My Sandpoint

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

What does it take to call yourself an Idahoan or, better yet, a Sandpointian? I’ve lived along the shores of Lake Pend Oreille all my life. I grew up in the western red cedar forests. I learned to swim in the SWAC pool. I lost my first tooth — that I remember — in the parking lot of the Ponderay Burger King. I attended kindergarten through high school in Sandpoint. In other words, I’m from here, through and through.

My partner isn’t.

It’s his history that has me questioning what it means to be from Sandpoint. We went to Sandpoint High School together, and he hunts and fishes and wanders the hiking trails just like an Idaho boy, yet he’s only been here for 12 years. There are people who have lived in Sandpoint for more than 50 years and still don’t dare call themselves “local,” because we have an amorphous yet sacrosanct idea of what it means to be truly “from here.” I know I do, but I don’t know how to quantify it to make it attainable. To that end, I’ve been trying to think of North Idaho experiences that shaped who I am and how I view this community. I consider it a citizenship test, of sorts: check each box — and, crucially, contribute positively to the community — and you at least earn the title of “adopted local.”

To be considered a Sandpoint local, you must have floated the Pack River at least once, with the intention of going again in the future. You must have driven the pothole-filled, dusty road down to Green Bay. (You get bonus points if you were in the back of a truck, the trunk of a car or otherwise illegally buckled due to a seating shortage.) 

You must have had a secret, tourist-free swimming spot at some point, even if it’s since been overrun by out-of-state plates. Likewise, you have to avoid downtown Sandpoint and City Beach during tourist season; however, you must journey into the fray at least once to get a horribly sugary, frozen treat from the beach’s Snack Shack. 

You have to walk along the railroads when possible, and find yourself stuck at a train when you’re in a rush at least four times a year. 

Finally — at least for this article — you must play in the deep snow at least once.

I say all this with the knowledge that some of these activities are becoming impossible, given our changing climate and rising population. Also, in the past few years, Sandpoint has been inundated with transplants — some good, some MAGA — from California, Washington and Oregon, driving up housing prices to astronomical levels. That, coupled with the closure of Bonner General Health’s maternity ward, seems to signal an end to the age of Sandpoint locals; at least, that’s what my cynical heart tells me.

The less egotistical part of me knows that’s not fair to Sandpoint’s kids or the generations that will come after us. Though these experiences color my sense of belonging here, I can’t hold up my life as a kind of standard to define what it means to be local.

When I think about the Bonner County I knew — the one that still exists in my mind, if not in reality — I think about the fields and forest in Dover through which I used to run, and that have since become luxury housing. I remember the hours I spent climbing trees, digging in the sandbox and chewing Dubble Bubble from the concession stand at Travers Park while my mom played softball. That playground is dead and buried under the James E. Russell Sports Center. The paths I took down to Chuck Slough to ice skate and catch frogs are developed or fenced off. Even the places I never thought I’d miss — the Walmart jewelry counter where I first pierced my ears, the McDonald’s playplace where I attended germy birthday parties — all slipped quietly away.

I, like everyone before me, was born into a world that no longer exists. The places and experiences that made me a local are nostalgia, not reality, and can’t help anyone else find belonging here. Perhaps the only thing that can unite all locals is our collective mourning for the Sandpoints that we fell in love with and that will never exist again.