The dog has paused his joyful romp,
quit rolling in the ermine crust
the world has grown since late last night,
to watch and listen, as I must,
to a world so still it must have a say. Read more →

The dog has paused his joyful romp,
quit rolling in the ermine crust
the world has grown since late last night,
to watch and listen, as I must,
to a world so still it must have a say. Read more →
Can you smell it? You remember.
Rows of magic electric embers
glow upon verdant tinseled boughs
The fragrance fills the winter house
Gifts piled on the felted cover
Carefully wrapt by loving mother Read more →
As we approach our national election day, polls reports that Joe Biden leads Donald Trump by 35 points among women, but only by 2 points among men. The good news is that the polls have Trump losing, and the gap is getting wider every day. As a man, though, it sickens me that a large minority of male voters in… Read more →
The weather has been unseasonably warm, if you haven’t noticed, and I’ve whiled away a few days getting reacquainted with the prairies and island ranges of central Montana. Day before yesterday, I drove from Chinook through the Bears Paw Mountains, crossed Missouri on the Sanford-McClellan Ferry and found a camp in the Upper Missouri Breaks National Monument. Last night, I… Read more →
To vilify others because of an affiliation as Democrat or Republican is ludicrous, but we are encouraged to do so by those who benefit by sowing divisiveness and concentrating on issues that keep us apart, rather than leading us into areas of agreement and unity. Read more →
Bill Hodge, Rob Mason and I are rolling slowly down Bloody Dick Creek Road in the Beaverhead National Forest toward a tour of Big Sheep Creek National Backcountry Byway. The way is bumpy, so typing on my laptop in the back seat is slow and oft redone. But, being on a journey, I feel like journaling. Read more →
There is nothing wrong with being a patriot — vigorously supporting our country. But our patriotism can’t be blind. Patriotism is not about waving the flag or our guns or yelling at each other over religion, race or sexual orientation. It is not defined by genomic structure or our personal view of Spirit. Read more →
Bits of life and death decorate the tread. Shards of hide and bits of white fluff mark where a snowshoe hare was consumed by something hungry. The list of suspects is short but impressive. A colony of ants confidently builds a residence in the center of the path, as if to say, “What bear?” Read more →
Skin and flesh ran crimson wet with the life that only just left her. Suddenly I was overcome with anger. This carnage we create is too readily brushed aside as a necessary consequence of modern mobility. Read more →
Retirement means, of course, launching full-tilt into the rest of life, set to do all the things we have been wanting to do, but lacked the long, connected strings of time to do them. There’s nothing like a chainsaw, a splitting axe and some old-fashioned salvage logging and wood-cutting to facilitate social distancing. Read more →
Half my fan base insists it’s fruitless to write about national politics in a local venue. The other person seems to agree. But what else is there? Local politics? OK. Why not? Read more →
The world made a switch today, from lingering winter to progressive spring. I anticipate a time when we make a similar switch from this strange and scary time of personal isolation to a more normalized version of life, when every other human might not seem to be a threat. Read more →
They are all skeletons of foregone beauty.
When a wagon track ran by and there were no fences Read more →
The canyon wren spirals over the backeddy, the hiss of my butane stove, and across the state-line… Read more →
If you could talk, what would you tell us? About the day that they punched the highway past Powell And about the people who came there and stayed in those cabins Built so long ago What would you tell us about the river And what used to come and what no longer does What would you tell us about… Read more →
Over breakfast, Sandy Compton casually mentions that the distance to the Sawtooth summit is just 2.5 miles, as a swallow flies. So I figure, with my limited understanding of off-trail hiking, that our route should be no more than 4.5. We meet Kate, Celeste, Annie and Cary at 7:55am mountain time. We wait a while for two no-shows before driving… Read more →
My right knee is troubling me. I’ve gashes in my forearm. I lately closely inspected the Belt formation’s charms. A talus slope, a faulty set of my black Diamond pole. It sank a foot and I went down my head, not in a hole. But on a rock, ‘twas quite a sock, but I didn’t come up bleeding; at least… Read more →
Surrender begins with Step One. When we admit our helplessness, even for a moment, we are letting go. We are surrendering something we may know not what, but it is imperative that we do. Here is an excerpt from Side Trips from Cowboy you might find helpful as you move toward surrender. Did you ever get on a carnival ride… Read more →
I climb out of Montana only to fall into Idaho and a sign appears yellow and black in the late June gloom like a yellow-jacket warning flying by in the dark “Winding Road, Next 99 Miles” US 12, Lewis and Clark Highway Lolo Pass to Kooskia (leave off the “a”) the longest continuous paved curve in Idaho I look… Read more →
