It Can’t Be Far Now By Karlene Bayok Edwards I can’t remember much about that week-long trip we took in 1983, other than the deer eating our soap. It was just dusk, we were gathered around the fire
Through trees on a steep trail in the Selkirk Mountains of northern Idaho, I looked upward and finally saw our destination, at an elevation of six thousand feet. Continue reading
I’ve lived my whole life in Camas County, which is almost exactly the size of Rhode Island but has long had a population of around one thousand. The county’s single east-west valley has an elevation of about five thousand feet above sea level, while to the south are low mountains, and to the north are peaks that reach higher than ten thousand feet. Extremely cold winter temperatures (1990 saw an official low of fifty-two degrees below zero) and deep snow discourage everyone except the hardiest individuals from living here.
The farmers and ranchers who settled this area in the 1880s scratched out a living. Mining was a major effort and the remains of dozens of small operations—gold and silver mines, although lead and other trace minerals were present—can be found in all parts of the county. No major strikes were made, but some wealth was taken out of the earth. Many “prove-up” shacks were built as farming homesteads, and even in the highest mountains, every mine had some kind of shelter. A hard rock mining claim I own at 9,400 feet has a typical shack that housed miners early last century. Decades ago, the weight of ten or more feet of snow caused its collapse. Continue reading
One of the biggest mistakes my husband Rocky and I ever made was the year we allowed our grown-up children and their friends to talk us into letting them put in their inner tubes beside the bridge near Featherville and float a section of the Boise River down to Johnson Bridge.
The problem was we could not drive alongside the river to check for “strainers,” the fallen trees or branches in the water, or for any other safety issues. Even so, we blithely waved them on their way, telling them we would meet them in two or three hours at the bridge.
After three hours had come and gone, I began worrying that something had happened. We drove every road we could find that went to the river, with no sign of any of them. My husband, granddaughter, and I drove up and down the road between the two bridges, over and over again. About five hours later, we finally found two of the boys trying to hike out to the road. They had run into several strainers and had almost drowned. Having decided enough was enough, they had begun walking. But that still left six people in the water—and we could not find them.
The problem was we could not drive alongside the river to check for “strainers,” the fallen trees or branches in the water, or for any other safety issues. Even so, we blithely waved them on their way, telling them we would meet them in two or three hours at the bridge.
After three hours had come and gone, I began worrying that something had happened. We drove every road we could find that went to the river, with no sign of any of them. My husband, granddaughter, and I drove up and down the road between the two bridges, over and over again. About five hours later, we finally found two of the boys trying to hike out to the road. They had run into several strainers and had almost drowned. Having decided enough was enough, they had begun walking. But that still left six people in the water—and we could not find them. Continue reading
Camping is a great American tradition invented by masochists—or by children. What full-grown woman in her right mind would trade in her modern kitchen for a camp stove, and her comfy bed for a noisy air mattress in a tent where you can hear someone else’s husband snoring twenty-five feet away?
But to children, camping is magic: dirt is in and rules are out. The announcement to the family, “We’re going camping,” is greeted by cheers from the kids, who will have nothing to do but tease their siblings and test out their slingshots while their parents confront the real-life jigsaw puzzle of fitting seven sleeping bags, one extra-large tent, tarps, pillows, portable crib, bag of diapers, camp stove, grill, propane tank, lanterns, swimming suits, towels, snacks, water jugs, games, dining fly, stakes, tools, clothing, ice chests, and floating toys into the three-by-five foot space behind the seats in the SUV. Continue reading
The boy was sulking. Even sixteen-year-olds do that sometimes. In this case, my grandson Jesse was intent on trying to convince me to drive my truck to Priest Lake so he could take his little fishing boat along on a camping trip.
It’s a rowboat, basically, although he does have a motor for it and takes it out on small lakes and the Pend Oreille River near his home.
“There’s no point in it,” I remonstrated. “Your Uncle Kurt has decided to go along on this camping trip, and he’s taking his fishing boat. You won’t need yours.”
Still, he sulked, until we arrived an hour later and he got his first glimpse of that huge, beautiful lake, one of northern Idaho’s celebrated Big Three. (Priest Lake has 23,000 surface acres and nearly eighty miles of shoreline.) Perhaps Indian Creek Bay, at the campground, looked a bit intimidating for a boy in a rowboat. With a lighter heart, he clambered aboard his uncle’s eighteen-footer and away they went, along with his two teenaged cousins, intent on catching a few of Priest Lake’s celebrated mackinaw trout. We three women stayed behind to set up camp. Continue reading
