriole. Now we just need a ball team to go with our bird. Go Bullocks!

At one time the Bullock’s Oriole and the Baltimore Oriole were grouped together into one specie, the Northern Oriole. They are very similar birds and they do tend to hybridize where their ranges overlaps in the Great Plains. But the alchemists in the ornithological world have determined that they are actually only cousins, at best. Hence, we have Bullock’s and Baltimores. Sounds like a high-end women’s clothier.

Roughly the same size and build of a blackbird, the Bullock’s oriole is an extremely distinctive bird. This is especially true of the male. He is flagrantly colored in a bright orangish yellow, looking very similar to his East Coast cousin—that bird that works for the ball team. Complementing the orange duds is a stylish black cap, a black goatee, and a matching black bandit’s mask. The wings

are also black, but trimmed with huge white patches. Very striking. Here is a gorgeous bird. The female is quite distinctive, as well. She lacks the black highlights on the head, but is mostly bright yellow, though it fades to buff towards the belly. The black is not quite as dark on the back, but the white highlights are still there on the wings.

To me the most remarkable things about the Bullock’s Orioles are the nests that they weave. Large, complex, woven things that look like huge socks hanging from a branch. I recently watched a female Bullock’s working on her nest. How can an animal without hands weave something as marvelous as that? Simply unfathomable. Amazing.

I once saw the remains of a Bullock’s Oriole nest that was woven from blue baling twine. That thing lasted through three winters before finally falling from the tree. But be warned that the nests can be tough to find. First find the bird, then look for the nest.

Bullock’s are not the easiest birds to locate. As with many birds, such as the Gray Catbird I wrote about last month, they might be “common” but only locally. In other words, they are common, but only in their particular habitat. If you want to find a Bullock’s Oriole, look for tall cottonwoods near water. Granted, they will nest in other trees, but cottonwoods seem to be their favorites.

I have never had a Bullock’s Oriole visit my backyard, but my family back in Minnesota use special nectar feeders—similar to hummingbird feeders—to attract the Baltimore Oriole. In addition, people back in the Midwest nail open packets of grape jelly—those individual serving sizes as you find in restaurants—right into the bark of a tree. The orioles love grape jelly. You know that you are in oriole country when none of the diners have any grape jelly packets left for your toast. I kid you not!

Interestingly, IdahoBirds.net, which touts itself to be the “your comprehensive online resource for wild birds and birding in the State of Idaho” states that the breeding of Bullock’s Orioles is “suspected” but not “confirmed” in our area. Really? I guess the Bullock’s Orioles I saw didn’t get the memo.

The Bullock’s Oriole is simply one more of those feathered jewels we have in our area. You might have to exert a little bit of energy to find them, but you won’t be disappointed. Grab the binoculars and head for those cottonwoods, the taller the better. You know where I am talking. But once you discover them, you’ll be amazed. And why wouldn’t a local baseball team not proudly call themselves the Bullock’s Orioles? Happy birding!

A Bird in HandBullock’s Oriole - Bright, beautiful and bold

Mike [email protected]

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I had a refreshing break from my job duties when I attended

the North American Wildlife Enforcement

O f f i c e r s A s s o c i a t i o n annual conference in Pittsburgh,

Pennsy l vania during the third

week of July. I’m a huge Steelers fan

so it was an added bonus to be in Black

and Gold Country! NAWEOA is a conglomeration of wildlife

officer’s associations across North America, representing almost all 50 states and provinces of Canada with approximately 8,000 members. The association began at a meeting of 16 Wildlife Officers from the U.S. and Canada in Great Falls, Montana in 1980. Other associations for wildlife officers existed; however, this was the first to actively solicit membership from all officers in North America. Idaho was one of the founding fathers of NAWEOA and we continue to be one of the more active officer associations in the group. This year we sent eight officers from across the state to represent Idaho.

Each year a different state or province hosts the annual conference to allow wildlife officers to exchange information and for the hosting agency to show off their home jurisdiction. In addition there are some valuable training sessions; for example we attended classes on man tracking, field forensics, and electronic surveillance, etc. For side trips some of us traveled the countryside taking in the beauty of hardwood forest, corn fields, and the Amish

folk. We all visited the Flight 93 crash site and subsequent memorial to the 40 souls on board that flight during one of the worst attacks on American soil since Pearl Harbor. Aboard that flight was a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Agent by the name of Rich Guadango and it is believed he was instrumental in stopping United Flight 93 from crashing into its intended target of the U.S. Capitol.

We had the honor of attending the memorial and dedication of Pennsylvania’s game land to the United Flight 93 passengers and Agent Rich Guadango. There were over 500 wildlife officers plus family members attending the dedication that has named the 660-acre tract of woods and riparian areas as PA Game Land 93.

Following the dedication we participated in a 5k run, known as the Torch Run, in honor of wildlife officers in North America who gave the ultimate sacrifice on the job—their lives. A total of 80 conservation officers, game officers, games rangers, game wardens, or conservation police officers have lost their lives in North American protecting our natural resources.

Each NAWEOA conference has a day where the game wardens of each state or province go head to head in a competition known as the Game Warden Skills Game. It’s a grueling but fun rivalry that involves utilizing our everyday jobs skill to compete such as shooting, trapping, swimming, wildlife identification, and others that you could imagine. At the conference in Pittsburgh this year there were 21 teams and I’m proud to say the Idaho boys took home the first place trophy!

While I enjoyed the Torch run, the memorial service, and winning the Game Warden Skills Competition, my favorite part of the conference was being with other game wardens from across North America. Knowing that conservation officers from Wisconsin, Mississippi, or New Mexico are going through the same budget woes, and the same on-the-job frustrations is eerily

comforting and somewhat motivating to get back to our patrol areas and do our jobs, and do them well.

The weather prediction for this weekend has temperatures in the 90s, summer might finally be here. If you’re like me, I enjoy summer but really cry like a baby when it comes to oppressive heat. Some might say “Matt, 90 degrees is not oppressive.” Well, it is to me and that drives home my point. Don’t let the heat take away from your outdoor activities. It’s a great time to grab the kids and head for a mountain lake, the temperatures will be cooler, and the berries might be ripe.

In your travels let me know how your berry patch is doing this year. I have noticed a pretty spotty outlook on huckleberries; some areas are doing well while others look pretty bleak. My friend accused me of trying to locate his huckleberry honey hole, and like I explained to him: I’m trying to monitor berry supplies for the bears. That way we can determine areas that are going to have bear problems more than others. Besides, he must not be that great of a friend if he’s not sharing his berry patch.

Get those kids outside for some mountain lake fishing and berry pickin’! But please leave some for the bears.

LEAVE NO CHILD INSIDE.

The Game Trail

Matt [email protected]

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One important aspect of estate management is issues which pertain to the urban/suburban wildland interface,—those areas where human habitat comes in contact with the “wild land—otherwise known as life in the woods. A main issue is protecting your estate against danger from wildfire.

Given that the fire danger is rising as the weather gets warmer and dryer, land owners should think about minimizing their loss from wildfire, which is a normal and inevitable part of ecosystems here in the Inland Northwest. I was amazed by the results of wildland surveys which I have performed which included fire history studies. These surveys showed that wildfire frequencies ranged from every seven years in some habitats to well over a hundred years in others, depending location and topography.

Generally speaking southwestern slopes tended to burn quite often, about every 20 years on average, but with a fairly low intensity. Because of the high frequency of these fires, the underbrush and ladder fuels (fuels which allow a fire to move from the forest floor into the forest canopy) were minimized and so these fires tended to burn along the ground, and caused little if any damage to the forest and stimulated grass/perennial plant growth. However, on the north slopes and in the more moist, shaded draws, fires tended to burn much less frequently, perhaps every 80 to 100 years or more. But when they did burn, they tended to be much more destructive to the forest. They were stand replacing events which can be quite healthy for the mountain ecosystem as a whole. Stand replacing events such as fire, insects, epidemics and logging are a necessary part of providing food for the critters of the Inland Northwest, especially the ungulates, which tend to eat brush, herbaceous plants, grasses, etc… These plants tend to need full sun and open areas to thrive in.

Over the last 80 years or so the state and federal fire agencies have done a wonderful job of putting out those wildfires but in so doing have inadvertently set up a situation where the southern slopes have accumulated a lot of unburned fuels and the northern slopes have grown extremely dense and also collected a massive amount of unburned fuels.

Add to that the fact that many more folks are recreating in the wild lands and are not too smart with fire. Then throw into this mix all of us who want to live in these rural areas and we now have huge potential problems, for when fires do break out, they are much

harder to control, burn hotter, may move faster and tend to cover more ground than has been historically the case.

With an ever-increasing density of human habitat, namely houses, shops, barns, etc… those who live in these wildland interface zones need to take precautions to minimize the risk of burning up.

From the onset of building a home in the wildland interface, there are certain building material choices a land owner can make which will greatly reduce the odds of his home burning down if wildfire encroaches. Now I

love the look of log, cedar siding, cedar shakes and the like, and have chosen to use some nice cedar decking too, but obviously those are some of the most flammable products you could choose to build with. So know that if a wildfire encroaches on your land, you are at a higher risk of losing the home. Those are the choices and risks we must make in deciding on building a home.

