A few thoughts… On spring in the Norther Rockies

By Sandy Compton
Reader Columnist

It seems to be spring. Winter wasn’t so great, as winters go; after too many days of skiing last season, I’ve not had enough this year. But I’m grateful my knees still work after 34 seasons of sliding downhill. Also, I only had to run the snow blower a few times. My doc tells me I’m good for another year. The new roof on my eternal rebuild project doesn’t leak. Plus, I live in the Northern Rockies — not Gaza, Ukraine or New York City. 

I once thought we lived in the Inland Northwest, but Dick Wentz asserted, “Compton, we live in the #@*&%$^ Northern Rockies!” He gave me a guide book to confirm this. Yes, we do. 

Our local rivers come from the Continental Divide. The Clark Fork and Kootenai are fed by Glacier Park; the Bugaboos; the Mission, Swan, Whitefish and Anaconda ranges; Bob Marshall Wilderness; and the peaks east of Canal Flats. The Cabinet, Purcell, Bitterroot and Coeur d’Alene mountains are nascent Rockies, pushing east and up as the Pacific and North American plates grind slowly and inexorably against each other at the western edge of the continent. 

I live in the Northern Rockies because my grandparents bought a chunk of land on the Clark Fork and moved onto it in March 1917. They already had three kids, the oldest of whom was not yet 6 when they arrived. With help from neighbors, they moved stock from the railroad, across a swinging bridge and a canyon of considerable depth, and up a path through the snow to their land. It was a Herculean task that took Grandpa and several other men a few days. 

These stalwarts held on in the Northern Rockies through the Depression, two world wars, a couple of “police actions,” six kids and living “off-grid” for 30 years in the Clark Fork Valley. We still own most of the original place, though the law of eminent domain took big chunks of it in the name of progress. 

Grandpa was a farmer, stockman, dairyman, bee keeper, hunter, orchardist, blacksmith, woodworker, jack-knife carpenter and all-around tinkerer. He kept and knew horses and raised purebred Guernsey milk cows, grass hay, sheep, pigs and kids. Grandma was a teacher, baker, musician, fruit and vegetable canner, seamstress, stamp and coin collector, homemaker and amateur geologist. She raised chickens, ducks, flowers, eggs, vegetables and kids. She joked that she was a big-time gambler. She planted a garden every year.

Grandma never learned to drive, except from the right seat, which she did consistently. I’m not sure when Grandpa got his first vehicle, but he farmed with horses into the ’50s, and his hay wagon was built on a Model A frame. Grandpa lived for 15 years after Highway 10-A split his farm in two, and Grandma lived seven years past the first moon landing. We watched it on her black-and-white Zenith.

Grandpa wasn’t a hoarder, but he seldom got rid of anything that wasn’t completely worn out. He was a master at cobbling things together, and built several machines an OSHA inspector would blanch at, but worked very well. 

Grandma read and wrote voraciously — she authored three books. She was insatiably curious about everything, especially the natural world. She experimented with cross-breeding apples by using a cotton swab to move pollen of one variety to flowers of another. She was also a crack shot. A cousin once complained that the sights on our bolt-action Winchester .22 must be off (this was the rifle we were allowed to take target shooting and gopher hunting). Grandma took the rifle, aimed and sent a clothespin flying off the line yards away. 

“Seems fine to me,” she said, and handed it back.

The world is much modified since these two “back-to-the-landers” landed in the valley. The REA brought electricity in the late ’40s. The phone arrived 15 years later. Two versions of the highway following the Clark Fork upstream from Lake Pend Oreille were built. A polio vaccine was perfected. Smallpox was nearly eradicated. Three dams were built within 60 miles. Things we take for granted were miracles for them. 

As spring comes, I’m grateful Grandma and Grandpa settled in the Northern Rockies and that their children and a couple of strings of grandkids experienced growing up here. It’s a fine place to live. Let’s do our best to take care of it. 

Sandy Compton’s latest book, Her Name is Lillian, explores the relationship between an anorexic teen and her therapist. It’s available at Vanderford’s, the Corner Bookstore, The Sanders County Ledger and on amazon.com.