A Refuge Rescued

By F. A. Loomis

Gordon Cruickshank, the Superintendent of Valley County Roads, got a call on an afternoon in June 2010 from Andrew Lemberes, the chief of McCall’s Fire Department. A distress call had come in from the crew at Snowdon Wildlife Sanctuary east of Little Payette Lake along Lick Creek Road. The sanctuary campus was inundated with floodwater from Lake Fork Creek, which was sweeping away buildings and materials. It soon became apparent to everyone that the dirt dam at Brown’s Pond above the sanctuary had burst, releasing floodwater down Lake Fork Creek.

I learned many details about this flood after volunteering at Snowdon during an Idaho naturalist course last year. The passion I soon developed for Snowdon’s success was nurtured by many years of reading naturalist authors such as Carson, Thoreau, Dillard, Eiseley, Goodall, Leopold, Beston, Muir, and Abbey.

The sanctuary location is hallowed ground to me. I grew up in the area, working for Ponderosa State Park and the Payette National Forest, as well as a logging company that groomed the property for the nearby Camp Tapawingo Boy Scout Camp. I’ve hiked to all the lakes in the Lick Creek–Lake Fork Creek region over the years. One day when I was sixteen years old, I met a Canada lynx on a trail near the Snowdon refuge. That experience, which changed my life, is chronicled in one of my books.

Snowdon Wildlife Sanctuary is a refuge surrounded by the national forest not far from McCall that today specializes in the rehabilitation of injured and orphaned wildlife, and provides native habitat and natural conditions to help the creatures assimilate back into the wild upon release. The sanctuary also provides hands-on educational opportunities for youth and communities, and promotes healthy coexistence between wildlife and ecosystems.

I never had the opportunity to meet Linda DeEulis, the refuge’s founder, but one day at the sanctuary I sensed her guiding spirit when I came upon a small, moldering statuette of St. Francis in the foliage. The sanctuary manager explained it had been placed there by Linda. It matched one I keep on my front porch.

Linda and I also shared an interest in fire lookout work. While I was a lookout on the McCall Ranger District back in the late 1970s, she was a lookout at Arctic Point in the Idaho Primitive Area (now part of the Frank Church–River of No Return Wilderness). Arctic Point, now just a historical site, was the Payette National Forest’s most remote lookout at the time.

Later, Linda was a lookout for the Southern Idaho Timber Protection Association on East Mountain, southeast of Cascade. Ed Allen, the assistant fire control officer for Big Creek Ranger District, stationed at Chamberlain Basin, told me Linda was a memorable employee because she had four collies. She packed her gear seventeen miles each way to the lookout and back by horse and mule, but she walked the distance with her dogs.

Dislodged bridge and debris. Courtesy McCall Fire Station.

Gordon Cruickshank maneuvers a jet boat. Courtesy McCall Fire Station.

Spillway on Lake Fork Creek below Brown's Pond. F.A. Loomis.

Founder Linda DeEulis. Courtesy F.A. Loomis.

The sanctuary's new sign, made by the author. F.A. Loomis.

Intern Jazmyn releases a rehabbed owl. Snowdown Wildlife Sanctuary.

Intern Jonah with a bald eagle. Snowdown Wildlife Sanctuary.

Manager Genevieve Arterburn feeds a bear cub. Snowdown Wildlife Sanctuary.

Genevieve with mascot Qa'ya, a redtailed hawk. Snowdown Wildlife Sanctuary.

Sanctuary veterinarian Linda Donerkiel. Snowdown Wildlife Sanctuary.

When Gordon Cruickshank learned of the emergency at the sanctuary, he sent his assistant Jerry Robinson up Lick Creek Road to rescue personnel, wildlife, and vital supplies, but he could get no closer to Snowdon than a chimney rock just past the eastern curve of the road beyond Little Payette Lake. Gordon and Andrew launched a helicopter to the rescue, but it could find no place to land. So Gordon hopped into his jet boat and headed to Little Lake, even as the McCall Fire Station outfitted its pontoon rescue boat. Gordon’s boat got to the launch site first, and it was agreed he would lead the rescue mission.

From the launch site, he maneuvered across Little Lake and into the flood zone past the chimney rock. With him were several fire crew and EMS personnel in masks and wetsuits, including volunteer fireman Clayton Jensen and Fire Captain Freddie VanMiddendorp. A five- to twelve-foot tsunami had rushed down the boulder canyon below Brown’s Pond and into the area surrounding the sanctuary, where the water was deep. Divers took turns jumping off the boat to clear brush and debris from around the jets so they could proceed. At a nearby mobile site, then-Assistant Fire Chief Garrett DeJong, who is now McCall’s fire chief, handled communications for the operation.

As Gordon maneuvered into the area past the dislodged bridge and debris, he saw that floodwater had taken out the interns’ cabin. The propane tank next to it had broken loose and had set the cabin on fire. What was left of the building was still burning. When a propane tank from a neighboring property floated by, Gordon carefully maneuvered out of its path and let it drift away on the current.

The water had flooded the nearby clinic and had swept away a large trailer-home that bobbed through the current until it disappeared from sight. Floodwater had taken out the bridge across Lake Fork Creek east of the campus, which was normally the only way to access the sanctuary by foot or car.

