Scott Dodson, the Sandcastle Man

By Kelly Milner Halls

hen Scott Dodson built his first sandcastle he was seven-years-old and on vacation. His mother snapped a photo on the beaches of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina because she was proud of her son’s modest build. Little did she know, it would be the first of many.

“My sandcastles were nothing special for many years,” Dodson says. “But when I got into my early 20s, I built them every weekend at Robert Mosses Beach on Long Island, New York.” As his skillset grew, Dodson’s ambition kicked in.

“I took pictures and showed them to beach clubs and resorts in the Hamptons,” Dodson remembers. He landed his first commissioned build from Becks Beer in 1986 at the Summer Beach Club in West

Hampton. “I ended up building them every weekend for beach customers and private parties for years,” he says.

The pay wasn’t as impressive as the sandcastles. “The clubs threw me $50.00 and a free meal,” Dodson admits. But the work was fun, so it continued until he moved to the Pacific Northwest in 1991.

Once he landed in Idaho, “I didn’t think I’d build anymore,” he says. “Then I discovered I could build castles off the beaches by using wooden forms. My first one was for Wild Water in Coeur d’Alene. After that, it was car dealers, state fairs, conventions and trade shows—all over the county.”

When he met his wife, Terri at a Coeur d’Alene Meetup gathering, he found a building partner for life. “We have traveled all over doing these castles,” Dodson says. “She makes all the bricks and trees. She’s been a real trooper.” When they are out of town, Dodson’s grown children take care of their home and their pets. When they are home, his sons Jonathan and Ben help create the sandcastle magic.

In the 37-years he’s spent building, Dodson has discovered more than a few tricks of the trade. “If I had to highlight one mistake people should avoid, it would be not using enough water,” he says. Before he begins to transform 30 tons of sand into a work of temporary art, Dodson packs it—dripping wet—into four levels of wooden forms. He pounds and pounds and pounds to cause the crystalline grains to interconnect.

He is also careful to select the best sand available. “Fine beach sand is what you want,” he says. “You have to be able to make a ball in your hand out of the dripping, wet sand.”

The best sand in the world, according to Dodson, can be found at South Padre Island in Texas, Maui in Hawaii, Turks and Caicos, the Dominican Republic, St. Luisa and St. Croix. The worst sand is in Coeur d’Alene City Park. But Dodson has found a way to break through that CDA barrier.

“For projects off the beach,” Dodson says, “I buy fine mason’s sand. It comes in two 16-ton dump trucks for projects like Art on the Green in Coeur d’Alene.”

Dodson will build at Art on the Green for his 25th year on August 4th and 5th of 2023. The public is welcome to watch as he creates his latest 14th century medieval sandcastle between 12 and 15 feet high— then watch it gently fade away with the passage of time.

Watching body busting work disappear could be cause for depression, but Dodson sees it differently. “We spray them with a fine layer of water-soluble glue so they’ll last a few weeks after we leave,” he says, “but that’s why I take photographs—to remember them when they’re gone.”

Once the photos are secured, Dodson lets the castles go. He moves on to the next challenge. And there are plenty of goals yet to fulfill.

“I once had a dream of creating a GoFundMe page to finance a worldwide trip to build castles on exotic beaches and write a coffee table book,” Dodson says. “I wanted to guild a 35-foot-tall castle at Silverwood Theme Park, but they didn’t go for it. I wanted to create a professional sandcastle building kit with my name on it.” None of those dreams have come true, but he’s replaced them with a new one.

“I have my eyes on a little condo on South Padre Island in Texas,” he says. “I’d like to spend the colder months down there in the sun, building awesome sandcastles on the beaches, then just walking home. Someone once asked me why I build sandcastles. I told them life was too short not to build sandcastles. That’s how I feel, and I will build them for as long as I’m able.”

Judging from his website of treasured images--sandcastlesinparadise.com--the Sandcastle Man has used his time wisely. And who knows what may turn up on Dodson’s future horizons? The possibilities are as endless as his grains of sand.

by: Paul Lindholdt

My interest in the outdoors has evolved into birdwatching. With the same pleasure others derive from watching TV, I like to watch birds from my bedroom window. One day, I saw a hawk catch a starling.

t was early spring and the dry stalks rattling beside her put the Cooper’s hawk on edge. Her earthbound perch, a chain-link fence blocked her escape on one side, a berry bush hemmed her in on the other. Lines of electrical wires congested the sky.

In spite of her surroundings, the hawk blazed down a utility easement and surprised a starling as it pecked at shriveled berries beneath a bush. The starling lay upside down beneath one clenched set of her talons, writhing and very much alive.

The hawk dwarfed the starling, at nineteen inches tall, the size of a crow. She loomed larger than any hawk I’d ever come across in our woodland neighborhood.

The haunts of many hawks are vanishing. That’s why she had risked a catch so close to our home in west Spokane. I was lucky to have binoculars nearby when she dove. The unfolding backyard drama gave me my own godlike prospect and advantage.

Imagine it all from a hawks-eye point of view. A feathered bit of food beneath you flutters and a switch within you flips. Hormones flood you as you assess the danger of the situation. Self-preservation requires it. Your inner being locks onto the yielding flesh, even before you attack. The hit soon follows.

Hawks like this one mate for life. The pair had learned to trust in one another, to feed from the same sensuous morsel. Her mate watched her mantle her wings, bow above her prey, and shade it from view.

Ranging far from her treetop sanctuary, frazzled by her narrow confines and the starling’s stout resistance, the female Cooper’s hawk grew anxious. In the seizure she had been impetuous, . The eggs of the season within her body were already swelling. She was craving protein.

She was also feeling vulnerable. Hawks tumble to predators like other animals do, even as near the top of the food chain as they are. They suffer mortality from coyotes, house cats, eagles, owls, and humans.

From a nearby pine, the male hawk unfolded. He dropped down the passageway between the chain-link fence and the berry bush to join her. He might have been overanxious for the meal. He might have meant to deliver the kill stroke that was so long in coming.

His mate was bent – gripping, plucking, ready to be fed and gone. When his shadow crossed her line of sight, she lost her nerve and freaked, unable to take a chance that the shadow could be anything but risk.

Instinct seized her and she vanished. Her thrash of wings made the male fear a predator was near, and he too sped off. The starling, undressed and ready to be dead, likewise fled. All three scattered before they could piece together what had taken place.

Her strike on the starling had not stabbed its vitals. Its breast feathers would fill in, the talon punctures heal. Future flocks would feed the hawk, her mate, and their offspring.

In the book H is for Hawk, writer Helen Macdonald asks, “Have you ever seen a hawk catch a bird in your back garden?” I can answer, “yes.” Now I know the many ways predation can go wrong. The moment wrote itself like a sprinkle of blood, a scatter of feathers beneath a pine, a patch of matted grass where watching wild hawks paid off, at least for me.