North Idaho exposure

By Ben Olson
Reader Staff

When my partner announced she’d never seen the 1990s television show Northern Exposure, I made it my mission to introduce her to Joel, Maggie, Ed, Chris in the Morning, Maurice, Holling, Shelly, Marilyn, Ruth Ann and the rest of the denizens of the fictional small town of Cicely, Alaska. After only a couple of episodes, she was hooked.

“It’s just so precious,” she said, and I agreed. I always wanted to live in a place like Cicely; a small town where everyone mostly got along, where most people seemed to have a passing knowledge of world history, philosophy and art. Every character harbored a secret skill that they didn’t brag about, and people rarely took their neighbors for granted. And don’t get me started on the hijinks.

While walking to work the other day, it dawned on me that we do, in fact, live in Cicely — or at least the North Idaho version of it. Small towns are more than the platitudes you read on a real estate brochure; they’re a collection of people who make the juice worth the squeeze.

It’s especially important to recognize those “Cicilian” qualities of Sandpoint when we’ve seen our small town explode with newcomers the past five to 10 years.

It’s when Daniela the Tervan owner drops by the Reader office with a jar of pickled eggs every so often, or when Brett and Gretchen hand me a Bill Bryson book and stuffing a $50 bill inside “as a bookmark” while we discussed Norwegian firewood stacking methods. Or Chris, who sailed me across the Atlantic Ocean, sending words of encouragement, a donation and an article on blacksmithing for our readers.

It’s Ward walking over from the hospital (where Editor-in-Chief Zach Hagadone and I were born) with his daily to-go meal, while I watch from my office window. It’s the skiers and snowboarders at the Starlight Race Series playing beer pong and dancing in costumes, or the last day on the mountain when Miah Kohal Band plays at the Outback and everyone wears capes, Hawaiian shirts and furry costumes to bask in the early spring sun to wish our mountain a well-deserved summer nap.

It’s the bartenders at the 219 that endure Zach and me (and often Senior Writer Soncirey Mitchell) every Wednesday night as we drink beers and vent the last vestiges of the edition as the paper is finally in the hands of our printer and out of ours for the week.

It’s Hannah and the gang at the museum who helped us archive our newspaper so it’s preserved for history. It’s the Sand Creek Regatta race day, when a couple dozen of us locals build boats and race down the creek for absolutely no reason other than to have a good time and celebrate this tradition brought back by Jon and Amanda.

It’s Lin at my favorite Thai food restaurant, who always recognizes my voice when I make my weekly lunch order, or Jeff and the gang at the pub who give more to this community than they receive and never ask for anything in return.

It’s the bikers who stopped to help when my motorcycle broke down by the tourist center, spending more than an hour fixing my broken clutch cable. It’s cutting firewood with my buddy Justin as we watch the leaves turn to gold up Grouse Creek, the snow line reaching closer to the valley each time we go up.

It’s Susan, who donated a beautiful old accordion and Fender lap steel guitar to my band, or Tim who did the same with a stand-up bass because they wanted their beloved instruments to “live in a musical family.”

It’s Jack riding his tiny 10-speed bike to work at the radio station, hollering “hello” at me from two blocks away. It’s the people who’ve lugged heavy antique typewriters up to the office to donate them when reading an article about how I collected them and wouldn’t ever allow them to go to the dump.

It’s the way you can’t enter the Sandpoint Post Office without someone holding the door open for you, or when, at the counter, Amanda or Dave will say, “I think you have a package in your box,” and sure enough, they were right.

It’s sitting with my partner Cadie on the night of her birthday when the Full Moon Bike Ride passes by in the alley, each one of the bikers wishing her “happy birthday” as they ride past over the course of five minutes..

It’s drinking a pint with my former school teachers, or running into a childhood friend who remembers all the ridiculous stories we shared while growing up together.

It’s Jerry the “Hooeyman” dancing with his ducks at every Sandpoint event since I was in grade school and the gang of salty geezers who sit at Marigold Cafe every morning to discuss the ways of the declining world (often using several four-letter words in doing so).

There are so many examples for why our small town is just as good as the fictional Cicely; but, if they seem to be fewer and farther between, it’s because it takes a village to keep them alive. It takes all of us pulling an oar to keep the boat moving, as it were. 

It’s a scary world out there — but right here, swaddled in the mountains, the trees, the rivers and lakes, life is better than you could ever write it. We just need to sit back and acknowledge it from time to time.

See you around, friends.