Snowdon founder Linda DeEulis and her intern Sarah Pokart were perched along the waterflow with several pet dogs and cats, and owls and a raptor in cages. Gordon loaded them into the boat and took them to the chimney rock to be picked up by Jerry Robinson.

This disaster had the inadvertent impact of spurring the sanctuary’s mission. When people in the community heard of it, they threw their support behind the sanctuary. Funds were raised. The washed-out bridge was replaced with a railroad flatcar brought to the site by excavator Faron Gilbert of Cascade. A fair property settlement was reached with the insurance company, and the interns’ cabin was rebuilt.

On the north side of the bridge, a yurt used for educational purposes had somehow survived the flood. It served as a visitor center for about six more years before the harsh winters finally got the best of it.

Snowdon founder Linda DeEulis started the sanctuary in the early 1990s. She had been inspired by the wild beauty of Mt. Snowdon in North Wales and by the beneficent work of Animals in Distress, an arm of the Idaho Humane Society. Idaho Fish and Game and the U.S. Forest Service began bringing injured animals to the sanctuary for care. At first, Linda had only the interns’ cabin and a one-acre enclosure for rehabilitating mountain lions. In 1998, she built a two-acre enclosure for wolves.

But several years later, Fish and Game stopped allowing the sanctuary to rehabilitate these top-of-the-food-chain predators. They reasoned that human contact during rehab care and feeding could make the animals an increased threat to people after their release. Even so, Fish and Game and U.S. Forest Service personnel continued to bring injured wildlife to the center and it became clear that a long-term facility was needed.

In 2000, the current clinic was built by Doug Holden. Shortly thereafter, Art Troutner built a fawn barn. In 2006, the Humane Society of the U.S. took over as conservator of the estate, except for one acre where the manager’s house is now located. Linda DeEulis passed away in 2012. Nowadays, the the entire thirty-five-acre sanctuary is devoted exclusively to wildlife rehabilitation.

Current board members say great care is taken in training managers. The current manager, Genevieve Arterburn, is beloved by locals and the professionals who work with and support Snowdon. An intelligent and gentle soul, Genevieve can often be seen in the neighborhoods of Valley County doing educational work with mascots like Qa’ya, a redtailed-hawk, or Merlin, a grumpy old great horned owl.

Both Genevieve and the sanctuary’s veterinarian, Dr. Linda Donerkiel, remind me of my daughter Dr. Kathirine Berman, a vet who does a lot of work for the Idaho Humane Society. Kathi spent part of her training rehabilitating wildlife during her studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. My wife and I sometimes stepped up with home care for critters our daughter had mended in the university’s animal hospital.

Kathi worked mostly with injured raptors, but an injured and abandoned Walker coon hound named Mabel (which in Latin means “loveable”) that Kathi had saved after several operations ended up with us when we lived in Seattle. But first we and a security contingent had to spend an evening chasing her across the tarmac at the airport after her delivery from Illinois.

Later, a similar scene played out at Sun Valley’s airport after my brother Steve, a pilot, adopted Mabel. He lived on a ranch near Horseshoe Bend, where Mabel could roam at will. One day he flew to Sun Valley with her on business and as soon as Mabel was out of the fuselage, she went her own way for nearly an hour at the airport. For many years, Mabel’s howling was heard in the foothills above the Payette River at Horseshoe Bend.

But only twice did my brother have to pick her up at homes in Boise after passersby “rescued” her from wandering in the hills. On both those occasions, Steve said when he arrived at the rescuers’ residences, Mabel’s expression seemed to say, “I didn’t know you knew these people, too.”

In 2023, a flight barn fifty feet in length was built at Snowdon. It has been a valuable contribution to the sanctuary’s work with smaller owls and raptors. There is talk of putting in a facility of perhaps a hundred feet in length, so that great grey owls can be rehabilitated longer-term. Currently, the
greys can be handled only for a couple of weeks in the smaller flight barn. A new clinic will be under construction soon, and the old clinic will be used for food storage and feeding.

The sanctuary’s veterinarian, Dr. Linda Donerkiel, says there is now a need for an on-site, indoor, heated baby bear nursery. Until recently, these tiny youngsters were cared for in the home of Jeff Rohlman and his wife Erin. A former Snowdon board member, Jeff is a coauthor with John Beecham of a naturalist book on management of black bear populations, A Shadow in the Forest: Idaho’s Black Bear (University of Idaho Press, 1994).

By last year, solar was up and operating at the sanctuary. And donors continue to actively support it. Recent or ongoing bequests have been received from the Nel Tobias estate, the Jay Lund estate, the Randy Zuniga Family Foundation, and the Leuthold Family Foundation. Anyone who finds an animal in distress is asked by sanctuary personnel to place it in a dark and quiet space and then to call the sanctuary for further direction and pick-up.

In a sense, my Snowdon story is just beginning. Not long ago I felt honored to become a board member of the organization, which I expect will mean many wonderful volunteer hours helping the staff there. Recently I rescued what I thought was a stunned fledgling golden eagle. Genevieve explained to me it was a gray partridge, and that if I left it out overnight, it might rejoin its covey. In the morning it was gone. It either had rejoined its covey in the night or had become dinner for a fox. Either way, that is Nature’s way.

To contact the Snowdon Wildlife Sanctury, phone 208.634.8050. Visit snowdonwildlifesanctuary.org to find many tips on what people should do when they find abandoned or injured wildlife.