Public access has never existed at Camp Bay

I wish to dispute opinions published in the Daily Bee about what was our family land at Camp Bay.  

My grandfather, John van Schravendyk, and my great-grandmother, Anna van Schravendyk, were Bonner County pioneers (1902) before there was a Bonner County (1907). As homesteaders their title to the land was directly from the United States of America. 

In the Viewer Report (1909) they wrote “The road is necessary to secure an outlet for the settlers, to the lakeshore at Camp Bay, and for a road to the store and post office at Glengary.” This would be narrow wagon road, and the terminus point shows it was only to the lakeshore and not the lake. They had little need for access onto the lake and a road terminating at the lake would mean traversing a steep gravel beach which many a future trespasser has regrettably found is ideal for trapping wheeled vehicles. 

As regards scheduled steamboat service, my grandmother, writes in “A Ranch Was Made” they had to signal the steamboat to come into Camp Bay, “Then came the worry of whether the steamboat would see our flag and turn out of its course to come in for the beef. Sometimes its course was a mile out and if the captain wasn’t watching he might not see it…”

I wish to state in the strongest possible language there has never been public access to Lake Pend Oreille via the Camp Bay Road. Never.

My grandparents, my parents and I have informed innumerable trespassers that Camp Bay Road does not provide them with a public avenue to the lake.

Ongoing lies traduce the contribution of true North Idaho pioneers. It seems odd to me that these revisionist attempts occur in a locale supposed to be a bastion of conservatism. 

Instead, I’m reminded of the phrase “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" a slogan popularized by Karl Marx.  

JIM GREEN

Sagle