There are, however, many other products on the market for building which are far less flammable and some of which are downright inflammable. Metal, Class-A asphalt shingles, slate or clay tile are the best choices for your roof which tends to be the part of a home which is most susceptible to catching fire. It would even be prudent to construct a fire-resistant sub-roof for added protection.

For siding, products like hardy plank, stucco, stone or masonry are much less flammable, albeit perhaps less attractive, and be aware that vinyl siding tends to melt when heated.

Even the size and materials used for windows can be a way of reducing the risk of fire damage. Smaller panes hold up better in their frames than larger ones and tempered glass is a real safe bet. Also, be aware that plastic skylights melt when heated and you may want to consider using glass.

Vents should be covered with wire mesh which is no larger than 1/8 inch, to prevent sparks from entering the interior of the home. Keep gutters and roof clear of accumulated debris and clean out from under decks each season. It is not a good idea to keep firewood stored near the house either as a good wood pile tends to generate a tremendous amount of heat when burning. Avoid attaching fencing to the home or deck as well, but if you have that condition existing consider putting a non-flammable barrier between.

Landscaping is of paramount importance

and if your home is already built it may well be the best thing you can do to minimize fire hazard. You want at least 30 feet around your home which is relatively fuel free and defensible. This would include it being easily accessible for fire trucks and having adequate irrigation or water outlets available for each side of the house.

Landscaping should consist of less flammable, lower growing plants and shrubs, preferably well spaced out from and not in contact with the house or decks. Trees should be few if any in this zone or at least out away

from structures and most importantly not hanging over the roof or in contact with the exterior walls. Any trees which are around the home should have the lower branches pruned up at least six feet and consider putting a fire resistant ring around the base such as stone. As you move out away from this first thirty

foot minimum protection zone and out about 100 to 150 feet you still need to remove accumulated fuels, minimize shrubs, prune up trees and thin out the forest, so that trees are well spaced and less likely to carry a fire close to the house or outbuildings. It is a good idea to also have a lot of hose lay, which can be strung out into this wider area, in case spot fires flare up around the home. Wildfires can send flaming embers a mile or more out in front of the main forest fire, if wind conditions are right.

No matter what you do, when you live in the Mountain West, especially in the woods, you and your stuff are in danger from wildfire but you can minimize the danger. Statistically you are still in way more danger from driving your rig or crossing the street. But given that just about every square inch of this land has burned and will burn again, it is prudent to take some steps to minimize your susceptibility to loss. Be smart and don’t put it off again this summer. Get out there and enjoy your yard, while you minimize the fire danger.

Land Management

Michael [email protected]

Mid-summer fire reminder

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...wildfire frequencies ranged from every seven years in some habitats to well over a hundred

years in others...


The use of life jackets or personal flotation devices cannot be over emphasized.

More than two-thirds of boating fatalities result in drowning, and 90 percent of these drownings could have been prevented had the victim been wearing a life jacket. This item is by far the most important safety equipment on your boat, but still many boaters fail to use it.

The importance of wearing life jackets is illustrated by our policy that all Marine Deputies in Bonner County wear their life jacket anytime their patrol vessel is underway—not only for their safety, but to set the right example for the boating public. So beware—if you fail to carry life jackets on your vessel, you will be cited ($94 fine)!

Life jacket requirements are quite simple. All vessels (anything that can be used for transportation on the water) must have a wearable life jacket that fits, is in serviceable condition, readily accessible, and Coast Guard approved for each occupant. In addition, if the vessel is 16’ or longer, it shall

have a Type IV (throwable) on board (except canoes and kayaks). Also, children 14 years of age and younger on board vessels 19’ or less must wear an approved life jacket when the vessel is underway. Lastly, those riding on personal watercraft and those being towed behind a vessel must also wear their personal flotation device.

While we recommend that boater always wear a life jacket when underway, there are times when it’s particularly important. First of all, night time! If one ends up in the water in darkness, it’s too late to find and don a life jacket. Unless you already have it on, your chances of survival are not good—especially in cold water. Secondly, bad weather! When stormy weather approaches, make sure your life jacket is on. Lastly, any time you are out in a small open boat (canoe/kayak/paddle board) always wear your life jacket.

This is the last article in a series on boater safety that started last April. Unfortunately, on July 3, we had a terrible boating accident that took the lives of two of our young county residents. This accident was preventable—if only existing regulations and safe boating practices were followed! Be safe out there on the water!

Marine PatrolKeeping your head above water

Lt. Cary [email protected]

WHAT IS YOURPHOSPHORUS PHOOTPRINT?Phosphorus (P) is the nutrient that inexcess threatens the health of ourbeautiful Lake Pend Oreille. It feedsinvasive plants, clouds water clarity,and robs oxygen from fish. You may beunknowingly adding excess phosphorusto the lake. What is your PhosphorusPhootprint? Find out by taking this short quiz, and learn how you can minimize your Phootprint.

A CLEAN LAKE BEGINSAT YOUR DOORSTEP!For more information and the entire Phootprint Quiz, please visit www.tristatecouncil.org. This message brought to you by the Tri-State Water Quality Council “Working together to protect water quality in the Clark Fork—Pend Oreille Watershed.”

Phosphorus quizWhat is the width of the vegetative buffer between your home and the closest water body?

(a) Over 60 ft (b) 30 to 60 ft (c) 15 to 30 ft (d) 5 to 15 ft (e) Zero to 5 ft

When you burn on or near the shore, how close is your fire to the high water mark?

(a) No burn pile (b) Greater than 60 ft (c) 20 to 60 ft (d) Less than 20 ft (e) Below the high water mark

Which response best describes the conditions where you burn?

(a) No burn pile (b) Lined or contained behind healthy vegetation (c) Unlined or uncontained behind healthy vegetation (d) Lined or contained burn pit close to shore (e) Unlined or uncontained close to shore

What do you do with any ash that is near the shore? (a) No ash near the shore (b) Compost site farther away from water (c) Scatter or mulch on your property away from shore (d) Pile on your lot without consideration of distance from water (e) Leave the ash near the shore

•

•

•

•TOTAL SCORE: 0 - 10 points = Tip Toe11 - 20 points = Flip Flop21 - 30 points = Phat Foot31 - 40 points = Sasquatch

SCORING:(a) = 0 points(b) = 2 points(c) = 5 points(d) = 8 points(e) = 10 points


For the last few issues I’ve spent most of these pieces talking about mesothelioma and its impact on the lives of veterans—maybe too much so as it is a depressing topic to dwell on. If anyone has been exposed to asbestos and has been diagnosed with either mesothelioma or asbestosis there isn’t really much that can be done in the way of a cure. The only real alternatives are to 1) join the various class action suits against the companies or industries that use that insidious mineral or 2) work real hard on your ‘Bucket List’. I, for one, would start on my personal ‘Bucket List’. There are many, many things that I would rather be doing than making some lawyer wealthier.

I cannot undo my past history. My exposure to asbestos dust in 1962 is a fact. If there is asbestos in my body it cannot be extricated by any means currently available to the medical profession. Accepting those facts are difficult but are a reality that must be dealt with. Therefore, I would choose to spend whatever time is available on doing those things that I have put off. I would not say “someday I’ll do this or that.” I would say “Let’s go do this or that tomorrow.” For instance, I’ve lived here in North Idaho for over 30 years and I’ve never been to Glacier or Yellowstone Parks. My reasons are the usual lame excuses. We’ll do that when the kids are out of the house. We’ll do that when we are retired. My personal favorite is, When we have more money. Life is much too short and we are dead much too long to be putting things off.

Entirely too many things go undone because of these lame excuses. How many times have you said to yourself, “I can’t go fishing (hunting, sailing, skiing, hiking ad nauseam) today because the lawn needs mowing?” Much of life is wasted—yes, I said ‘wasted’—doing things we think need to be done when in reality it is an option and not a requirement. Yes, we need to honor any commitments we make. But no one will think less of us if we meet those commitments and still do things we want to do. Having said all the above I’ll now move on to new items.

One of the bennies of having been asked to contribute to the River Journal is that I get to wander around the Internet looking for things that I think may be of interest to local veterans. One of the things that I saw recently was about grave markers for veterans who died after November 1990.

Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki announced that the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) is offering bronze medallions to attach to existing, privately purchased headstones or markers, signifying a deceased’s status as a Veteran.

“For Veterans not buried in a national or state Veterans cemetery, or those without a government grave marker, VA is pleased to offer this option that highlights their service and sacrifices for our country,” said Secretary Shinseki. The new item can be furnished instead of a traditional government headstone or marker for Veterans whose death occurred on or after 1 NOV 90, and whose grave in a private cemetery is marked with a privately purchased headstone or marker. Under federal law, eligible Veterans buried in a private cemetery are entitled to either a government-furnished grave marker or the new medallion, but not both. Veterans buried in a national or state Veterans

cemetery will receive a government headstone or marker of the standard design authorized at that cemetery.

