The Saint Joe Wilderness

In one day, I went from this: 

To this: 

North Idaho starts about a half hour north of Boise. And, so different from the south, the rest of the state is woods, rivers, and lakes. 

I have four surveys in the Saint Joe National Forest in north central Idaho. 

The Saint Joe River runs west out of the Bitterroot Mountains to Coeur D'Alene Lake.

Motorbike Stop Sign

This forest has been logged for generations. 

I'm never buying paper products again. 

Cedar - >500 years old? 

No matter how remote my survey, I find evidence of "forest management." 

I had lunch in Calder, Idaho, population 182. 

When I asked for something vegetarian, she brought me this:

Coffee and Fries 

Photos lined the walls. 

Tom Condon - Shot by Stearns

Is that the way you spell it - "Shute"?

He had to be stopped. He had been braggin' around the saloons in Harrison and the Maries about how many homesteaders he had scared off their claims for that son of a bitch lumberman he worked for...There was eleven homesteaders that trusted each other. These men met at the cabin of a woman homesteader who was gone. They put ten white beans and one black bean in a fruit jar and blowed out the light. Then they shook 'em up and drawed and left the cabin one at a time. That way no one would ever know who got the black bean and did the job. -Ole O'Dean in Swiftwater People by Bert Russell