Blue Creek Press is proud to announce the release of A Leaf In a Stream: Surviving Childhood, Catholicism, Conscription, Career and Cancer. Author Dick Sonnichsen has had an interesting journey. He grew up in a small town in Idaho and traveled the world. Like the leaf he alludes to in the title of A Leaf In A Stream, he has… Read more →
Warning: Contains graphic descriptions of violence against rodents. Now that I have your undivided attention . . . The cabin under reconstruction was built in three sections; 1930 (approximately), 1952-53, and 1960, and has been a haven for rodents since the day my grandfather nailed the last shake on the roof in 1930. My sis and I and several others… Read more →
I have been working on “remodeling” the house I grew up in for X number of years. I say “X” — or, more accurately, write “X” — because I have no idea how long I have been remodeling. Let’s just say it has been a long, long time. And for much of that time, I have been removing stuff, which… Read more →
Author’s note: Growing Up Wild has a book within the book entitled Alex’s Restaurant. This is an excerpt from the book inside the book. Big Dog’s mama didn’t really name him that. She named him after his two grandpappies, Brian O’Shannahan and David Broadwater, but neither name stuck as well as his initials did, because Brian David Broadwater grew up… Read more →
I am sitting amidst the high sources of one of the wildest, most beautiful streams I’ve ever seen; in one of the wild hearts of the world. The earth has more than one wild heart, and each is a center of renewal, resilience and beauty. Some are larger than others, but size has not much to do with the potency… Read more →
“NEZ PARCE CMTY.” — An excerpt from Side Trips From Cowboy Journal entries, September 19 — Dawn, The Keller-Nespelem Divide, Washington. I have just met Alfredo. He and his crew of five young, Spanish-speaking men showed up as I stuffed my dew-soaked bag into its sack. They turn their music up, bring out chain saws, hard hats, gloves, chaps, goggles.… Read more →
Sandpoint, the nominal capitol of the vague state of Montaho was VERY busy last weekend. Hundreds of folks from as far away as Athol — heck, maybe even Spokane — strolled the streets with melting huckleberry ice cream running down their arms, because it was also hotter than a firecracker. I probably shouldn’t even say “firecracker.” We’ve been smelling smoke… Read more →
My dad loved black jellybeans; licorice flavored, I believed, but — according to some who knows — actually flavored with anise. Whatever. I love black jellybeans too, and have a supply in my candy drawer with the Toblerone chocolate and peanut M&Ms. This evening, I made what a young friend of mine once dubbed “slimy lettuce,” a bowl of hand-torn… Read more →
. . . and then, came the ice. If you have never hiked into the central Scotchmans, say to Sawtooth or the Melissa Crag or Davis Point, it might be hard to imagine what the place holds for us who have — and for those who will — and why we wish to save this place. To say this place… Read more →
Of stolen art, murdered mountain lions, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, prisons with no walls and the Capitol Christmas Tree. It is still morning in Nespelem, but just, and a little foggy near the hilltops yet. A southbound sun has about won the fight with the fog in spite of the resistance of a high, thin layer of cirrus… Read more →
And, some days photography even loves me. I took this picture at Nespelem, Washington, in the Nez Perce Cemetery on the Colville Indian Reservation. The tree is an ancient elm that arches over Chief Joseph’s grave. People have left many gifts hanging in that tree. Notice that the cross is accompanied by a coach’s or referee’s whistle, as well as… Read more →
There were four of us who arrived in Russia together; Gerald, Hazel, Eugene and I. We arrived in Moscow as most Americans do, dead tired and unprepared for the seemingly eternal phalanx of forms and uniforms one must pass through to enter the Mother Country. Time is already distorted for someone who has just flown half-way around the world, and… Read more →
Comes a time in many lives when we find ourselves orphaned. Some of us — most of us — are blessed with waiting until we are well-grown when that happens, which might make it somewhat easier, but might not. In our case, it was a combination. We lost our dad in 1986. It was a long and drawn-out affair, and… Read more →
God’s Will I, God, being of infinite mind and inscrutable body, do hereby declare My continuing Will and Testament, human edition. Planet Earth, I leave to its inhabitants, large and small, magnificent and mundane. The smarter should take care of the not-so-smart. I leave it to you to figure out who or what that might be. The rest of the… Read more →
Readers following the exploits of Archer MacClehan had a to wait nine years, but author Sandy Compton of Heron says it won’t be as long for the third and fourth installments, both have already been started. Compton published the first novel of the series in 2005. That tale, Archer MacClehan and the Hungry Now relates an adventure through the wilds… Read more →
