Hello Everyone,
Greetings from Big Sky Country. It is wonderful to be back in the Rocky Mountains. I have just gotten to Montana and am really looking forward to my pending exploration of this fascinating and beautiful part of the country. This last week brought me north through the Idaho panhandle, where I explore some beautiful lakes and cute little towns along the way. I got a couple of short hikes in and have had some time to relax and catch up with a friend as well. It’s been overcast and drizzly for most of the week, but it has cooled off significantly, so I’m not going to complain. I would have loved to have taken my photos of some of these towns under blue skies, but I’ve been enjoying them nonetheless. Before I tell you what’s to come here in Montana, let me tell you what I got into with my last few days in Idaho.
After finishing up this post last week, I went out and took a walk around downtown Pullman, Washington. There was a cool old train depot, some nice bridges and a fabulous used bookstore which is one of my weaknesses. I also went up to see an old pioneer cemetery in town which had graves from the 1890s and was hidden away in a residential neighborhood. I crossed back into Idaho and took a stroll around Moscow as well before hitting the road north.
I dropped into a little town called Potlatch to see their historic train depot and then continued north to Saint Maries, a cute little town sitting at the confluence of the Saint Joe River and the Saint Maries River. The town was named by the locally famous Jesuit missionary Father Pierre DeSmet during the 1840s. It grew from a tiny village to a city of about 2500 and now serves as the county seat of Benewah County. The riverfront area had a considerable levy running along it as they’ve apparently endured some serious flooding in the past. It was interesting to walk along the river there as it felt strangely like Hawaii to me with the lush green mountains in the background. The downtown area was nice to stroll through and I stopped for a beer at one of the bars there before calling it a night.
On Thursday morning I popped in for breakfast at Nellie’s Kitchen. I was the only person there and it was really quiet, but the lady there was friendly and they cooked up a nice breakfast for me. From there I set off north to the little town of Harrison which sits on the southern end of Lake Coeur d’Alene. Harrison had some pretty lakefront parks and the town itself was quite cute and historic. I spent some time wandering about and then continued along the eastern shore of the lake which was a really beautiful drive. At the north end of the lake, I hopped out to do the Mineral Ridge hike, a short little three miler which I’ve wanted to do for some time. The trail itself was wonderful. It was shaded for most of the way and meandered gently up the hill, ending with a great view out over the lake. I enjoyed the view for a while before descending back down to my van.
From there I headed east on Interstate 90 to the old Cataldo Mission which is home to the oldest standing building in Idaho. Built in the early 1850s, the church building was the centerpiece of a thriving Catholic mission. It was built of local material by the indigenous Coeur d’Alene people after whom the lake and the nearby town take their names (the name is obviously French and translates literally as “heart of an awl” and was given to these people by French-Canadian trappers because they were seen as shrewd traders). The mission was moved in 1877, but the church has been restored several times in the last 150 years and is a beautiful old building up on a hill. It is quite a lovely spot and was one of the historic sites I had near the top of my list for my time in Idaho.
From there, I headed down the highway to the little town of Kellogg, an old mining community in what’s known as the Silver Valley. Back in 1885, a prospector named Noah Kellogg was camped nearby and one of his donkeys, named Bill, wandered off. Kellogg found the donkey two miles south of his camp, quietly grazing near an outcropping of the mineral galena from which both lead and silver can be derived. That outcrop became the Bunker Hill Mine from which a billion dollars’ worth of silver, lead and zinc have been mined. In an early 20th century book, the author referred to Bill by the nickname “The Four Million Dollar Donkey” for his role in the discovery, and Kellogg has often referred to itself as "the town founded by a jackass and inhabited by his descendants”. Kellogg thrived for some time, but when the mines played out it began a period of decline. In the 1980s, a local resident visited the German-themed town of Leavenworth, Washington (which I visited last fall) and brought home the idea of turning Kellogg into a similar tourist destination. A lot of people in town put a lot of money into the transformation, including a friend of mine’s parents, but it just never made it as a tourist attraction. Today there are only a handful of remnants of Bavarian-themed Kellogg, which seem strange and completely out of place. More recently, Kellogg has made a go of things as a ski town which seems to be doing okay, and the reopening of the old mine could be a real boon for the area. It was a nice enough town to stroll through and I really enjoyed the Radio Brewery downtown which had all kinds of old radios around the bar. Beyond that, there wasn’t much reason to hang around so I headed back west.
I stopped at Harvest Foods in nearby Pinehurst for a delicious bakery treat which was cherry cheesecake on top of a brownie base and was absolutely to die for. The store also had a resident bulldog which was just the cutest. I continued west towards Coeur d’Alene and cruised out to the Snake Pit in Kingston. Built in 1880, The Snake Pit is a beautiful old log building which has served as many different businesses under many different names over the years. It was perhaps most famous as a bar and gambling den in the logging and mining heyday of the region and apparently even Wyatt Earp stopped in now and again. There was a skull mounted on the outside of the building and if its red eyes were lit up then that meant the upstairs brothel was open for business. Today it’s a much more family-friendly environment and I really liked the ladies working there. One of the highlights of their menu is “Rocky Mountain Oysters” or fried bull testicles which I had never tried before. I gave them a go and they were actually quite tasty with a consistency that reminded me of the Vietnamese meatballs that come with your pho. While I was sitting there and eating my “oysters”, a big storm blew in, and blew in hard. I waited for a break in the rain and then cruised back up the road to Coeur d’Alene for the night. I had a beer at Challis Brewing which had a nice jazz session going and then another at the Black Lodge Brewery which was hosting trivia that night. There was some wicked lightning in the sky but the rain wasn’t too bad and it definitely cooled everything off.
