The joy, and the lessons

By Lyndsie Kiebert-Carey
Reader Staff

Ammi Midstokke isn’t shy about her love for both the outdoors and for learning by doing. Where those two loves collide, a childhood pastime comes to mind: sledding.

Midstokke said the last time she remembers wetting her pants coincides with a sledding memory. 

“I remember having one of those pile-up crashes with my friends and my siblings and just the hilarity of it all,” she told the Reader. “How often in life do we have those times in community, when we literally have a physical pile-up and are laughing until we can’t control our bladders?”

Ammi Midstokke. Courtesy photo.

This memory is one of many that inspired Midstokke to ensure her upcoming Sandpoint book launch event would benefit Kaniksu Land Trust’s fundraising efforts to purchase the iconic Pine Street Sled Hill, so that future generations have a place to do the same kind of pants-wetting, gut-busting, memory-making.

“There is so much more to be said about that — why exposure to nature and accessibility to those places is essential to a community,” Midstokke said.

The book launch, celebrating the release of Midstokke’s first book, All the Things: Mountain Misadventure, Relationshipping, and Other Hazards of an Off-Grid Life, will take place Thursday, March 23 at the Pine Street Woods warming hut. Doors will open to VIP ticket holders at 6 p.m. and general admission folks at 6:30 p.m. While general admission tickets are $10, VIP access is $50 and includes a pre-event reception, appetizers, one drink ticket, an autographed book, a hand-woven bookmark and premium reserved seating. 

Find tickets at kaniksu.org/happenings.

Midstokke has established herself as a regionally well-known storyteller through her regular contributions to The Spokesman-Review, Out There Outdoors and the Sandpoint Reader. While on contract to write a memoir for Spokane publisher Latah Books, the company asked Midstokke about a separate project highlighting the various small works she’s already written.

“We took all these essays — there were so many — and went through this curation process and distilled it down into this book,” she said.

All the Things, Midstokke’s first book, details the many misadventures that result from being a single mom living off-grid.

“There’s a lot in there about me gardening and just the debacle of my yearly attempts to grow a garden, and various other catastrophes — learning while doing,” she said. “It’s really very North Idaho.”

Humor is a cornerstone of Midstokke’s style, and yet, she still manages to address hard topics like the loss of friends, navigating trauma and the sometimes jarring reality of choosing to live in an unforgiving place — like when you’re pinned to a mountainside by a boulder and require an elaborate backcountry rescue, or when your well dries up and you have to conjure several thousands of dollars in a matter of days.

“I want to choose to see them through a filter of humor, even when they are hard things,” Midstokke said. “That doesn’t mean I don’t talk about how real it is.”

The author will share some of that signature humor and real-life reflection when she reads from All the Things at the KLT event, which she hopes will bring the nonprofit a few steps closer to securing the sled hill — a vital stomping ground for “not just the joy, but the lessons,” she said. 

That’s also an apt description for what Midstokke is able to uncover with her writing — not just the joy, but the lessons.

All the Things is available to purchase locally at Vanderford’s, Outdoor Experience, La Chic Boutique and Greasy Fingers Bikes N Repair. Also find it online. For more information about the author — including details about two upcoming women’s writing retreats she’s leading — head to ammimidstokke.com.