“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” – Lao Tzu
My 18-year run in Idaho is now in the rearview mirror. This past year, my husband and I put our retirement plan in motion; we sold our home in rural Salmon, Idaho and moved 200 miles north to Montana’s Mission Valley. Brighter prospects in the Big Sky State beckoned us: a milder climate; affordable land; and nearer to family, quality health care, an airport, and Missoula’s thriving cultural scene. One of the brighter lures was moving to a state that is at least acclimated to voting for Democratic governors and U.S. senators, unlike belligerently-red Idaho.
My run in Idaho was wildly discordant. On one hand, I had a front row seat to Idaho’s extraordinary natural beauty and grandeur; wildness that evoked awe and splendor on a daily basis. On the other hand, I witnessed some god-awful, dark-underbelly conduct from its populace; enough for one lifetime, thank you.
So I write this as part rant; part love letter. Despite my relief in leaving the socio-political desert of rural Idaho, I have deep feelings of grief in saying farewell to all the good that sustained me those 18 years.
We moved to Salmon in 2001 from Olympia, Washington, wanting to get back ‘to the field’ in our respective wildlife professions. We knew going in this meant living in a rural, conservative community — that’s where the wildlife jobs were. Our move coincided with the dubious Bush-Cheney team coming into power, 9/11, and the disastrous invasion of Iraq.
My first dive into local politics was an eye-opener. Upon inquiring about the next Democratic caucus, the county clerk informed me that none had been held in our county for a decade. Apparently, all local Democrats went into hiding after Governor Cecil Andrus (D) left office in 1994. Well, that just wouldn’t do. I recruited a friend to help organize a caucus in 2004. With guidance from the Idaho Democratic Party, we were ecstatic to have 50 people attend to cast their votes for candidate John Kerry. The caucus helped to rally Democrats in the community. The Lemhi County Democrats proudly persist to this day, despite the county being a Tea Party-Trumpist stronghold.
Then unexpectedly, abject “ugly” would rear its head and thrash my spirits. A volunteer stint as board member and officer on the local Arts Council uncovered serious legal and ethical lapses by the executive director, resulting in dismissal. The firing created an uproar in the community, stoked by the ex-director’s supporters. We board members and officers were publicly pilloried and bullied by the ex-director’s posse. My dog was poisoned (he survived) and the rear window of my car smashed in while setting up for an Arts Council event. My board colleagues were slandered as “cunts” and “dikes from California” and the local newspaper editor refused to publicize our events to deliberately hurt our bottom line. Never had I felt the brunt of such visceral hatred or witnessed how mean, vindictive, and provincial certain factions of my community could be.
The Angry Villager refrain played out with regularity, epitomized by our bullying, anti-government, 12-term state legislator Lenore Hardy Barrett. She was Tea Party before the movement acquired its ill-conceived name. I attended a few of Barrett’s town halls and sat with my jaw in my lap as she spewed her venom on federal agencies, environmentalists, and other ‘liberal’ targets.
But she saved her most poisonous vitriol for wolves. To Barrett, the 35 gray wolves reintroduced in 1995-1996 to the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness (literally our backyard) were ground-zero for government overreach. She spent the next 20 years fanning the flames of wolf hatred and persecution in Idaho and beyond. My husband had the unenviable job as Salmon Region wildlife manager when anti-wolf fever swept Idaho. He met those headwinds by striving to inform and educate the public with evidence-based science. For this he was labeled a “wolf lover” and “over-educated government lackey.” To our great alarm, he became the target of threats posted in a local outfitter’s Facebook group. Some applied pressure from law enforcement curtailed the attacks, but from then on my husband watched his back.
There were countless other issues that set my progressive teeth on edge:
In 2016, Dorothy Moon (R) was elected to the Idaho House of Representatives for our district. Moon is Tea Party on steroids, openly hostile to federal ownership and management of public lands, and a proud friend and defender of the Bundy Klan. She and her klanfolk did their best to derail the recent Salmon-Challis National Forest plan revision process, referring to our National Forest public lands as “federally occupied territories of Idaho.”
Idaho shamefully ranks 50th in the nation for average weekly wages, so it’s no surprise that 30-40% of Lemhi County residents live at or below the poverty line. Yet elected officials, from the local mayor to Congressman Mike Simpson, offer no vision for regional economic vitality, not even the obvious embrace of ecotourism. Instead of welcoming messaging from the community at large, locals publicly tout their grievances on billboards and bumpers, reminding tourists that rural Idaho is a safe haven for conservative, white American culture and Second Amendment rights.
Another of Idaho’s shameful claims-to-fame is its rank as 48th in the nation for the quality of public education it provides to students. That abysmal state record is sadly reflected in Lemhi County, where strong anti-tax sentiments and an older, largely retired voting demographic have repeatedly torpedoed every school bond initiative designed to address the crumbling infrastructure of local elementary and middle schools. I honestly think it will take a major catastrophe, such as a school roof collapsing and injuring or killing students, to wake up its citizens.
So yes, aspects of my time in Idaho were an existential slog, and my hope is to let all that negativity go. But for those things that brought me joy and grace — my hope is to always hold them close to my heart, even if leaving them behind is painful just now.
Farewell my Idaho home. I’m letting you go with love so I can make room for something even better.