Bayview introduces small-town charm to big-league tourists

When the circus comes to town, the audience can’t help but look up toward the most harrowing and captivating moment of the day. Up above, near the fabric of the big top’s ceiling, stands a daredevil delicately balancing on a wire no thicker than your thumb. Any tightrope walker will tell you that perfecting the art means mastering three simple skills born into the DNA of every human being.

Will Stafford signed up for a delicate tightrope of his own. The president of the Bayview Chamber of Commerce walks a fine line every day between promoting the health of the business community and maintaining the town’s quaint charm. The village consists mostly of North Idaho retirees, boating enthusiasts and the spare servicemen and -women who work at the Naval Surface Warfare Center on the edge of town.

“Finding that balance is the key,” Stafford said. “Ultimately, what it comes down to is, [Bayview is] a fantastic area. We love it as long as we can all share it and enjoy it together, and not just kibosh it and ruin it for everybody. There’s people and locals who have lived here all their lives.”

That push-and-pull between fostering an economy and keeping the community as quiet as the stillness of the Lake Pend Oreille on which it sits requires constant vigilance, which brings us to the tightrope walker’s first skill: Posture.

“So many people coming through the area don’t even know Bayview exists,” Stafford said. “A lot of times, people come to stay at Farragut [State Park], and they came into town looking for a roll of toilet paper or a bar of soap. These are people who’ve been to Farragut many, many times, and they’ll tell us they never knew we were here.”

This anonymity led the chamber promote Bayview as a town for its people, mainly because it is. Very little of its resources comes from a predictable revenue stream. The vast majority of funding of its events comes from volunteers, the generosity of Bayview’s citizens and — sometimes — knocking on doors. In the early summer weather and before the town’s Fourth of July events, the chamber carries around $22,000 after raffles, fireworks donations and fees, which is a little less than what the Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce spends promoting Ironman alone. But that’s fine, Stafford emphasized as he sat in Ralph’s, a quaint Bayview cafe with perhaps the greatest huckleberry milkshake in the history of huckleberries or milkshakes. Bayview’s chamber doesn’t need a healthy budget. Just healthy aspirations, which leads us to our second tightrope skill: knowing when you’re about to slip.

Bayview residents looking to maintain a quiet, serene world at the expense of tourism have a few things going against them. For starters, Bayview isn’t just pretty. It’s a screensaver. When a glacier carved out Lake Pend Oreille 15,000 years ago, it knew what it was doing. Steep slopes curve around the southern shore, draped in trees and cliffs, reminding passersby of the sets of “Lord Of The Rings” or “The Sound Of Music,” making Bayview North Idaho’s secret natural wonder.

It’s no wonder Stafford lights up with glee when he talks about it.

“On Bayview Daze, when we light off the fireworks,” he said, “oh, boy, it’s intense. The fireworks light up the sky, but the boom of the fireworks echoes against the mountain walls. It’s really something.”

The Fourth and its nearest weekend that holds Bayview Daze is always the town’s busiest tourist weekend of the year, where chamber members guess visitors balloon the population anywhere between 12,000 to 20,000. Summertime tourists keep the downtown shops and restaurants open and humming. The annual Fourth Of July pancake breakfast this year brought in a record 290 people. While this represents a fraction of visitors flocking to Coeur d’Alene’s City Beach on the Fourth, Bayview traffic still grinds to a halt in a town with one main drag lined with the Norman Rockwell image of wholesome spectators cheering on the local Independence Day parade.

And parade-goers come to Bayview on the Fourth and for Bayview Daze for a reason. Most of the chamber’s revenue goes toward fireworks for the iconic event. It’s the community’s most economically important time of the year. It even gave birth to the chamber’s newest collectable: a T-shirt promoting the festival, complete with its winning image from a local artist. (T-shirts, by the way, are still available through the chamber.) Yet nobody seems to know — or seems to care — how Bayview does financially that week, or that summer, for that matter. Store owners and managers couldn’t or wouldn’t speak to The Press about how Summer 2019 compares to summers past.

“We were busy,” was the closest scientific information told to The Press, and only on the condition of anonymity. Four Bayview business owners said they didn’t know. Four others said they don’t really keep track. That is the spin of the wire that keeps Stafford up at night. He can’t always say with certainty whether chamber members are making or breaking. He can’t yet tell if he and the businesses he represents are slipping off the tightrope.

“I think there are some of us here that are torn on whether or not we want to promote it,” said Bayview resident and active Coeur d’Alene Chamber of Commerce member Eric Soles. “It’s Mayberry. It’s a well-kept secret. I have friends who live in Post Falls and around Coeur d’Alene who, when I tell them I live in Bayview, they ask if it’s near Pocatello. It’s a hidden gem.”

Soles attributes that to the half-hour drive north from Coeur d’Alene on U.S. 95, topped off by the winding turn past Farragut. This is why Stafford, Soles and the business community are now marketing their town not to Canadians or Californians, but to locals. They led that campaign off with a donation package in partnership with Coeur d’Alene’s chamber.

“You would think,” said Soles, the brainchild behind the donation, “that with Farragut State Park, our two frisbee golf courses and the Tree to Tree [zip line course], you would think it would be closer to tens of thousands over the summer, but realistically, we don’t really get packed here, outside of Bayview Daze. That’s why we decided to try and draw interest from Coeur d’Alene and Sandpoint, to get people in the area to come here on a more regular basis.”

The package itself was a hefty one. One would think the items would be sold individually; Stafford said the goal was to generate enough buzz for the taker to remember forever, all focused on the recreational opportunities Bayview offers.

“It was a success,” said Soles, who donated wine for the auction. “From my standpoint, I love Bayview. I really wanted to show off our town. This would be a good way, from that standpoint. Even more important, the folks that bought the package had a wonderful time.”

The event was the first step in a long and challenging campaign to draw Idahoans in. Fortunately, Stafford said, Bayview businesses and residents alike have no short supply the third commodity he and every other tightrope walker needs to make it across the danger below: strength.

“The people here — from top to bottom — are amazing,” Stafford said. “This is a great job because I get to work with so many amazing people. It’s intense how motivated they are to make this a community worth living in.”

“The people here are fantastic,” Soles agreed. “I know, during the tourist season, some people think that Bayview’s been invaded, but everybody understands that we’re looking to grow an economy while keeping our small-town charm. That takes strength.”

Bayview’s strength travels well beyond tourist season, which begins Memorial Day weekend and ends on Labor Day, the last breath of summer before school begins. The collective experience of its residents allows them to enjoy the lazy days of their chosen lives, to equip themselves over the autumn months for the snows ahead, to endure the frigid Idaho winters. These are the qualities that forge Bayview’s people into what Stafford said they are today: rugged, independent, proud people who constantly walk their own tightropes between inviting visitors in and circling the wagons, hoping to keep the natural beauty of their town’s secret safe when the circus — big or small — comes to town.