The medallion is available in three sizes: 5 inches, 3 inches and 1.5 inches in width. Each bronze medallion features the image of a folded burial flag adorned with laurels and is inscribed with the word “Veteran” at the top and the branch of service at the bottom. Next of kin will receive the medallion, along with a kit that will allow the family or the staff of a private cemetery to affix the medallion to a headstone, grave marker, mausoleum or columbarium niche cover. More information about VA-furnished headstones, markers and medallions can be found at http://tinyurl.com/273j3c4 . VA is currently developing an application form for ordering the medallion. Until it is available, applicants may use the form for ordering government headstones and markers, VA. (Veterans Administration press release)

It may not be a piece of earthshaking news but it is a small step in better recognition for those who have served. I appreciate any small tidbit that indicates someone in Washington DC realizes their job is secure because of what veterans have sacrificed.

On the ‘Agent Orange‘ front more ships and units have been added to the list presumed to have been exposed to Agent Orange during the Viet Nam war. (Please visit our website for the complete new list of ships.) If you served on any of these mentioned ships and you have had a claim denied, you should reapply citing the VA list as the source for your reapplication. It appears that there is also a third list in the works. If you have a claim and evidence the ship you served on was in Vietnamese waters and/or actually tied up to a dock there, make sure you include that with your claim.

With this update on Agent Orange it seems that I’ve reached my goals for this month. I have to save some stuff for future articles. Take care and be good to yourself.

Veterans’ NewsWhere the numbers come from

Gil Beyer, ETC USN [email protected]

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The River Journal - A News Magazine Worth Wading Through | www.RiverJournal.com | Vol 17 No. 18 | November 2008 | Page 5

increase nutrients, such as nitrogen and

This septic pilot project is being introduced in order to comply with water quality standards as determined by the Federal Clean Water Act. Designated to protect water quality, the plan, known as a “Total Maximum Daily Load” for Lake Pend Oreille, addresses nutrient issues

In addition, many lakeshore homeowners participated in a survey in 2007 concerning a variety of water quality issues. As is turns out, their

Council website at tristatecouncil.org.

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At last year’s Festival at Sandpoint, thousands of people were charmed by the infectious, energetic performance of the Matsiko Children’s Choir, a group of young singing, dancing, at-risk children from Uganda drawing attention to the plight of youngsters in their country.

Not all were charmed, however. One couple left early in the performance, which was the opening act for Poco and Firefall, the kick-off to the 2009 season. Walking out the front gate, the couple were overheard to comment, “Niggers! I can’t believe they have niggers on the stage!”

Yeah, there’s still some bigots around.I was reminded of this when I heard a

story just the other day of a young man—who happens to be black—entering a downtown Sandpoint retail business who, upon being spotted by the (owner?), was blatantly ignored until he finally gave up and left the business.

I was born in Chicago, a town with its own long history of racial tension, and my parents were hillbillies, one from Texas and one from Tennessee. It would not be surprising to many to learn that my upbringing was steeped in racism, yet it wasn’t—somehow my parents managed to raise their children to be almost color blind. When my little ‘sister’ Chrissie went to kindergarten, she came home quite irate, asking “Why didn’t you ever tell me that black people were different than us?,”—a ‘knowledge’ that had apparently been shared with her by either her teachers or her classmates.

Racism has been much discussed of late in light of the incident in which a black government employee was the target of a video slice-and-dice ploy to make her appear a racist herself; only this time, it was the all-powerful black woman exercising power over those poor, defenseless white guys.

That’s not to say reverse racism doesn’t

exist: that was also demonstrated to me during last year’s Festival at Sandpoint, just one night after that oh-so-offended couple walked off the field. “You guys are all right!” That’s what I thought the lady said who came up to the information booth during the lull between performances. “Thank you,” I replied.

She gave me a rather strange look, then said to me, “No. You guys are all white!”

It was my turn to look dumbfounded.She expanded. “Your performers, your

volunteers, the people on the field. You’re all white!” It was obvious she wasn’t simply making an observation; this was in the nature of complaint.

Overlooking the irony of the Native American standing in the booth just behind me, I mentioned to this lady that the Festival was not as ‘white’ as she was assuming. I shared with her the performance of the Matsiko Children’s Choir of the night before, and found myself, defensively, wanting to list every person of color included in the almost 700 volunteers and staff who are involved in putting together each year’s concert season.

And then I stopped. It was obvious this lady didn’t want to hear that her observation might be less than accurate, and she certainly didn’t want to hear that yes, the people staffing most events in this area are predominantly white because this community is predominantly white as well. Fact of life, honey.

I, for one, am glad that the Festival has remained color blind in the sense that I was raised: they simply don’t notice the race or nationality of the people who descend on the field each and every year to make this event come off. And they certainly don’t take note of the race or nationality of the performers—black, white, Mexican, Chinese, Canadian, Irish, or Jamaican—by booking acts to fill in some type of culturally appropriate check box. Instead, they simply book acts that perform great music, regardless of their color, which means they book a great variety of races. Perhaps none of the artists reflects this cultural mix better than this year’s performer, Michael Franti, who was “born to an Irish-German-French mother and an African American and American

Indian father in Oakland, then adopted by a Finnish American couple,” (according to his website).

Too often the arguments on both sides of the divide of racism not only have nothing to do with reality, they have nothing to do with achieving a better world. They are just about one person bitching and moaning about the world around them. In the midst of all this venting, people aren’t interested in hearing truth.

In the earlier mentioned Shirley Sherrod video—the real video, not the edited mashup put out by conservative Andrew Breitbart in order to, presumably, not just discredit Sherrod (a black government official) but to discredit that other black government official, the President of the United States—she suggests that racism was invented as a way to keep poor people divided, unable to join together to address the very real issues they face while trying to achieve the “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” promised by our Constitution.

I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know it’s working. While we distract ourselves with the chimera that our skin color somehow makes us different from each other, we continue to deposit our hard earned money into banks too big to fail; continue to elect people to represent us who are too busy making sure they get their next handout from the lobbyists to actually do the work of representing “we the people;” continue to ignore that “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is becoming more difficult to achieve every single day. And we continue to do nothing about it but bitch about the wrong things.

We need more events like the Festival at Sandpoint that showcase the talents of groups like the Matsiko Children’s Choir to remind us of our melting pot of cultures and races, an inspiration to other countries for hope. By focusing on ignoring black men in businesses, scoffing at underprivileged youth from Uganda, and editing videos of black women in politics, white people are discrediting the great country we live in.

As that Irish/German/French/African American/American Indian has said, “A child is born and a momma’s torn about the life that it’s bound to live. A sun and moon, and a modest home is all they asking the Lord to give. But politics and big events, they never seem to notice the little guy. So make a plan or hold a hand but don’t ever be a passer-by.”

The reality of this bright and wonderful America we live in today is that racism is alive and well, and while bigots can be found just about everywhere, with skin of every color, most of the racism that exists today is directed by white people against people of color.

It’s time to stop. It’s way past time to stop.

Politically IncorrectFed up with racism

Trish [email protected]

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And they don’t have to—after all, don’t we Americans believe if it’s ours, it’s ours and we can do with it what we want? Or

is and we want it, then

you have to give it to us and if you don’t, then you sponsor terrorism and we’ll

By the way, China wants that oil as well. Remember China? The people who loaned us all that money? China’s oil consumption is around 6.5 billion barrels a year, and is growing at 7 percent every year. It produces about 3.6 billion barrels every year. Does this math look good to anyone? Can anyone other than Sarah Palin and George Bush believe we can drill our way out of this problem? Anyone who doesn’t think we better hit the ground running to figure out how to fuel what we want fueled with something other than oil probably deserves to go back to an

: I could go on forever, but you’ll quit reading. So one final discussion for the American public. First, let’s have a true, independent analysis of what happened on September 11, 2001. The official explanation simply doesn’t hold water. This is one of those “who knew what, when” questions that must be answered—and people/institutions must

Speaking of accountability, you might be surprised to learn that I would not support an effort to impeach President Bush after the November elections. First, because that’s too late, and second, because more than Bush have been involved in crimes against the American people. What I would like to see are charges (at the least, charges of treason) brought against Bush, Cheney, et al. Bring the charges and let’s let the evidence of

They have ‘slipped the surly bonds of

earth’ and ‘touch the face of God.’

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Friday lunch at 12:15

It seems like everywhere I go during the summer months I am asked by community members if I am enjoying my summer vacation. They are surprised to learn that school district work continues throughout the summer for me and many other staff members. I am afforded a vacation like many private business employees but by and large work continues, only with a different focus. Across the district the summer months are the best time to complete a number of important tasks. What follows is a sampling of the work that typically goes on every summer.

During the month of June all secondary schools breathe a sigh of relief after a safe and successful graduation ceremony. Increasingly, graduations occur during the second week of June, and school for other students typically winds up several days later. It is a time for teachers to finalize grades, principals to finalize staff evaluations, and begin planning for the next school year. This includes ordering of supplies, curricular materials, and staffing. For most principals and some teachers this work takes until the end of the month to complete.

