State Parks projects to improve parks in Bear Lake

• Valerie Hayes-Ross Montpelier News Examiner

According to Richard Droesbeke, park manager of Utah's Bear Lake State Parks, a couple of Utah state legislators recently asked how to make more beach on Bear Lake. They were told the beaches on Bear Lake are finite. They can't be made larger; they can only be improved.

Utah's Bear Lake State Parks currently has three projects ongoing to improve parks on the Utah side of Bear Lake totaling millions of dollars.

In Utah, the State Parks agency is self sufficient. In other words, they cover their own expenses. If they turn a profit, the money goes into a savings account. If that money builds up, the agency can request funding from the State Legislature.

Two years ago, the agency set aside $2 million to start a restoration project on the east side of Bear Lake at the North Eden Campground. This included a constructing a retaining wall and a five-foot sidewalk. They are now moving into the next phase where they are establishing a paved parking area and erecting three ADA shade shelters on the beach above the high water mark. They are hoping to be able to install eight more shelters as time goes by.

At one point, North Eden had 11 campsites. The new North Eden campground will have 32 campsites with a camp post site and group sites.

This project has cost the agency approximately $2 million so far.

The agency will be asking for another $3 million in the next legislative session to install an asphalt road and campsite pull-through as well as power and water hookups, an RV dump station, and a septic system at North Eden.

Droesbeke says the project at North Eden will significantly improve the beach for day use. He says that is where they have seen the most growth. Because of improvements and a general clean-up there, he feels North Eden will attract a whole new crowd from those who go to North Beach and the parking lot will be full.

At the Rendezvous Beach project, they have replaced the four oldest restrooms and will be doing asphalt work there late this spring. About $2 million will be spent on this project.

The Utah Department of Transportation has a large $5 million project coming up in late February at the Bear Lake State Park Marina. The state agency will improve the entrance to the park, calling it a frontage road. It will become a two-way entrance into the Marina that will allow them to queue 38-39 trucks and boat trailers at a time without them being backed up on the highway. This is in contrast to the eight to nine they can queue at this time.

Between the three projects, Droesbeke feels the beaches and campgrounds on the Utah side of Bear Lake have been and will be greatly improved. He is very positive about the work that has been done, especially at North Eden, and he thinks visitors will really enjoy what they see and experience there.

Idaho Parks and Recreation is also planning improvements on Bear Lake.

According to Kirk Rich, manager of Idaho's Bear Lake State Parks, the agency is applying for two grants for site improvements to campgrounds and beaches on the Idaho side of Bear Lake.

The first grant is for electrical hookup upgrades for 20 different sites around the lake. The second grant is for water system upgrades of 48 units on East Beach.

Work has also begun on two new parking lots that will accommodate 300 cars on East Beach. However, the lots still need fencing and asphalt. Rich estimates project completion is still a year away.

Rich says they have received more usage on the beaches in the last few years with 35 percent more usage on North Beach in 2020. He feels these improvements will definitely help that situation.

Rich also noted the water and electrical upgrades at one of the older campgrounds will allow the modern camper to have a better hookup due to higher amperage.

He says there are other projects on the drawing board awaiting funding.

Herald Journal story about Jim Stone's book

 

Photo by Mitch Mascaro

By Steve Kent, City Editor, Herald Journal

Seventeen years after a Great Pyrenees sheepdog was rescued after faithfully guarding three stranded sheep in Logan Canyon, the man who brought the public’s attention to the plight is telling his full story.

Jim Stone, a longtime Bear Lake guide and business owner, has teamed up with friend Karen Stone to write “The Legend of Big Boy: Safe or Stranded.”

The book’s subtitle is a reference to the headline of a 2004 Herald Journal article about the dog. After the article, there was a public outpouring of support for the dog.

“The next morning after I went public, the Search & Rescue was there, the cops were there, the game wardens were there, the public people were there with signs about rescuing Big Boy,” Stone said.

Before the article, however, Stone had been visiting the dog he called “Big Boy” for about four months.

Co-author Karen Stone, a friend not related to Jim, helped bring that effort to light.

Karen Stone said she’d heard Jim tell Big Boy’s story before, but reading the manuscript was something else.

“Oh my gosh, I was just overwhelmed with the story,” Karen Stone said.

Karen Stone felt Jim was leaving much of his personal experience out, however, so she collaborated with him to include more of what she sees as “a very emotional and spiritual experience that I clearly saw Heavenly Father’s hand directing,” she said.

So in addition to editing the book, she wrote some portions of the book after interviewing him about his experience.

Jim Stone originally spotted the dog near the Beaver Mountain turnoff while he was driving through Logan Canyon and thought it odd for that time of year. On his next trip through the canyon, he saw the dog trotting along the side of the road as if he were looking for something.

“I went home and got thinking about it,” Stone said. “I thought, well, the ranchers over there, they use those dogs quite a bit. So I was kind of worried about the dog.”

Sheepdogs are occasionally left behind in summer range when ranchers pick up sheep in the fall.

Stone started bringing food for the dog, but since Great Pyrenees sheepdogs are bred to be wary, it took a couple of visits before the dog would come down the cliffs to eat.

“He trusted me, but he was bred not to come to humans,” Stone said, “so he would never actually come right to my hand, and I couldn’t actually get him in the truck.”

Stone tried throwing meat up the cliffs to Big Boy, then “skipping” flat pieces of frozen meat up. Eventually he started taking the sticks out of corn dogs and “rifling” them up, throwing them with a football spiral.

