“It seemed like you were at the end of the world. At that time, it was as remote as you could get and still be private property. There was something magical about it. It was like there was a consensus here. Everyone was still excited about the whole back-to-the-land thing. You were private, you were remote, but you had a certain security knowing way over there, stuck in the woods somewhere else, there’s somebody else and they’re really friendly and you know you can count on them if you needed to.”
Ken Clark, interviewed by Nancy Renk in 1996.
Excerpt from Ken Clark’s interview.
While the largest growth, by far, took place in the 1970s, the Pend Oreille region of northern Idaho continues to watch newcomers arrive. The perceived simpler life of Bonner County continues to attract people who are looking for a better life, one far from the dense populations of their former homes in California and other areas. Since 1990, the population has grown at the rate of about 1,000 a year.
Ronda Livingston remembered her recent life in southern California, “It just got real sad. You couldn’t walk down streets anymore or go to the beach at night by yourself and walk along the shores like we had always done. So we decided we were going to move. We wanted our kids to have a better environment. As soon as I saw that bridge, the Long Bridge, I said ‘This is it.’ And so we came across the bridge and we came into town and it reminded me of this little town in northern California where my grandparents were. It was little, it was quaint, it was clean, the people were friendly, you left your motors going . . . I couldn’t get over that!”