Our custodial and grounds staff springs into action shortly after school ends for students. With 11 schools and several other facilities, there is much cleaning to be done. Deep cleaning includes vacuuming and shampooing carpets, waxing floors in hallways, classrooms and gymnasiums,

wiping down blinds, reworking bathroom parts that receive constant usage, safety checking HVAC systems, check in and delivery of orders, and maintenance of school grounds. Beyond those routine tasks there is opportunity for painting and special projects that typically extends into Labor Day weekend.

Some members of the Child Nutrition staff remain very busy providing meal service at Farmin Stidwell Elementary, City Beach, SWAC and other locations as part of the USADA food services program. These are extremely popular programs for students and for many provide the primary meal of the day. This year the district partnered with the Bonner County Library system and Girl Scouts to provide learning opportunities with the meals.

Accurate budget work is imperative in this economic climate. The budget cycle begins with the adoption of the new budget by June 30. The district’s fiscal year begins on July 1. As a result, budget development work reaches a fever pitch prior to adoption date.

The remainder of summer provides time to “close out the books,” order material through the district office’s accounting system, and accept delivery of textbooks, paper, and other supplies into the warehouse until staff return in August.

The Technology Team works all summer cleaning, refreshing, and updating computers. Any new work such as the addition of software, SMART Boards, or projectors is done all summer. The five staff members who do this work spend the summer booked solid on these projects. The amount of work in this area has grown exponentially the past few years.

From an instructional standpoint it is the time of year we analyze student test results, identify strengths and areas for improvement, and then plan staff development and strategies to improve student and staff performance. It is an opportunity to look critically at the work of the district and build plans to make the learning experience for our students more productive. Many staff return by mid-August to begin their work and it is imperative that plans be in place.

In short, summer is a great vacation time for our students, but for much of the school district it is a time to get ready for another great year of learning. It is a bit quieter since 3,600 smiling faces aren’t roaming through the buildings. But we know that when fall sports practices begin in mid-August, those familiar faces will return expecting the best of us.

Focus on EducationDistrict busy while students re-charge

Dick CvitanichSuperintendent, [email protected]

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We were just over half way around the three-mile loop, deep in the St. Joe Ranger District, when Linda, a few steps ahead of me on the trail, stopped and said “Oh look.” There it was, a steel and iron ghost from the past. Broken and rusty, a derelict left in the woods, the old steam locomotive leaned against a tree.

We had started the day from our camp on Marble Creek just upstream from Donkey Creek. The twelve-mile drive to the trailhead on Forest Service roads had been a breathtaking trip through dense fir and pine stands on steep canyon walls. We drove past expansive views from hundreds of feet above Eagle Creek and across pristine mountain meadows sprinkled with red, yellow, white and purple wild flowers, and small, unnamed seasonal streams and ponds.

It was midmorning of a rather warm day so, as expected, we didn’t see much wildlife, but the sights, sounds and smells were robust.

As we drove we found several camp sites for future trips, even more isolated than where we had spent the last couple of nights. One was next to the road were it crossed Lines Creek. It was also our trailhead.

We were in the “Joe” to see the giant cedars in the Hobo Cedar Grove, but also discovered several historical trails that needed our footprints. One was the Lines Creek Historical trail, considered easy to moderate, and it stimulated our “what’s-over-there-itis” which is never quite dormant in us.

In the early Twenties, the call of the White Pine had brought hundreds of lumberjacks and a few women to the area.

At the head of this stream, about a mile and a half from where we started, they had built an incline line.

With trekking poles, some fruit and water we headed out. As expected, there were huge stumps with springboard notches three to four feet off the ground. Below the trail were the remains of a flume dam. Where the pond once was, a brushy field grows out of the silt deposits. There were remains of a fire in 1922 and old log chutes.

After about an hour of leisurely hiking and exploring and just before the trail crossed the creek, we saw the remains of the incline line. The “line” was a narrow gauge railroad going straight up the side of the hill. Cars loaded with fresh cut logs were attached to an inch and five-eighths steel cable pulled by two steam donkeys at the top of the hill. At the top the cars were sent down the other side still attached to the donkey for control.

The incline is not part of the trail we were hiking. Buuut, a serious case of “what’s- up- there-itis” got us bad. So, up we went. Partially buried cable was ever present on, or crossing, the path or, sometimes, wrapped around a tree stump. Big pieces of iron and steel hardware, strewn along the side of the grade, reminded us of the history we were walking through. Rusty barrels leaned against trees while spikes, bolts and bars stuck out of the ground. A recent blowdown dropped on it caused the only turn in the track. Otherwise, it was straight up the hill.

We climbed and rested, then climbed and ate fruit, then climbed and drank water, but regardless of what else we did, we always climbed. The value of switchbacks was an obvious lesson we were experiencing.

Finally, at the top was our reward with views of West Elk Peak and East Elk Peak

from the edge of a jagged rock cliff. We also got a good look at the incline down the other side, but just a look satisfied us this time.

We had climbed over a thousand feet in slightly more then three quarters of a mile. We enjoyed a short rest with some more fruit and water before we started back down the way we came.

As a side note, just below the top we crossed the road; you know the kind you drive on. This is not a good time to question our intelligence.

Back at the bottom we crossed Lines Creek and continued on the trail, a little tired but still gripped with “what’s-around-the-bend-itis.” It was just around the bend where Linda spotted the old locomotive. The only thing left was the cab and boiler, an inglorious end to a once powerful engine that had carried tons of logs, now a relic of scrap iron and boilerplate, being held up by a tree whose parents and grandparents it had hauled away.

Around another few bends were the sixty foot tall remnants of a trestle. These timbers had supported trains 140 to 150 cars long, each car weighing 60 tons or more; now they lean precariously on each other. The only thing they can support now is each other.

The trail ended where it began, an easy hike, if you don’t do the incline, but with the incline came a deeper understanding of the history.

I may sound impressed, even excited about these relics, and I am. Yet their environmental consequences are not lost on me. Allowing mountain streambeds to fill with silt due to poorly planned dams, and erosion from putting a trail straight up a steep hill, have left scars that will last longer than the iron and steel that is rusting away under the trees.

Still, I hope this part of the historic trail will serve a lesson also. These practices were not thought through with future generations in mind.

There was a time when I would get angry over activities from days gone by. Today I know that I can’t get angry enough to change anything that was done. So I look with the same fascination of an archeologist studying another culture, the same fascination of a historian studying the past, and I hope to learn for our grandchildren’s sake. Not put my judgment on it, just observe and learn with today’s knowledge.

I also hope to learn to check the map for roads before I start up an incline line.

The Hawk’s NestLines Creek - Serving a lesson

Ernie [email protected]

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While researching this column—which began life a number of years ago as a book of area ghost stories and unusual phenomena—some questionable reports have also surfaced. Some are rumors, some are folklore, some may be real and some are... probably made up, though not by me. Some are fairly recent while some go back years. A couple appear to be reporting stories that I have already related on this page, only from a different perspective, such as my Careywood encounter of a year or so ago.

I do not vouch for the veracity of these accounts and will point out what is likely wrong with them due to, possibly, having very few details.

SANDPOINT 947Early twentieth century phone numbers,

especially in rural areas like North Idaho, were something like SP947 or whatever and required a third party, an operator, to make the connection. In the old movies or period pieces set in cities, you often see a character picking up a phone and saying, “Connect me with Underwood 235” or something similar.

This brings up a fourth-party account that someone within the last decade, an acquaintance of a friend of a relative of the person I talked to (yes, not very reliable, but I did warn you) supposedly received a phone call with only an eerie sound coming through the small speaker of their cell phone. Over the next few days, the person reportedly received several more calls of the same nature. Finally, they thought to hit *69. The first time, the recording came back that the last call was either out of the area or marked private and could not be handled by the service. On the third try, however, the recording stated: “The last call came to you from...” and then there was an unusually long pause until a different female voice said, “Sandpoint 947.”

No more crank calls came to the person’s cell and they forgot about it until relaying it to the person I heard it from. Now, while I cannot vouch for this number (don’t call me), these types of numbers, from what I’ve gathered, were used in the period of time from pre-World War I to the late ‘20s, when some direct dial began appearing in the ‘30s.

Fact or Fiction

with Lawrence FuryShadowS

ThEValley of

Editor’s note: one reason to question this story is simply that *69 is not a service available on a cell phone.

Ghost Whisperers and the Northern LightsFor a number of years, one ghost hunter’s

research tool has been an old-fashioned tape or cassette recorder. Perhaps more recently there is more modern equipment used in a graveyard to allegedly record the voices of spirits if left running on or near a grave.

A pair of former... friends, for lack of a better term, were out watching the Northern Lights one summer night in August of ‘98 when they decided to go up to Pinecrest Cemetery for a better view, where the lights of town wouldn’t wash out the natural spectacle. The other suggested that while they were there, why not try recording the voices of ghosts as he had heard on the late night radio program, “Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell.”

Arriving about 9 pm, they started their battery-powered cassette deck, placed it on one of the older graves, and then stood leaning against their car for an hour watching the Northern Lights until the tape ran out. Playing the tape once they got home, they claimed they could make out phrases such as, “Where am I?”, “Help me,” and the like. A week later, one of them played it for me, but mostly what I heard was the sound of the breeze hissing, with what did sound like faint, scratchy voices heard from several rooms away, but I was unable to make out words. Knowing these characters, concocted is most likely what it was.

