Coeur d Alene

I mispronounced it for the first two days. Coeur d’Alene, French for “heart of an awl,” a name left behind by fur traders who thought the local people drove a hard bargain, and as a Frenchman I felt I ought to get it right, though the town says it its own way and I gave up correcting anyone. What I couldn’t get wrong was the lake. We came down the hill into town in the late afternoon and there it was, an enormous sheet of blue laid between dark green hills, so clear near the shore that the boats seemed to hang in the air. Lia dipped her hand in and said it was cold enough to be honest. We booked two more nights on the spot.

The floating boardwalk

The Coeur d’Alene Resort has a boardwalk that floats on the lake itself, a long timber loop said to be the longest of its kind in the world, and we walked its full length twice, once at golden hour and once after dark. Out at the far end the town lights lay across the water in long smears, and a fishing boat came in slow, its wake rocking the whole walkway gently beneath our feet. A man was playing guitar for nobody in particular near the marina. We stood and listened until the song ended, then clapped, just the two of us, and he laughed and waved.

Up Tubbs Hill

Right at the edge of downtown, Tubbs Hill rises out of the water, a forested headland laced with trails, and we climbed it one warm morning with coffee going cold in our hands. The path wound through ponderosa pines and past hidden coves where local kids leapt off rock ledges into the lake, whooping. We found our own quiet cove halfway round, scrambled down to the water, and sat with our feet in it. From there the town all but disappeared behind the trees. Just water, stone, and Lia skipping flat pebbles, counting the hops out loud like a child.

Sherman Avenue evenings

Downtown gathers along Sherman Avenue, a easy grid of brick storefronts, bookshops and ice-cream counters that runs down to Independence Point on the shore. We fell into the rhythm of it, browsing without buying, sitting on a bench to watch the seaplanes take off from the lake in a spray of white. In the evening we ate huckleberry everything, the panhandle’s obsession, and huckleberry it turns out belongs in pie and nowhere near my beer, though I tried both. Lia bought a small watercolour of the lake from a sidewalk artist. It hangs in our kitchen now, and it never quite matches how blue the real thing was.

Getting There

Coeur d’Alene sits in the Idaho panhandle, about forty minutes east of Spokane, Washington, straight along Interstate 90. Spokane International is the nearest airport, and the drive from there is short and green. We flew into Spokane and had a rental car doing the lakeshore road within the hour. The town itself is walkable end to end, the lake cruises leave from the resort dock, and if you have time, the scenic drive along Lake Coeur d’Alene toward the old mining country is worth a slow afternoon. Come in summer for the water; come in autumn if you want the hills to turn.