LAKE PEND OREILLE
Deep in Pend Oreille Tales abound of the secrets held in her vast depths Story by Cassandra Cridland Photos by Allen Worst
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ike any true lady of breeding and elegance, the outward appearance of Lake Pend Oreille’s attire may reflect her mood – but her best secrets lie hidden in the depths of her heart, beyond the reach of prying eyes. “You have to understand,” says Tom Michalski, longtime diver on Lake Pend Oreille and former owner of Tom’s Diving Adventures in Coeur d’Alene, “Lake Pend Oreille, she’s steep and deep. … Normally, if you’ve lost something in Pend Oreille, it’s there to stay.” The treasures she hides are as varied as the reasons she’s acquired them. For example, over the years she’s gathered trains, planes and automobiles, all delivered by a host of people crashing into her estate. In September 1904, seven railroad cars hauling gravel tumbled into the water when the railroad trestle across the Pack River estuary gave way. Four rail cars were later recovered, but three slipped away into the deep at the far north end of the lake. At the other end of the lake is another example. “If you go to Bayview and look over at the slide area,” said Michalski, “you’ll see where a guy who’d just gotten done paying off his Jeep parked it while he got out to ‘ooh, aah,’ and go ‘wow’ over the view. It rolled down and tumbled in. By the time it got to a certain depth, it was all broken apart.” However, limited road access near the lake means fewer automobiles than one might expect. “Most of the cars are on the north end of the lake,” said Gary Dagastine, who’s spent 40 years diving in Pend Oreille – much of it for the Bonner County Sheriff’s Department. “Drunks only get so far off the road before they crash.” A Oct. 1, 1984, account in the Spokane Chronicle indicates that a Beechcraft Bonanza airplane landed and sank a quarter mile off of Mineral Point in what the paper reported as 5 to 7 feet of water. “When I heard about it going down,” said Michalski, “I went out looking for it. I had sonar on my boat. I’m sonaring and sonaring – 300 feet, 400 feet. I’m thinking where is it?” He finally found it in over 800 feet of water. “It’s pretty much there to stay,” he added. If they’re not crashing into her, they’re sinking Boats have been plying the waters of Pend Oreille since the first indigenous people launched a canoe. Over the centuries, a percentage of those boats have plunged below her waves never to be seen again, either by accident or through a
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SUMMER 2016
At top, diver on a steamboat wreck from around the turn of the century, in 60 feet of water in Scenic Bay, near Bayview. Above, a 1932 map found rolled up in a wall at Belwood’s Furniture. MAP COURTESY WARD TOLLBOM/ HEN’S TOOTH GALLERY
deliberate scuttle. Littered across her bottom are a collection of hulls, screws, timbers, rudders, barrels once used as floats, and trolling motors from every type and shape of boat. If it has ever crossed the lake on a boat, you can bet at least one has SANDPOINT MAGAZINE
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