I have healthy skepticism and believe what I heard was for my benefit. As for others claiming recordings such as these are valid, they are too easily manufactured and, in my mind, of no use in exploring the other side, if one exists.

The Strange CarFinally, straight out of an old “Andy

Griffith” episode, a tale of a likely paranoid Sandpoint in the 1950s during the Cold War that hit its peak this decade and spawned a number of psychological phenomena. The fear of nuclear war triggered an interest in UFOs, ghost rocket sightings in northern Europe and movies of the period such as “Invasion of the Body Snatchers.”

Like the old “Andy Griffith” episode, where

a shoe salesman, a stranger in town, morphed into anything from a Russian agent to a being from another dimension, something like that happened here in town, according to an old acquaintance of my family. Though in this case, no person was seen.

My parents, who married in the early ‘50s, were preoccupied with their new marriage, after which my brother and I came along over the next several years and they paid no attention to this matter.

I heard the story in my mid-teens, and do not put it out of the realm of possibility. But while entertaining, it is likely a tall tale.

The highlights are that in 1954, a black Lincoln drove through town. While not unheard of, this was unusual in that the windows were heavily tinted so that you could only see the silhouette of occupant(s) with something light-colored behind them. Another odd feature was that while the vehicle criss-crossed town any number of times, it never stopped, at least not in daylight. It was as if whomever was driving was surveilling the area.

The car was seen only one day, but over the following week or so, some store owners allegedly reported that there were signs of break-ins. The odd thing, though, is that nothing was stolen.

My neighbor couldn’t tell me if anyone had checked the car’s plates, but my guess is that it was a tourist just interested in the town, possibly as a place to live, and they were merely getting the lay of the land. I hardly suspect Russian agents, or a being from the netherworld, was scoping out the then-booming timber industry, or one of the many corner grocery stores.

As for the break-ins, who knows, but they could easily be explained by thrill-seeking kids who, at that period in history, were less malicious than many are now and wouldn’t think of actually stealing or doing damage.

On the other hand, it is reminiscent of my account “An Unusual Day in April” from last year.

More “Fact or Fiction” along with “The Vampire Doctor of Page Hospital” coming up through the rest of the year, along with another “Shadow Science.”

Proverb: “A lie told a thousand times does not make it the truth.”

Kinnikinnick

Part 1


FilesFromThE of The River Journal’s

SurrealisT Research BureaUThe Third Man Phenomenon by Jody Forest

Museum now open with Summer HoursTuesday - Saturday, 10 am to 4 pm • 611 S. Ella, Sandpoint • 208.263.2344 • $3 adults/$1 age 6-18

When Joshua Slocum, the first person to sail single-handedly around the world in 1895, fell ill on his ship Spray, he was doubled up with cramps caused by food poisoning. and went below, collapsing on the floor in pain. He recorded what happened next in his book, “Sailing Around the World.” (1900)

“I lay there a long time, delirious, and when I came to realized the sloop was plunging into heavy seas, but looking out the companionway, to my amazement I saw a tall man at the helm; he would’ve been taken for a pirate in any part of the world and I wondered if he’d come to cut my throat but he seemed to divine my thoughts and doffed his cap and said, “Senor, I mean you no harm. I am one of Colombus’ crew, the pilot of the Pinta come to assist you. Now lie quiet, you have a fever but you’ll be all right tomorrow.”

The phantom pilot told Slocum the source of his food poisoning (cheese and plums) and kept the Spray on course through the heavy seas. When Slocum awoke the next day the

phantom pilot had gone and “the Spray was still heading as I had left her and was going like a race horse. Columbus himself could not have held her more true.”

Slocum’s experience is a prime example of what has come to be called by researchers the “third man” phenomenon. It gets its name from Shackleton’s experiences in the Antarctic, when he and his companions were positive that an unseen companion accompanied them on their adventures to safety.

The experience is most commonly reported by high altitude mountaineers or by miners trapped underground for long periods of time by cave-ins. Out of scores of such accounts I’ll relate just one. In Sheppton, Pennsylvania in August of 1963, three miners were trapped by a cave-in. One was killed immediately, but Dave Fellin (58) and Hank Throne (28) survived for three weeks in a small alcove.

After they were rescued Fellin requested psychiatric care and press releases and stories began to circulate about visions and hallucinations they had experienced. Horrified at the glib way they were deemed as ignorant and fancy-prone, the men refused to answer any more questions or give interviews. However, on the first anniversary of the cave-in, the two men gave a lengthy, live radio interview to radio station WAZI in nearby Hazelton, detailing a fascinating glimpse into a parallel world.

The two mens’ visions began in the day following the cave-in. A glowing figure appeared on the cavern wall. Dave kept quiet about it for fear he was imagining things, so Hank was the first to point it out. Next came what they termed “the linemen,” whose foreheads held funnel-shaped pulsing waves of light rather than a steady beam. To Hank they seemed like ordinary guys wearing

miner’s lamps and utility belts, unrolling wire from a big spool. Hank asked them to bring some light into the cave and the two men agreed that the light filled the cavern. “It was bluish, sort of like steam.”

At that point a huge, white marble staircase in the cave, 12 feet wide, appeared and rose steeply out of sight. Hank wanted to climb the steps but Dave held him back, afraid it would mean their deaths. Hank began to hammer on the steps and the vision disappeared, but three “linemen” appeared with a book on which were inscribed the names of dead miners. Hank and Dave were overjoyed to find their own names weren’t listed, and the men knew then they’d eventually be rescued.

Other mystery “helpers” appeared “who seemed to glow with unearthly light.” The men “walked into a beautiful garden filled with angelic beings.” They recognized people they’d known who’d died. Finally, three weeks after the cave-in, the two miners were pulled alive from the rubble.

The “third man” phenomenon has been widely reported throughout history. For more information, you can simple Google “third man phenomenon” and a few sites of interest should pop up. You can find Joshua Slocum’s account of the phantom pilot in his book, “Sailing Alone Around the World.” The Pennsylvania miners’ story can be found in “The Angels of Cokeville” by John Ronner (1995).

‘til next time, all homage to Xena!

Who is the third who walks always beside you?When I count, there are only you and I together

T.S. Eliot “The Wasteland”

There’s Hope if you need physical

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Don’t be afraid. Jesus told his followers many times

not to be afraid. And they had a lot to be afraid of. I often wonder what that encouragement from His lips must have looked like, and how it was received. I think by understanding what He came here to do, to give me peace and life, I can get fairly close.

In the early first century Jerusalem, the holy city of the Jews, was under Roman control. This had to have been very hard but it was at least stable. Repeated uprisings, however, led to the final Roman sacking of Jerusalem and the horrible bloodshed that ensued.

When Jesus told his followers “Do not be afraid” He could see the future destruction of the city, and the people, just 40 years or so into the future. He understood they would be dispersed and their homeland changed forever. He knew many, many of them would die. This was an earthly event coming to His beloved, his Body, and He was trying to encourage her to place her faith somewhere else apart from an earthly king. The warnings, in the end, were understood to be not only for the Jew, but for the ever accumulating Jewish Christ Followers, and not only for the first century believers, but the Christ Followers in the days to come.

The world we live in today is very different from the first century, but it has

all the violence and then some, including dangerous challenges to Christ Followers. This is scary, and uncertain, but the remedy for the day remains the same. In that, nothing has changed. But I won’t see this truth unless I put on a different set of glasses. Faith glasses!

Without my Faith glasses, I can only see death and destruction of people, of the earth, of homes and businesses, and of stable leadership in the world. Pretty bleak really. But if I put on the Glasses of Faith, I see something very different.

Don’t be afraid. I have overcome the world.

My perspective has changed. I see not only wicked leaders but a broken world deeply in need of a Savior. I see not only robbers, rapists, and child molesters, but broken people in need of healing for body, soul, and mind. I see not only a damaged landscape but an entire planet just waiting to be restored to its former beauty by its Creator. Jesus is the remedy for the Human condition on all levels. He is the only remedy.

This world, and humanity, is in bad shape. But Jesus has made a way to redeem it. The planet is in rough shape too. But The Lord has a plan for its redemption as well. Isn’t that good news? One need only accept His plan and run with it! Soon, everything is different. Hope abounds and the love of God for His Creation, His love for us, is evident everywhere! In this place no matter what happens those who call Him Lord will live in peace and hope, not fear, because He has overcome. All His Followers need do is live out what He has already done. And that is good news indeed!

Clark Fork Baptist Church

Main & Second • Clark Fork

Sunday School............9:45 amMorning Worship............11 amEvening Service...............6 pmWednesday Service.........7 pm

Call 266-0405 for transportation

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Kathy’s Faith Walk

Kathy [email protected]

Don’t be Afraid

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Eight of us went to the wilderness, though we all often thought that we were nine. I’d turn to count us, strung out across a talus slope or gathered around an

evening fire, and consistently come up one short. So, I’d take inventory: Jake, Matt, Jared, David, Aaron, Haas, Leslie, me. All accounted for. Only eight.

Others on this adventure confessed they did the same. “I thought there were nine of us,” one would say, and we would discuss the missing, invariably concluding something similar.