Twenty-sixteen. We’re gifted with a whole ’nother year to play with; 365 whole days. Oops. 366. It’s Leap Year! We get an extra. Hooray! I will try to use it wisely. Joyfully. Gracefully. Gratefully. I commend this to you as well. In spite of its travails — sometimes, even because of them — life is good and sweet. Results of… Read more →
April, 2015 — Unpredictability. This morning, a snowshoe hare hopped across my line of sight, still completely and unfortunately white in the face of our disappeared winter. It was in a hurry, as if it knows how well it stands out against the forest. It was a poignant sighting. I felt a bit of grief that such a well-adapted critter… Read more →
This appeared in the July 16, 2015 issue of the Sandpoint Reader, for which Sandy Compton is an irregular contributor. Has it been hot or is it just me? OK. Damnably hot. Not hellishly hot, yet, but still. A friend pointed out yesterday that if global warming isn’t real, a great majority of the world’s scientists are idiots. Love that kind… Read more →
As it was, there was no way out of it, and even if there had been, Nadine would have done the same thing, no matter the crazy, trying circumstances nor the strident, screeching disapproval of Mother Sednick when Nadine called to tell her the plan and finally hung up shaking, crying and more determined than ever. Being in Montana made… Read more →
Twenty Questions Are you an addict? There is really only one person who can answer that question and that’s you. Others might be able to see it in you, and be convinced of it by your actions, and even take their own steps to obtain help for you or themselves. But you are the one who must decide whether you… Read more →
Step One “We admitted we were helpless over the problem — that our lives have become unmanageable.” So, let’s talk about addiction. I have already expressed that I think of it as cancer of the soul, a malignancy that begins growing in our spirit when we first indulge our addiction and eventually replaces maturity: growupus interruptus. I have already told… Read more →
One day at a time, you can get your life back through the Twelve Steps. Resource pages for addicts and addiction information are collected below in no particular order. We have first included links to associations and twelve step programs that are open and free. If something is eating up your time and money, or providing a place to hide… Read more →
There’s a snowshoe hare living somewhere around my yard. I see her (him?) almost every day. Medium brown. Medium sized. Medium-length ears. Extra fast. Most often, I see it when I come home from somewhere, sitting sentinel in the yard. As soon as I drive in, it blitzes off into the brush. GC — my dog — has either not… Read more →
On the tarmac at OAK — 7:31 pm Pacific. According to the screen above the loading ramp door, Flight 2793 was underway for 6 minutes already when I began down the ramp. We had left at 7:20; on time. Not true, sorry to say. Here in 23-F, second row from the back, starboard window seat, I wait for a passel… Read more →
When my mother was growing up and her children and her grandchildren, many of the kids living between Hope, Idaho, and Paradise, Montana, grew up wild, and they still do. Folks trying to get started in the Clark Fork valley often have to work so hard to plant themselves that there’s no time to cultivate the children, also. Instead, we… Read more →
Following the message, a long, plaintive beeeeeeeeeeeep told Della that Mix hadn’t checked messages for some time. It was as if the machine was as lonely as she, also lamenting his neglect. She imagined it listening for his fumbling fingers at the door, praying he would get the key into the lock before it died of longing. When the phone… Read more →
The trouble with loving someone like Angel is that sooner or later, it’s going to break your heart. Sooner or later, she will fade out of your life completely and leave you wondering whatever happened to that girl with the aversion to makeup, the perfect eyes, the smile that twisted left and the slightly whacked sense of humor. You don’t… Read more →
“He was not a war chief, you know. Some things they say he did, he didn’t do.” — Marguerite, who introduced me to Thunder-Rolling-in-the-Mountains It’s a long way from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Nespelem, Washington, in the hilly scrub and sage country north of Grand Coulee Dam — a long way and a long time. But I’m reminded of the… Read more →
This morning, I’m at White Bird canyon in north central Idaho. A red-tailed hawk sails along the bottom of a scree slope below me at the edge of the White Bird Battlefield segment of the Nez Perce Trail National Historic Trail. I am standing in a display that explains the beginnings of the Nez Perce War of 1877. Below me,… Read more →
Dear Mother, We are six months in the United States, now in a place called Montana. We came here from Washington State because we heard of work, but the orchards are small, and the crop is not good from the cold spring. Since my last letter, we have been disappointed and hungry much of the time. Our old bus has… Read more →