My Sandpoint » Sandpoint Reader

By Soncirey Mitchell
Reader Staff

What does it take to name your self an Idahoan or, higher but, a Sandpointian? I’ve lived alongside the shores of Lake Pend Oreille all my life. I grew up within the western purple cedar forests. I discovered to swim within the SWAC pool. I misplaced my first tooth — that I keep in mind — within the parking zone of the Ponderay Burger King. I attended kindergarten by way of highschool in Sandpoint. In different phrases, I’m from right here, by way of and thru.

My companion isn’t.

It’s his historical past that has me questioning what it means to be from Sandpoint. We went to Sandpoint High School collectively, and he hunts and fishes and wanders the mountaineering trails identical to an Idaho boy, but he’s solely been right here for 12 years. There are individuals who have lived in Sandpoint for greater than 50 years and nonetheless don’t dare name themselves “local,” as a result of we have now an amorphous but sacrosanct thought of what it means to be really “from here.” I do know I do, however I don’t know the best way to quantify it to make it attainable. To that finish, I’ve been attempting to consider North Idaho experiences that formed who I’m and the way I view this group. I think about it a citizenship take a look at, of kinds: verify every field — and, crucially, contribute positively to the group — and also you at the very least earn the title of “adopted local.”

To be thought-about a Sandpoint native, you should have floated the Pack River at the very least as soon as, with the intention of going once more sooner or later. You should have pushed the pothole-filled, dusty highway right down to Green Bay. (You get bonus factors for those who had been behind a truck, the trunk of a automotive or in any other case illegally buckled attributable to a seating scarcity.) 

You should have had a secret, tourist-free swimming spot sooner or later, even when it’s since been overrun by out-of-state plates. Likewise, you must keep away from downtown Sandpoint and City Beach throughout vacationer season; nevertheless, you should journey into the fray at the very least as soon as to get a horribly sugary, frozen deal with from the seashore’s Snack Shack. 

You should stroll alongside the railroads when potential, and end up caught at a prepare if you’re in a rush at the very least 4 instances a 12 months. 

Finally — at the very least for this text — you should play within the deep snow at the very least as soon as.

I say all this with the information that a few of these actions have gotten not possible, given our altering local weather and rising inhabitants. Also, prior to now few years, Sandpoint has been inundated with transplants — some good, some MAGA — from California, Washington and Oregon, driving up housing costs to astronomical ranges. That, coupled with the closure of Bonner General Health’s maternity ward, appears to sign an finish to the age of Sandpoint locals; at the very least, that’s what my cynical coronary heart tells me.

The much less egotistical a part of me is aware of that’s not truthful to Sandpoint’s youngsters or the generations that can come after us. Though these experiences colour my sense of belonging right here, I can’t maintain up my life as a form of customary to outline what it means to be native.

When I take into consideration the Bonner County I knew — the one that also exists in my thoughts, if not in actuality — I take into consideration the fields and forest in Dover by way of which I used to run, and which have since turn out to be luxurious housing. I keep in mind the hours I spent climbing bushes, digging within the sandbox and chewing Dubble Bubble from the concession stand at Travers Park whereas my mother performed softball. That playground is useless and buried underneath the James E. Russell Sports Center. The paths I took right down to Chuck Slough to ice skate and catch frogs are developed or fenced off. Even the locations I by no means thought I’d miss — the Walmart jewellery counter the place I first pierced my ears, the McDonald’s playplace the place I attended germy birthday events — all slipped quietly away.

I, like everybody earlier than me, was born right into a world that not exists. The locations and experiences that made me an area are nostalgia, not actuality, and might’t assist anybody else discover belonging right here. Perhaps the one factor that may unite all locals is our collective mourning for the Sandpoints that we fell in love with and that can by no means exist once more.