The eight of us were a rolling microcosm of art and observation: Two painters (Jared Shear and Aaron Johnson), two film makers (Matt Stauble and Jake Glass), a sculptor (David Herbold), a writer (me), and two “civilian observers” (Jared and Leslie Haas).

Seven and a shadow make eight. Nine makes the shadow. As for the ninth, an old adage might be paraphrased: there are

no atheists in wilderness, either. Something is there, a presence that lives in the rocks and water and sky above, filling the silence with its essence. In the wild, we breathe it in and bathe in it and are renewed. Even as the topography we clamber through daily chips away at our endurance and resolve, we are rebuilt and strengthened.

In this wild place we wandered through, the heart of the proposed Scotchman Peaks Wilderness, going is tough; what isn’t up is down. Forest Service trails disappear, elk trails lead on; and elk are not held to the vague rules of human trail construction. They take the easiest-for-an-elk route available, and easiest is often not easy.

Our first day—seven not-so-measly miles from Ross Creek Cedars to the divide between Ross Creek and Blue Creek—we hiked six hours, with intermittent moments of rest and observation that filled another three. A few of us wondered just what we had gotten ourselves into, including me, who should have known, having been in this place with 40 pounds on my back before.

Laboring up a 45-degree slope late that day, came the impression that the seven folks sweating behind me were hoping that I would fall over dead so they could rest while deciding what to do with my body. But, I didn’t. And we all made it to the top, and gratefully pitched our tents in the rays of a lowering sun.

The painters painted. The sculptor sketched. The film makers filmed. The writer wrote. The observers observed, reminding me of a couple visiting a gallery or museum, stopping in front of each piece of art or diorama and making quiet comments to each other.

“What do you think of that?” I imagined them asking. They would laugh, then, and move on to the next observation opportunity. I’m sure the adjective “crazy” was used more than once.

And we might have been, but in a good way. The wild replaces the insanity of the “real” world of wars, worries and the Web with crazy thoughts of abiding peace and freedom. That’s one of the reasons I go there. It is the reason I go there.

Five days and four nights. The first day tries to turn you back. The second day makes you wish it was day five. On the third day, though, the past and the future fade into the background and you are ushered into the now. It no longer matters when you are as much as it does what and where you are. What you thought you couldn’t do yesterday, you do without thinking, except considering the next step and the magnificent place you are stepping through.

Hike, eat, sleep, marvel. Repeat. Make the next 100 yards, the next 100 feet of vertical, the next 15 minutes, the next ten steps, the next breath. Repeat. Do what you think you can’t do. Repeat.

By day four, you have lost your doubts as well as ideas about personal capability. It ceases to matter whether you think you can or not. You just do it. Instead of thinking about the bills waiting at home or your state of employment or what the rest of the world thinks of you, you think of how to navigate a tag alder jungle, or scoot down a cliff on a goat trail, or where to put your foot on that next rock in a field of a hundred-thousand rocks. You get down to just being.

This is, I suspect, why prophets like Moses, Jesus and Mohammed went to the wilderness. To get down to being. To commune with that ninth member of our party. To strip themselves of all concerns except the next 30 seconds. To rediscover themselves and renew their faith in their own abilities and what they believed. To assimilate themselves.

On day five, I woke hungry and in that feeling was the knowledge that if I had more food I would stay another day... or two... or three. The wilderness had assimilated me. Us. And the ninth member of the party. We had become one.

At the end, we came apart like any good molecule—grudgingly—like electrons flying off in different directions to be captured by other nuclei; home, jobs, family; social responsibilities. The ninth member of the party followed each of us home, as if we hadn’t been home all along. It will draw us all back, I hope, to each other and to that wild place where we were welded together by wilderness.

The Scenic RouteWelded together by wilderness

Sandy [email protected]


As I have mentioned in previous articles I am one of Idaho’s legislative representatives on the Pacific Northwest Region.

PNWER is a public-private partnership chartered by the states of Idaho, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, the Canadian provinces of British Columbia, Alberta, Saskatchewan, and the Canadian Yukon and Northwest Territories.

PNWER provides a cross-border forum for dealing with issues of economic and environmental importance to the Pacific Northwest region on both sides of the border.

The organization’s goals are to:• Promote greater regional cooperation.• Enhance the competiveness of the region in both domestic

and international markets.• Leverage the region’s influence in Washington D.C. and

Ottawa•Achieve continued economic growth while maintaining the

region’s natural beauty and environment.PNWER provides results on regional issues through action

plans formulated by more than 14 working groups. I am Co-Chair of the Energy II working group along with Paul Manson, President of Sea Breeze Power Corporation.

PNWER just completed this year’s Annual Summit on July 20 at Calgary, Alberta. During this annual summit fourteen working groups met and developed action items to pursue over the course of next year.

The Energy II working group addressed the increasing emphasis on renewable energy (such as wind and solar) as a priority in meeting the region’s electrical energy needs and the increasing need for additional transmission facilities to integrate renewable energy production into the regional and international transmission grid.

Steve Wright, Administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration, has stated, “integrating renewables is the challenge of our time!”

A large amount of this renewable resource is wind and our Pacific Northwest region will be attempting to integrate over 4000 Megawatts of wind in the near term and the challenges associated with integrating this resource to provide a reliable and firm energy supply are significant.

Most significant is the challenge to our regional and international electric transmission system. Our session included a roundtable discussion with legislative energy chairs, provincial ministers of energy and private sector energy representatives focusing on the transmission challenge.

This included a discussion of the non-firm nature of wind. The wind does not blow all the time so we attempted to address what actions might be helpful to “firm-up” our region’s wind energy resource.

This included a discussion of what transmission facilities might be needed, what electrical storage options are available and are energy exchanges across jurisdictions a viable option?

Given that any strategy for firming up wind-power “requires additional transmission facilities the question of “how do we overcome obstacles to construction of new facilities?” became a major part of the discussion.

Cross jurisdictions and bi-national permitting has become a real challenge with different permitting processes within the individual jurisdictions that is even more complicated by federal regulations in both countries.

PNWER has no legislative authority but its success in dealing with regional issues has been through its ability to provide the public and private sectors a cross-border forum for unfiltered dialog that can result in other responsible entities developing legislative or corporate actions to solve regional issues.

Given this our working group developed the following PNWER action items to pursue over the course of next year:

1. Promote increased cooperation among regulatory bodies by inviting regulatory agencies to meet with policy makers at the PNWER meeting in November to discuss: (a) How to allocate the cost of integrating, balancing, firming and capacity ownership of renewable resources. (b) How do the regulators make their decisions within the context of other regulatory decisions made elsewhere in the region? (c) What are the obstacles they are concerned with and suggestions they might have for new legislative solutions.

2. Invite members of the National Renewable Energy Laboratories (NREL), the Northwest Independent Power Producers Council (NIPPC), and the Independent Power Producers of British Columbia (IPPBC) to have a dialogue about a Renewable Energy Exchange at the PNWER winter meeting.

3. Initiate a dialogue within the PNWER region on what mutual benefits the region has in transactions with California.

These actions will be pursued over the course of the next few months in an effort to help solve some of the region’s concerns in utilizing renewable resources in meeting our region’s electrical energy needs. There are significant issues and challenges in meeting our energy resource needs, but by public and private entities working together we can solve these issues and challenges.

Thanks for reading and as always please contact me with issues of concern. My mailing address is P.O. Box 112, Dover, Idaho 83825 and my home phone is 208-265-01233.

George

A Seat in the HouseAnnual Energy SummitGeorge EskridgeIdaho Dist. 1B [email protected]

Rodeo Aug. 20 & 21 7 pmEnter exhibits Aug. 22 & 23Fair Aug. 24 - 28Market Animal Sale Aug. 27 at 6 pmFair Derby Aug. 28 at 7 pm

DON’T MISS IT!

at the Bonner County Fairgrounds

208-263-8414www.co.bonner.id.us/

fairgrounds

FIESTA FAIRat the


SANDPOINT EVENTSDOWNTOWN

SANDPOINT EVENTSAugust

5-15- Festival at Sandpoint (Memorial Field)13- Sandpoint Yoga Fest (Memorial Field)13- Wine Tasting & Eagle Watching Cruise, departs dock at Sandpoint City Beach (LakePendOreilleCruises.com)13-15 Artists’ Studio Tour (Many downtown galleries. Get map at arttourdrive.org)14- Celebrate Life Fun Run/Walk. Starts at Dog Beach, 9 am. Visit Bonner General Hospital for more information20-21, 27-28- “Death of a Small Town” Sandpoint Onstage (208.263.2083)26- Meet the Bulldogs BBQ Picnic (High school sports teams) Memorial Field.

September19- Scenic Half Marathon(Scenichalf.com)PLUS:Farmer’s Market Wednesdays from 3 to 5:30 and Saturdays from 9 to 1 at Third & OakSummer Sounds - Free concerts at First & Cedar from noon to 2 pm every Saturday

Winery Music - Live music every Friday night at Pend d’Oreille Winery (cancelled during the

Festival at Sandpoint)Open Mic Blues Jam every Monday night at Eichardt’sTrivia every Tuesday night at MickDuff’s.

