Long before ski lifts climbed the Selkirks, timber built the towns below Schweitzer. The forests around Lake Pend Oreille held prized western white pine and cedar, and once the railroads arrived, that green wealth drew loggers, mill hands, and whole new communities to Bonner County. Sandpoint grew from about 300 people in 1900 to roughly 3,000 by 1906 and about 5,000 by 1908, and boosters of the day claimed it shipped more cedar poles than any other city in the United States.

Did you know the very first snow of the season can set a deadline? Schweitzer Mountain Resort is celebrating the first flakes that fell over the mountain this past weekend with its First Flakes Lodging Flash Sale, and today, Wednesday, October 14, is the last day to book it. The resort is offering 20 percent off winter lodging for stays from November 27, 2026 through April 11, 2027, with a two-night minimum, at properties including the Humbird, Selkirk Lodge, White Pine Lodge and 5 Needles.

Did you know some of the best ski days at Schweitzer this winter can be free for kids? Registration is now open in October for the Ski Idaho Peak Season Passport for 2026-27, which gives fifth graders three free ski or ride days and sixth graders two free days at each of 18 participating Idaho resorts, including Schweitzer. The passport is open to kids from any state or country, and the processing fee is 29 dollars for families who sign up before December 20, rising to 49 dollars after that date, so this month is the smart time to register at Skiidaho.us.

Long before a highway hugged its shore, Lake Pend Oreille was the road into this country. In 1866 the Oregon Steam Navigation Company launched the steamer Mary Moody on the lake, and she became its first official mail carrier, helping travelers push north toward newly discovered gold fields. For years afterward, steamboats were how people, mail and supplies moved here, linking little landings around the lake and up the Clark Fork River, while the forested shoreline around present-day Sandpoint was still quiet and sparsely settled.

Before the holiday rush, Sandpoint's late-November and December calendar is already taking shape — and it's full of the small-town traditions that make the season here special.

The Festival of Trees returns on Saturday, November 28, with its Charity and Cheer Window Walk — a community fundraiser whose decorated windows light up downtown. Friends and Family Day at The Hive on November 28 brings photos with Santa, cookies and cocoa, Christmas crafts, a fourth-grade gingerbread competition, and the first public viewing of this year's festival trees.

Summer's last hurrah came and went over Labor Day weekend, and it was a big one. Schweitzer's 33rd annual Fall Fest closed out the summer season September 4-7, filling the village with live music, more than 80 regional brews, ciders, and wines, scenic chairlift rides on the Great Escape Quad, and a full slate of family activities from the climbing wall to the summer activity center.

The conifer that breaks the rules. The western larch — tamarack to old-timers — is an evergreen that goes deciduous every fall, dropping its needles after turning them a brilliant gold. It's the largest of the larches, and in late September and October it sets the Selkirk high country ablaze with color.

Why does it drop its needles? Before shedding, the tree pulls nutrients back into storage — an adaptation that reduces snow damage to branches and protects against insects and fire. Come spring it flushes chartreuse-green new growth, the sign of late spring in the high country.

Some places a town just adopts. For generations, the sledding hill off Pine Street has been where Sandpoint learns to love winter — and on Saturday, October 24, the community gets to celebrate it properly. The Kaniksu Land Trust hosts the Sled Hill Grand Opening from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., free and open to all.

Expect live music, food, games, a pumpkin patch, and demonstrations from the Kaniksu Folk School — a thank-you to the community that showed up to protect the place. With the first phase of the master plan complete, it's finally time to celebrate together.

Sandpoint is getting its own film festival. The first annual Sandpoint Idaho Film Fest runs October 17-24 — a week of independent cinema across eleven categories, including documentary, animation, action sports, and locally made narrative work, competing for eighteen awards.

The week opens October 17 with a free Film Crawl starting at Matchwood, followed by a Local Idaho Filmmaker Showcase at the Little Panida Theater on October 18. October 19 brings a Sandpoint Cinema takeover in Ponderay, and October 20 goes dark with R-Night, an evening of dark films at Idaho Pour Authority.

Priest Lake has worn three names, and each one tells a story. In 1846, Jesuit priest Pierre-Jean De Smet mapped the lake and named it Roothaan Lake, for his superior in Rome. In 1865, Captain John Mullan — building the road that would bear his name from Walla Walla to Fort Benton — renamed it Kaniksu, from the Kalispel word for "Black Robe," the name Native people gave the Jesuit missionaries. The name that stuck honors the Jesuit priests who kept a base camp at Kalispell Bay in the 1840s.