I hit the gym in the morning and ran a few errands and then headed over to my friend Cameron’s for the afternoon. Cameron and I trained together to be tour guides way back in the spring of 2000. He’s been living in Coeur d’Alene for several years and it’s always great to catch up with him when I’m in town. He took the afternoon off and we went out for a short hike around Tubbs Hill which was just beautiful that day with great views out over the lake. We stopped for a beer at Vantage Point Brewing which is a really well done and relatively new brewery just outside of town. Then we headed up the hill to a place called Stella’s which has absolutely stunning views out over the lake. We hung out there for about an hour and then went and picked up Cameron’s daughter from school and headed back to their place. We spent the rest of the night hanging out on their brand new back deck which wasn’t there when I visited in December. It was great to be there and we laughed a lot which was really fantastic. I took them up on their offer to sleep in the guest room which was a nice break from the road.
We were all up early the next morning as they had a busy Saturday ahead. I said my goodbyes and then got in a quick workout on my way out of town. I hit the road north to the small town of Spirit Lake where I wanted to visit the White Horse Saloon, the longest continuously operating bar in the state. I found it closed and it was clear that it had been closed for some time (with no mention on their website or on Yelp! or Google). I wonder if the second oldest continuously operated bar in the state knows that the White Horse is closed so they can assume their rightful position. That was disappointing, but it was a nice little town nonetheless and the lake it sits on was also quite pretty, even under overcast skies. I hung out there for an hour or so and then continued on to Sandpoint.
Sandpoint is a wonderful little city of about 10,000 on the northwest shore of Lake Pend Oreille. It’s a pleasant lakefront city with a charming little downtown area and a welcoming vibe to it. I quickly decided that I would take a relaxing day on Sunday and just hang around there. My friend Rick had recommended a brewery called Matchwood and he’s definitely someone who knows a good brewery when he sees one. It had a great outdoor area to sit and relax and was surrounded by some cool historic buildings. I hung out there for a while and then walked down the street to the Tevarn Tavern, also known as the Tam-O-Shanter (it is called the “Tevarn” because of a misspelled “tavern” sign out front). This is one of the places that might lay claim to the “Oldest bar in Idaho” at this point. They claim to be over a hundred years old, but it seems more likely that they opened in 1933 or ’34 after the repeal of prohibition. Regardless, it is a fabulous little cash-only bar and was quite busy on a Saturday evening. I am not a big fan of karaoke, but this is the kind of place where it just seems to work. There’s no stage, so whoever is singing is just standing in the middle of the room and the whole bar joins in to help them out. It was a good time and I just hung around there for the rest of my evening because it was a fun crowd and a fun night.
I took it real easy on Sunday. If any of the museums had been open, I probably would have gone, but they weren’t. I spent some time sitting down by the lake and reading my book which was really quiet and nice. I had a tasty lunch at Mickduff’s, a brewery and restaurant located in an old federal building in town, and went back to both of the places I wrote about above for a beer or two. It was nice to take a day off from traveling, make some phone calls to catch up with a few folks, and just take it easy. It’s the first time in a long time when my van hasn’t moved all day.
I was up and off early on Monday. I made my way around the north end of the lake and then cruised on into Montana. The drive was a nice one, winding through some nice forested areas to Thompson Falls. Thompson Falls was a nice enough little town, but it didn’t have anything to keep me around, so I had a quick wander and then headed west and back into Idaho. The forest got thicker and the road got windier and there was hardly anyone else on the road which made for a really great drive. I pulled off to check out the old mining town of Murray, where the Northern Idaho mining boom got its start. Murray is really remote, and always was, but it’s a cute little town with a lot of mining history in it. I really enjoyed the Sprag Pole Museum and Saloon while I was there. The old wooden building had a good lean to it when Walt Almquist bought it in 1933, and was held up by a huge log which they called the sprag pole. Almquist must have been pretty bored in this little town because he started carving wood and collecting everything he could get his hands on. The carving led to one of the longest wooden chains in the world and hundreds of little wooden figurines. The collecting led to the museum which houses everything from old matchbooks and cigarette packs to old woodworking and blacksmithing equipment. His collection kept growing and Walt kept building new spaces to house it. The result is a sprawling maze of a collection which can all be seen for the price of a beer at the adjoining tavern.