Visit www.DowntownSandpoint.com for a complete calendar of events

DI LUNA’S207 Cedar St. • 208.263.0846

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Open weekends starting at 8 am

World Cuisine Night

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Coffelt Funeral Home, Sandpoint, Idaho.

Get complete obituaries online at www.CoffeltFuneral.com

Lakeview Funeral Home, Sandpoint, Idaho.

Get complete obituaries online at www.LakeviewFuneral.org

Eva Mae Cutler, 84, a long time resident of Sandpoint, died Wednesday, July 21, 2010 at Valley Vista Care Center. Look for a complete obituary online.

EVA MAE CUTLER

Irene M. Shreffler Withers. Born Fairfield, Neb. Married Fred Radonski in 1950 (widowed). Married Buster Withers in ‘58. Moved to Sandpoint in ‘68 and Athol in 2002. Chamber volunteer, truck driver and worked at Pilar’s Restaurant. Mother of three.

IRENE WITHERS

Andrew David Petrina August 7, 2008-July 23, 2010. In his struggle with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, Andrew touched and blessed our family and many, many others. We will always cherish the memories of his sweet personality and that full

head of beautiful, curly hair.

ANDREW PETRINA

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal

-from an Irish headstone

Barbara Jean Ulrich McCrum October 11, 1921 - July 11, 2010. Born Sandpoint, Idaho. Married Pat McCrum in 1944. Worked at Bi-Rite Drug, Bargain Supply and Emerald Maintenance. Mother of three. Memorial donations may be made to Bonner Community Hospice, PO Box 1448, Sandpoint, ID 83864.

BARBARA MCCRUM

John Darby Campbell, July 6, 1979 - July 3, 2010. Born Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. Grew up in Sandpoint and Park City, Utah. Bachelor’s degree from UC Santa Barbara, worked as an assistant producer in television.Amber Acacia Coffman Campbell, Aug. 5, 1975 - July 3, 2010. Born in

Los Gatos, Calif., grew up in Sandpoint and Bonners Ferry. Accredited aesthetician and spa therapist, co-owner of Wildflower Day Spa in Sandpoint. Darby and Amber were married Aug. 4, 2007 and divided their time between Sandpoint and Maui, HI. They were killed in a tragic boating accident on Lake Pend Oreille. Memorials may be made to surfrider.org.

DARBY & AMBER CAMPBELL

Marjorie Elizabeth Lee Wheeler, January 8, 1923 - July 5, 2010. Born in Pasadena, Calif. Married Robert Wheeler in 1940; the pair worked in fruit sheds in Colfax, Calif. Retired. Moved to Sandpoint in 2001. Memorials may be made to The AGAPE Cafe, PO Box 609, Sandpoint, ID 83864

MARJORIE WHEELER

ROBERT “BOBBY” MOORECAROL SARGENTCarol Ann Johnson Sargent August 4, 1945 - July 25, 2010. Born Spokane, Wash., attended U of I, a successful hotel manager, realtor and college instructor. Married Joel Sargent 1978. Traveled with his naval career, moved back to Sandpoint in 2007. Active in bringing dialysis treatments to the

area. Stepmother of two. Carol was a fifth-generation Sandpoint gal. he Family suggests that memorials may be made to the American Diabetes Association, the National Kidney Foundation or to the Mark Twain Museum.

Lillian E. Reynolds Linscott August 24, 1917 - July 15, 2010. Born Broadus, Mont. Moved to Kootenai, Idaho in ‘38, married Muriel Linscott in ‘39 Iwidowed). Cooked at Kootenai School. Married Norman Linscott in ‘70. Active in 4-H, mother and stepmother of five. Memorials may be made to the Bonner Community

Hospice, PO Box 1482, Sandpoint, Idaho 83864.

LILLIAN LINSCOTT

James Arthur Weinand September 21, 1933 - July 13, 2010. Born in Ray, ND, moved to Sandpoint in 1933. Served with

the U.S. Air Force in Korea. Returned to Sandpoint, worked for Pack River Lumber and was a police dispatcher until he retired in ‘84. Father of two. The family suggests memorials in

James’ honor be made to the charity of donor’s choice.

JAMES WEINAND

Ralph Larry Galloway Dec. 17, 1947 - July 7, 2010. Born Coeur d’Alene,

Idaho. Served four years with the U.S. Navy in Vietnam. Worked as a millwright in North Idaho and drove truck. Retired April of this year. Married Francis Symons 1974. Father of three.

RALPH GALLOWAY

Iris Fern Veach Hines. Born Red Deer, Alberta, Canada. Crossed the border at age 2, received U.S. citizenship in the 1960s. Married Arthur Hines in 1941 in Sacramento, Calif. Homemaker, mother of five and licensed vocational nurse. Moved to Sandpoint in 1986.

IRIS HINES

Kaitlin Lee Price-Williams January 31, 2008 - July 11, 2010. Born in Sandpoint, Idaho. A curly, red-headed spitfire, she had just learned to say “I love you” and she said it a lot.

KAITLIN PRICE-WILLIAMS

Robert “Bob” W. Farmin November 19, 1933 - July 24, 2010. Born Spokane, Wash. Grew up in Sandpoint. Married Dorothy Warren in 1954. Bachelor’s degree in business from U of I. Worked in sales and moved back to Sandpoint in 1960. Purchased and managed Sandpoint Furniture until 1984.

Father of four. Memorial donations may be made to Bonner Community Hospice, PO Box 1448, Sandpoint Rotary, PO Box 134, or the First Presbyterian Church, 417 N. Fourth Ave, all in Sandpoint, ID 83864.

ROBERT FARMIN

Phillip Durbin. October 4, 1918 - July 2, 2010. Born in Tulsa, Okla. Worked for CCC. Served in U.S.

Navy, WWII and Korea. Retired 1957 as Chief Torpedoman. Married Goldie Brewan in 1942. Moved to Kootenai, Idaho in November, 2008

PHILLIP DURBIN

Christopher Michael Therien Sr October 29, 1952 - July 8, 2010. Born Corvallis, Ore. Grew up in Priest River and

Clark Fork. Served U.S. Army during Vietnam conflict. Returned to Clark Fork. Married Eva Rehn (divorced). Worked for the railroad. Memorial

donations may be made to the Disabled American Veteran’s Ch #15, 211 S. Lincoln Ave, Sandpoint, ID 83864.

CHRISTOPHER THERIEN SR.

Wenzell Edward “Duke” Armstrong, September 21, 1930 - July 22, 2010. Born Mankato, Minn. Served in the U.S. Army as an aerial photographer. Married Carol Stoff in 1953. Received his degree

in veterinary medicine. Semi-retired and moved to Sandpoint in 1983. Father of five.

WENZELL ARMSTRONG.

Adele Lillian Lyons Wilds December 16, 1919 - July 11, 2010. Born in El Paso, Tex. and raised by an aunt in Albuquerque, NM. Married Kenneth Wilds (divorced). Moved to Dallas, Tex. in ‘59. Worked as a computer programmer for Texas Instruments for 25 years and for Zales Jewelers.

Moved to Sagle in 2006.

ADELE WILDS

Juanita Drake Quigley August 6, 1912 - July 21, 2010. Born in Larned, Kan. Worked as a candy maker and owned a store in Lebanon, MO. Moved to Cocolalla in 2004. An inveterate volunteer. Married Luther Quigley (widowed) and Amos Gentry

(widowed). Mother of three.

JUANITA QUIGLEY

Lorraine Arndt Chambers May 16, 1923 - July 23, 2010. Born Fargo, ND. Married James Chambers in ‘55 (widowed). Moved to Sandpoint in 1988. Longtime volunteer at the Sandpoint Senior Center. Mother of five. Memorials may be made to the Sandpoint Senior Center, 820 Main Street, Sandpoint,

Idaho 83864

LORRAINE CHAMBERS


What a spring, huh? Temperature in the forties with a lot of rain; in fact, I thought it would never warm up or dry up enough to go fishing. Of course, with all that rain and the temperature staying where it was, it was just right for the grass to do its thing. Every time it would stop raining long enough I would mow the lawn and our grass got greener and thicker. When it finely stopped raining and the sun came out nice and warm, we had the best looking lawn in the county. Our lawn has natural contours and slopes with dips and swales and when it’s freshly mowed its beauty is something to behold. Neighbors stop by and drool with envy, always commenting on its appearance.

One of my favorite times of the day is when I sit out on the patio in the early morning with fresh coffee and just take it all in as the sun breaks over the mountains shedding its golden light across the newly mown lawn. Robins are usually busy extracting large night crawlers so big they have to cut them into pieces just to haul them off for their fledglings. The male black-headed grosbeak sings so loud it’s hard to hear all the other birds over his beautiful voice. It just doesn’t get any better than this.

I guess it was about four mornings ago while taking this all in and wondering what all the rich folks were looking at when suddenly my eyes fell upon something that looked much like a large pile of brown cow manure right in the middle of my lawn. I squinted my eyes to no avail and finally curiosity got the best of me so I set my coffee down and went to inspect the eyesore in the middle of my perfect setting.

