Meeting the Goal

In a 50-year quest, local man goes high – and low – to visit every lake in Boundary County

by Sandy Compton

Scott Bourassa recently finished the adventure of a lifetime. Or was it a lifetime adventure? Last fall, he took his dad to Stampede Lake, a privately-owned chunk of water just south of Naples, Idaho. It’s not hard to access (with permission) being just off Highway 95, but it marked the end of a 50-year-long project: visiting all of the 70 named lakes in Boundary County. “It was an honor to do that with my dad,” he said.

Bourassa, 53, grew up in Bonners Ferry and graduated as a Badger in 1987. In high school, he ran cross country and track (he ran a 4:32 mile as a junior). His father Art went to Sandpoint High, where he was an impressive football and basketball player. He finished a Forest Service career on the Bonners Ferry/Sandpoint district. Bourassa’s grandfather, also Art, was a Sandpoint policeman and fireman. Those who grew up here in the 1960s and ’70s remember the senior Art as a tolerant cop when it came to youthful mischief.

Sometime in his youth, Bourassa’s parents took him to his first Boundary County lake. “I was a toddler, so I don’t remember which it was, but it was probably Smith, Brush, or Robinson.” All of which can be driven to, which makes them part of a minority. About 20 of the county’s lakes are accessible by vehicle. Another 25 have trails leading to them. The rest—roughly 25— are reached by the fine art of bushwhacking.

Adventure Addict

Bourassa’s first high mountain lake was West Fork Lake in the Selkirks, where he camped with his father and friend Kyle Hedgecock when he was around nine. “I was addicted to adventure from that point on.” And he has had a few. He

CLOCKWISE FROM LEFT: BOUNDARY COUNTY’S BALL LAKES ARE A FUN DESTINATION EVEN WITH KIDS. PHOTO BY FIONA HICKS; SCOTT BOURASSA AT BIG FISHER LAKE, CONSIDERED ONE OF THE MOST SCENIC IN THE SELKIRKS. COURTESY PHOTO; THE TRAIL TO WEST FORK LAKE WINDS THROUGH OLD GROWTH CEDAR BEFORE REACHING THE LAKE, ONE OF THE LARGEST HIGH MOUNTAIN LAKES IN THE DISTRICT. STAFF PHOTO; BOTTLENECK LAKE IN THE KANIKSU NATIONAL FOREST IS A LITTLE OVER 11 MILES TO HIKE TO AND BACK. STAFF PHOTO was a kayak/raft guide on the Payette River in southern Idaho, in New Zealand, and on the Gauley River in West Virginia, legendary for its whitewater and the thousands who ride it during the fall “release” from Summersville dam.

He returned to Bonners Ferry in the late ’90s, worked at therapeutic boarding schools for a couple of decades, and had two daughters, Elizabeth, 19, and Emilie, 14. They and their mom, Katie, are his best hiking and lake-bagging partners. He’s grateful for their endurance. “It’s not easy to find hikers who can do 15 miles in a day—often off trail.”

Some of his students at the schools went along on his quest. The last he worked for, Northwoods School, encouraged him to get the kids out as often as possible. Sometimes that worked, sometimes not. “Once in a while, we’d encounter something the kids didn’t want to do. When things got brushy or cliffy, they would balk.”

IT’S DENNY’S FAULT

The goal of getting to all the lakes began to crystalize after his trip to West Fork Lake. He started hearing stories from his dad’s Forest Service friends about Denny Cooper, who was a Bonners gas station owner, and Cooper’s son Mike. Cooper fished local lakes every weekend, and there was a thought that he had visited them all. When young Bourassa heard that, he determined that he, too, would go to all of them. It turns out Cooper didn’t fish all of them, but the challenge stood, and continued for the next four decades. “I picked them off slowly over the years, but two-and-a-half years ago I committed to checking off the last 15 or 20 in short order.”

He visited unnamed lakes on his quest as well. “Some of the unnamed ones are more of a lake than some of the named ones, like Lower Beehive; just a spot where a moose can get a drink.”

Speaking of moose, he’s had one charge him, met a badger who had issues with his mountain bike, and had river otters chase him. A black bear with cubs stood up to him once, and a close encounter of the grizzly kind—not in pursuit of lakes— was a family hike highlight.

Bourassa’s rules of engagement from the beginning have stood the test of time. To count a lake, it has to be touched, fished in, and/or swum in. No motorized approach is allowed to lakes that a car or pickup can’t get to (especially a snowmobile), though a mountain bike is okay.

“My longest trip to a lake was biking 22 miles to (and 22 from) the Continental Mine to visit Continental Lake and Trap Lake.” He noted that the easiest lake to get to was Perkins, a drive-to northeast of Bonners near Moyie Springs. The hardest to get to is a tossup between Search and Parker lakes. Both are glacial tarns in the high Selkirks with no trail access.

His favorite lake? “Sorry. I can’t divulge that information,” he said.

WHAT’S NEXT?

Bourassa is very active in the mountain bike community. “I will lead 27 rides on 27 different trails on 27 Wednesdays this season.”

As a board member of 9btrails.org, he is charged with trail design and construction, and keeping winter trails groomed for cross-country skiing, fat-tire biking, and snowshoeing. The group has created 26 miles of trails for various purposes in just five years.

As for the future, now that the lakes are all touched, fished, and/or swam in, Bourassa is turning his attention to another Boundary County goal.

“There are 300 miles of maintained Forest Service trails on the Bonners Ferry Ranger District, and I haven’t been on them all.”

At least, not yet.

Bourassa sees his mission as a simple one—inspiration. “Never, ever give up on a goal,” he said. “Even if you get sidetracked. Denny and Mike inspired me,” he said. “My hope is to inspire others.”