Fireworks not over yet for Bayview's MacDonald

BAYVIEW — Just about the time you thought the blast from the last big boomer would blow you off the barge, Gary MacDonald moved blithely down the firing line igniting shell after shell after shell, each a little bigger and better. The colorful bursts and fountains lit up the night sky over Lake Pend Oreille.

For years, MacDonald has dazzled his neighbors with a Fourth of July fireworks show that rivals Coeur d’Alene’s annual extravaganza.

But it’s one of the region’s best-kept secrets. Though expensive to stage, there’s no advertising and little or no publicity. It’s a private party for this tight community. And what a party it is.

It begins with the summer sun setting on Scenic Bay, one of North Idaho’s most picturesque places. Then there’s the reverberation off the bay’s rugged cliffs. And there’s MacDonald’s orchestration. He’s a certified expert at a craft that you don’t just dabble in. Not at this level.

But big-time pyrotechnics aren’t MacDonald’s only claim to fame — something a little more serene than detonating explosives. While growing up on the bay, there were no sailboats. Not one. Back then, the lake’s main attraction was the pursuit of the huge rainbow trout known as Kamloops.

It still is. But in addition to a fleet of fishing boats, MacDonald’s marina is now a virtual forest of aluminum masts. Sleek sailing craft gently sway in their slips with halyards clanging like wind chimes.

They have redefined the resort.

And it was a young Gary MacDonald who made it happen. MacDonald sold and promoted the bay’s sailboats and staged popular wind-driven races. It became a culture with MacDonald leading the way. He and his distinctive, red 28-foot swift partner, “Patriot,” was the team to beat.

Now 66, MacDonald still likes to take the tiller and ride the waves. And he occasionally still races. When he does, he usually wins.

But things have changed at the resort. Gary and his wife, Mary, have inherited the third-generation gem, along with all the work and responsibility that goes with it. Yet they couldn’t be happier. As parents of three and grandparents of one, they plan to maintain MacDonald’s Hudson Bay Resort as a lakeside legacy.

“Our plan is to keep it as a family business into the future for as long as we can,” MacDonald said. “And our customers want that too. They are really quite happy that we are still here.”

MacDonald’s grandfather bought Hudson Bay Resort in 1951. Gary was 3 months old when his family moved into the home overlooking Scenic Bay where he still lives.

His mother and good-natured, jokester father, Jim, who served in the state Legislature, raised a brood of four at the resort.

“There was not much back then. I mean not very much at all,” MacDonald said. “It was a tiny resort.”

It had 60 rental boats, a store and six rental cabins. The resort now has moorage for 250 boats, 10 rental cabins and consists of 1,600 feet of lake frontage, about seven acres between the lake and Farragut State Park.

But some things never change at the somewhat remote — but immaculate and cozy — getaway. You can still sit around the store’s low-slung counter on a vintage stool and listen to coffee-clutching old-timers debate sports and politics and laugh over tall tales. You can buy everything from fishing lures to a Snickers bar to a tank of gas to a yacht. Ducks and geese are not only tolerated, but paddle around like they own the place.

MacDonald remembers fishing off the marina’s docks when he was about 7 years old and performing chores for his grandmother.

“Rake this or cut that,” he said. “I grew up working around the resort. Odd job things. I’d run the boats around.”

At 14, he was working in the resort’s store. He attended Lakeland High School, participated in track, basketball and debate, and spent long summers again at the resort.

“I enjoyed it. But it was seven days a week. In the summer a typical day was 16 hours,” he said.

MacDonald enrolled at Gonzaga University as a political science major with the intent of pursuing a degree in law.

In the meantime, his grandmother hired a black-haired high school beauty from Spokane, who was spending summers on her family’s boat and attended to the resort’s rental cabins.

Gary and Mary met, dated and married in 1975. Mary has since become pivotal in the operation of the resort. Gary continued to chase a law degree at Gonzaga until he got a little sage advice.

“I had a lot of lawyer customers at the time, and they universally told me, ‘You’re crazy.‘ So I took their advice,” MacDonald said. “I switched to accounting and decided to stay here.”

Wise choice.

“I have fun every day,” he said. “And that’s no joke.”

As the marina expanded, MacDonald’s family operated a highly rated, open-air restaurant for 12 years. The sailboat enterprise came out of the blue.

A customer expressed an interest in 1971 in a Ranger 20. MacDonald contacted Ranger Yachts in Kent, Wash., and asked if they would like a dealer. He was hired and became Ranger’s only off-site salesman.

“I sold that one, then I sold another and another,” he said. “I sold a lot of Ranger 20s.”

The customers requested bigger boats. So at age 26, MacDonald contacted Islander Yachts in California and became another dealer, selling tens of the top-line sloops.

“For a little podunk place out of Bayview, I was selling a lot of boats,” he said.

MacDonald also served 14 years on the Lakeland School Board.

“I liked school and I had an interest in seeing that my kids had good schools to go to. I had no driving hot-button issue that convinced me to run, but I did,” he said. “I enjoyed it.”

So what’s in MacDonald’s future? More of the same.

Most of it is about family. In addition to Mary, their younger son, Justin, plays a key role in the operation of the resort. Daughter Meghan and son Ryan are pursuing careers elsewhere but eventually plan to return to the fold.

Part of it too, he said, is fellowship.

“We’re very people-oriented. If we act like we’re interested in you, it’s not an act. We really like to build a relationship,” he said. “It would be rare for me not to like something about anybody. I’ve always treated people like they’re interesting, because they are.

“I have no visions of going anywhere. I think I will die in the saddle just like my dad did,” MacDonald said.