🔍 Two Things That Stayed With Me

The Sacred Heart Mission at Old Mission State Park was built between 1850 and 1853 without a single nail, bolt, or manufactured fastener. The Coeur d'Alene people and the Jesuit missionaries constructed cottonwood-pole frames, lashed them with willow branches, and plastered the walls inside and out with hand-mixed mud and grass. The priest who designed it, Father Antonio Ravalli, modeled it on baroque mission churches he had studied in Italy and Peru. The people who built it had never seen a European building. The structure has stood for 170 years.

Lake Coeur d'Alene's color comes from the lake's chemistry. The water filters through granite, coarse gravel, and sand — nearly no agricultural runoff, exceptionally low nutrient content. The clarity is measured in meters. The lake reads emerald-blue.