Just down the road is the Bedroom Goldmine which has a plexiglass covered gold mine shaft in the back room. They don’t let anyone in anymore, but they did for a lot of years before a flood wiped out a lot of the interior support structures. Both of these place pay homage to local legend Molly B’Damn. Molly (born Maggie Hall) came to the U.S. from Ireland, married well and was sold into prostitution by her terrible husband when he fell on hard times. She eventually left him and hopped a train west to the gold fields. She was a real hit when she arrived in Murray but one of the local drunks heard her assumed name of Molly Burden in her Irish accent and started calling her Molly B’Damn and the name stuck. I’ve seen thousands of photos of prostitutes in the old west, and Molly is one of a very small handful who I would say is actually quite beautiful. She became a madam at some point and was well loved in Murray, even in her time. She took care of all of the widows and orphans in town, making sure nobody went hungry or without clothes and was even said to have returned things her ladies stole from drunken miners in the night. Her grave is kept up by the community and she is celebrated throughout the year.
From Murray, I continued down to Wallace, my last stop in Idaho. I have been to Wallace several times in the past and have always really enjoyed it. It’s a charming old mining town which has managed to leverage its past into a profitable tourism industry. Founded in 1884 by William Wallace, the area produced 1.2 billion ounces of silver, or roughly 21% all the silver ever pulled from the ground on the planet. When the railroad came through Wallace, the population hit its peak of around 5,000 people but two big fires and a drop in the price of silver would eventually lead to the town’s decline. There are plenty of old hotels to stay in and some great old Victorian buildings to see as you stroll around the small downtown area. I took a nice long walk when I got there to take some photos and was grateful when the clouds lifted late in the day. I spent some time in their lovely old Carnegie library and then had dinner at the historic 1313 Club and Saloon. I had a quick beer at the Metals Bar and then called it an early night.
I took a nice long walk around town when I woke up yesterday and then headed up the road to begin my Tuesday adventure. I have wanted to ride the Route of the Hiawatha for several years now and a break in the weather made yesterday the perfect day to give it a go. The Route of the Hiawatha is one of the country’s most celebrated Rails to Trails routes, following the old Milwaukee Road railroad tracks. This 14 mile gentle downhill trail takes you through plenty of old train tunnels and across quite a few bridges as well. You start the trip by cruising through the 1.6 mile long St. Paul Tunnel which is cold and wet and dark and quite an adventure in and of itself. Along the way are several interpretive signs discussing the history of the train and the men who built the tracks in the first place. The trail gets its name from the old Olympian Hiawatha train which ran this route quickly and comfortable from 1947-1961. You could probably make this ride in about an hour, but I stopped a lot to take photos, read the signs and enjoy the scenery. At the bottom, a shuttle picks you up and takes you back to the St. Paul Tunnel which you get to ride through a second time on the way back to the parking lot. I had a great day out there and really enjoyed this trip. When I got back to my van, I headed off down the road into Montana, saying goodbye to Idaho for the last time. I stopped at the infamous 50,000 Silver Dollar Bar, which actually currently has over 80,000 coins on the walls, bar and ceiling. It’s a cool place to see and I enjoyed a huckleberry beer while I tried to count the coins. I continued down the road to St. Regis which has one of my all-time favorite treats: a huckleberry ice cream sandwich made with homemade chocolate chip cookies. St. Regis is also an easy and relatively quiet place to spend the night.
This morning I headed east along the Clark Fork and Flathead Rivers until I ran into the Rocky Mountains, and they were wonderful to see. After stopping to get some photos, I continued on to the Ninepipes Museum of Early Montana. This museum showcases the private collection of Bud Cheff whose ancestors came to what is now Montana in the early 1800s. It’s a fascinating collection of old American Indian art, regalia, weapons and photographs along with plenty of guns, cowboy gear and taxidermied animals. It was quite a bit larger than I had imagined it would be and I wish I had had more time to spend there, but I definitely enjoyed my visit. From there I headed just down the road for a quick look at the old Saint Ignatius Mission Church. Built in 1891, this is a magnificent old church to see. The church is beautiful, but the highlight is definitely all of the magnificent paintings on the interior, all of which were painted by Brother Joseph Carigano, the mission’s cook! From there, I headed on into Missoula to finish up this post at the sprawling and modern Missoula Public Library.
Tomorrow I have another mechanic appointment in the morning. I’m really not happy that these air shocks aren’t working properly. In ten years of owning Shadow Catcher, this is the most expensive repair job I’ve ever had and it needs to be fixed right. It’s like spending the money to get your roof replaced and then finding it leaking the first time it rains. I believe I have found a good shop here in Missoula and I will be in the area for a while so I can bring it back to them if they don’t get it right. I may be here for a few days depending on what they say, but it’s a nice city and I’m sure I could keep myself busy. Whenever I get out of here, it’s time to really start exploring Montana. I’ve spent a lot of my life in Glacier and Yellowstone (which yes, I know, is mostly in Wyoming), and I’ve been to some places in between, but not many. I’m really hoping to get in a lot of hiking this summer while still exploring the history, small towns and Indian reservations to be found here. There’s a lot to see in this part of the state and I look forward to getting into it as soon as possible, maybe as early as tomorrow depending on what the mechanics say. I’m really not sure what the coming week will hold, but I’m looking forward to it. I hope you’ll come back next week to see how my Montana adventure has been going. Until then, stay safe out there and thank you, as always, for reading.
-Mike