“Oh my God, it’s a gopher mound! Where did he come from?” I asked myself, while looking around to see if there was any other evidence of a gopher mound on the place. Turns out there wasn’t.

“Well young man, this just won’t do. What if the neighbors drove by and saw what a mess you have created?” I went straight to the woodshed to retrieve my trusty gopher trap all the while convicting this little lawn criminal to death by strangulation. Cleaning the lawn of the unsightly pile of dirt, I carefully set the trap, leaving just a hair trigger to snatch his life away. Satisfied that Davy Crockett would be proud of my expertise at trapping woodland creatures, I carried on with my day’s activities.

I returned in the evening to do away with this lawn villain and clean up the mess it had made. Much to my surprise the trap had not been touched, but just four feet away was a new mound of gopher dirt. OMG. This just won’t do. Back to the woodshed to

retrieve one more trap. Carefully I set it as instructed, all the while bringing up insults under my breath about his mother as well as the rest of his family.

The next morning while the coffee was perking I went to inspect my trap line. Holy feces! Another mound of gopher dirt, and just two feet from the last one! That’s it. This has got to stop. Those gophers can’t outsmart me! I grabbed my garden hose and stuffed it in the latest hole and turned it on full blast. You think water boarding is unusual punishment, try this. I went for coffee. When I returned water was starting to appear out of the hole. Standing with my arms folded and sipping coffee while I watched the water start to surface at each additional hole, I let it run. When all the holes ran water equally I held my breath as long as I could knowing that little varmint couldn’t hold his as long as I could,

And then I shut the water off. I proceeded to fill in all the holes and clean up the mess. End of story.

Next morning while having my coffee, I couldn’t believe my eyes. A new hole had appeared with an even bigger mound of dirt. How did he escape the water boarding? I called my neighbor Windstone.

“Bring up your weed burner,” I said, “We’re gonna gas the little SOB.” We hooked the weed burner to a propane bottle, stuck it in the last hole and turned it on.

“How long should we let it run before we light it?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I never blew up a gopher before,” I said. “But remember what happened on the Fourth of July in Chipmunk Falls when that feller blew up his septic tank. We don’t want that to happen to our yard.”

“Well, that’s maybe enough,” he said, “Let’s light it and see what happens.” We turned the propane down to a safe lighting speed and touched it off.

“Stand back everyone. This gopher is about to meet his demise. He will come out one of them holes like he was shot out of a rocket.” Sticking the weed burner in the hole we expected a loud boom. Nothing.

“I guess we didn’t put enough gas in the hole for it to blow up,” I declared. “Okay, this time we’ll fill ‘er up.” After letting the gas run for an extended amount of time, plus

two minutes, we decided it was time to try again. Everyone ran for cover as I reached as far as the weed burner would go after I lit it. As the lit burner reached the hole, everything we expected to happen didn’t. We all stood there sorta dumbfounded. The torch was burning in the hole but there was no explosion. I knew the gas had saturated through all the gopher’s underground runs but what I didn’t know was the ground was too porous to contain the gas.

“Hey, you geniuses, look at this,” Lovie said. “The lawn is on fire.” The entire route of underground gopher trails was leaking gas and was now burning with pretty blue flames. Not just the holes but the entire trails that circled our lawn.

“I’ll get the hotdogs,” she said running for the house laughing like a crazy person. Returning instead with the video camera she exclaimed, “Home videos here we come, this has got to be a winner.”

Windstone started running for home and yelling over his shoulder that he couldn’t be seen on national TV associated with these kinds of people; it would ruin his image as an acclaimed opera star to be caught doing something this stupid.

“Well, why didn’t you mention the word ‘stupid’, before I lit the torch?” I said. There I stood, out standing in my field, leaning on my shovel and watching the flames slowly go out. We now have a burnt out circle of dead grass that encompasses a large portion of our lawn. As for the gopher, he has added three more holes to our yard and has PETA filing charges against me, claiming cruel and unusual punishment towards woodland creatures.

From the Mouth of the River

Boots Reynolds


One day last month, I was looking around to see if I still owned a boat and, not finding it, decided to get out my line trimmer to help in the search. I started out innocent enough in the driveway flingin’ yarrow, thistle, dandelion and daisy parts to the prevailing winds with the possible inclusion of a few johnny-jump-ups all thriving hydroponically in my gravel approach.

Having done that, I meandered around a raised bed of flowers with a log cannon in the middle aimed at warding off free-ranging idiots who think this is still an old ‘jeep trail.’ Well anyway, I got into a thick stand of feral peppermint which sent my nostrils off to grandma’s sunny patio in Pocatello fifty years back, where she’d treat me to home brewed iced tea with mint leaves and a little fresh-squeezed orange thrown in. This beat the snot out of smelling line trimmer exhaust but I was immediately thirsty.

As I reviewed that old flashback with the left side of my noodle, the right side made sure I was still makin’ progress and directed me on through a mix of fireweed, knapweed, field grass, daisies and thistle (my lawn). The left side was havin’ even more fun and started workin’ out a poem... so I’ll let it explain the rest of what happened.

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One fine day, not too far back, I was listening to some Leonard Cohenwhile trimmin’ back the jungle some in preparation for mowin’.I went around the woodshed, then back behind the shop.Things were gettin’ thirsty but I didn’t wanna stop.With all the rain we’ve had of late, and the effect it’s had on the weed growth rate,this was a chore that could not wait... for the seed heads were fixin’ to pop.

With ‘firestorm’ smolderin’ in the back of my mindI was determined to not get so far behindas that fateful day in ‘91 when all us firefighters were on the run.So I blazed on through the taller grasseswhich were past my ass and halfway to my glasses!It was all but concealin’ the bishop’s weedwho was tryin’ so hard to go to seedSo I didn’t even notice as I went upslopeI was cuttin’ cilantro ‘n lavendar like a silly dope.But my nostrils caught wind and went off againdreamin’ of salsa, corn chips ‘n soap!

My right side being focused on controlling my landwasn’t really thinkin’ with my steering hand.My line trimmer was like a passel of knivesas it worked on through some oregano and chives.Both sides of my head were on overtimebut the left side was just tryin’ to make it all rhyme.

Preoccupation is a wonderful thingand may not stop ‘til yer butt’s in a sling.For next went the savory and some tarragon tooso my thoughts turned to dumplings, gravy and stew.

My right side, not wantin’ to be thought a snoozin’was tryin’ not to whack any black-eyed Susans.But what made it stop, not quite on a dimewas blendin’ up parsley, sage, rosemary ‘n thyme.

When fresh cut herbs enter yer sensesyer mind’ll jump over time’s little fencesand go on back where it thinks it oughterunless it gets hit with a blast of cold water!

This is exactly how it came to passthat I ended up wet from noggin to assas a warm mist of lemon balm nuzzled my nose.My memories were halted by a garden hose.

I turned around sharply and caught the eye of my honeywho was hosing me down and not thinkin’ it funny.She’d worked rather hard to get those to growin’and didn’t even appreciate the fact that I was mowin’!

So the next time I find myself a whackin’ the weedsI hope I remember this day’s stupid deeds.For when it comes down to weed whackin’ and pullin’I should just stick to knapweed and mullen.

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naTaliemacmasTer

wiTh The

TurTle duhksThursday, June 12 • 7:30 pm

Info and TIckeTs: 888.265.4554or order online visit us at: www.festivalatsandpoint.com

Tonight we welcome Cape Breton fiddler NATALIE MACMASTER,one of Canada’s most captivating performers who first wowed Sandpoint audiences at sold out POAC performance at the Panida Theater followed

by a must-see appearance at the 2005 Festival at Sandpoint. Ever since then, Festival fans have been waiting for the triumphant return of the Celtic songstress to Sandpoint. The niece of famed Cape Breton fiddler Buddy MacMaster, and now wife of fiddle phenomenon Donnell Leahy, she picked up the instrument at the age of nine and quickly became a major talent in her own right. After winning numerous East Coast Music Awards for her early traditional Cape Breton recordings, she began taking Celtic music to new heights with albums like In My Hands, which featured elements of jazz, Latin music and guest vocals by Allison Krauss, who soon became a friend and mentor, and inspired her to combine bluegrass and Celtic influences evidenced on her album Blueprint. She also remains true to tradition with releases like My Roots Are Showing, which earned her a Grammy Nomination for Best Traditional Folk Album. She has been honored with several Juno Awards and Canadian Country Music Awards for Fiddler of the Year. And then, there’s the dancing, which she accomplishes with amazing dexterity – all the while flawlessly playing jigs, breakdowns and reels. Natalie is joined by her fellow countrymen THE TURTLE DUHKS a collective of three young Canadian musicians -- Jordan McConnell and Leonard Podolak of The Duhks and Lydia Garrison of Turtle Island Dream -- who play together with the goal of connecting with each other and their audience. Their music is rooted firmly in the tradition of Appalachia, and is performed with the groove and drive of rock ‘n roll, Celtic music, jazz and funk.

This concert made possible by underwriting from:

FreemicroBrew TasTinG!

6 pm Compliments of:Odom Northwest Beverage,

Bill Jones Distributors & Laughing Dog Brewery

the river journal, august 2010

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