After about a month, Stone followed a hunch and discovered the reason that Big Boy hadn’t just left the canyon even though snow had started to fall.

“Finally I had to hike across the mountains on the other side with my binos to look up to see what was going on, then I could see the sheep up there, stranded,” Stone said. “And it was just amazing that the dog would not leave those sheep.”

After Stone spotted the sheep, he started bringing bales of alfalfa as well as food for Big Boy. Stone was amazed when the dog would take wafers from the bales and carry them up the mountain to the sheep. Stone saw him break off rose hips and carry them up to the sheep, as well.

As the weather continued to cool, at one point Stone said he tried to bait the dog close enough to grab him. After more reflection, he gave up that strategy.

“I decided not to try to grab the dog,” Stone said, “because it wouldn’t have been right of me to take the dog away from something he was so passionate about giving his life up to protect.”

Eventually, Stone spoke with his friend, then-Herald Journal photographer Mitch Mascaro, who encouraged him to take the dog’s tale to the newspaper.

The book includes details that apparently haven’t been previously reported, including the fate of Big Boy and the sheep. According to Stone, Search & Rescue volunteers brought all of the animals down from the mountain.

Stone said after the rescue, he believes he found Big Boy working for a rancher and would visit him periodically for about five years afterward.

“It was kind of a bond that I had with that dog,” Stone said. “He knew that I had rescued him and he knew that I’d fed him. We had kind of one of those silent-language friendship type of things.”

Gary E. Stevenson, an apostle of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, told the story in the church’s 2018 General Conference. In his talk, “Shepherding Souls,” Stevenson mentions clipping the newspaper article about Big Boy and compared the dog’s dedication and demeanor to Jesus Christ.

Stone said he likes that analogy, and extended it further:

“The book really portrays that everybody needs help at some time in their life,” Stone said. “When he (Stevenson) compared that dog to being Jesus and the sheep being us, well, even at one point Jesus needed Heavenly Father to step in.”

About seven months ago, Stone decided to put Pickleville Country Store up for sale and head up to Alaska, where he’s been living in his truck with his dogs and writing books. He’d wanted to write “Big Boy” for years, but was inspired to finally make it happen by his best friend, Allen Warner. Shortly before Warner’s death, he gave Stone a “little red desk.”

“At the time,” Stone writes in the first chapter of his book, “it was just a dream in my friends mind that I would carry this desk to many different and beautiful places where my memories and my thoughts could be transferred onto paper through a pencil or pen.”

So rather abruptly one morning after Warner’s death, Stone decided he’d make that dream a reality.

“I decided about 3 o’clock in the morning, ‘I’m going to Alaska and I’m going to write that book,’” Stone said. “So I loaded up that desk in my truck and all my camping stuff and dogs and guns and fishing poles and headed for Washington. Put the truck on a ferry and ferried all the way across the Pacific Ocean to Sitka.”

Stone writes on the desk when he can, and when the weather or the terrain won’t permit, he uses a cutting board as a writing surface. He takes his manuscript to public libraries, copies them off, and mails them to Karen Stone.

“This book is about two living angels,” Karen said, referencing both the dog’s dedication to the sheep and “Jim’s breakthrough in his personal and spiritual life that came into fruition through that experience.”

“The Legend of Big Boy: Safe or Stranded” is available through Balboa Press for physical or Kindle ebook purchase on Amazon.

Cisco’s Sonar

 From Cisco Disco to Winterfest

 By Bryce Neilson

I have been living in Garden City for over 45 years.  I have seen many things change as I have enjoyed watching the creation of the Cisco Disco and its eventual evolution into Winterfest.  

In the 1960’s and 1950’s dipping for Bonneville cisco was a different event. 

Because there was not much to do in January, fishermen looked forward to cisco fishing because Bear Lake was one of the few waters in Utah open for year around fishing.  KSL newscasters, Bob Wealty and Paul James, would have an annual debate when the cisco were going to start “running” at Bear Lake.  People would pull travel trailers or pitch tents on the beach hoping to dip some fish just as it became light.  

During the early morning hundreds of cars would drive to Bear Lake for the adventure.  Vehicles would be adorned with long handled wire dip nets (smelt nets) and filled with fishermen and kids.  It seemed to be much colder then and Gortex had not been invented so they would start car tires on fire to stay warm.  Black smoke and people milling around made up the scene.  It was a frigid free-for-all with plenty of drinking and swearing.  A great place for kids. 

Gradually the interest in netting cisco started to wane.  The Superbowl started, people took up skiing and the Fish and Game opened up the state to year around fishing.  People had other things to do during January other than standing in the freezing water trying to scoop up 50 eight- inch fish. 

The original Cisco Disco started small in the mid 1980’s.  A good friend and I would get together to catch a limit of cisco each year.  Since it was cold, we would bring a Coleman stove to make a pot of coffee and cook some fish.  People would stop by for a cup and wonder what we were going to do with the cisco, since most fishermen used them for bait.  When we said, “eat them” many folks wondered how they tasted so we shared.  Usually, fishermen were so sick of cisco after cleaning a hundred, they put them in the freezer and forget about them.  A couple of months later, they cooked them and wondered why they taste so fishy.  After they tasted them, fresh, on the tailgate of the truck, they changed their minds.  As the years passed,  cooking fresh Bonneville cisco with fries and scones grew.  The crowds exploded and there was always a big, wood, fires and lots of antifreeze and socialization.  

My friend, Doug Miller, a sportscaster with Utah Outdoors, showed up one year when it was well below zero.  He noticed everyone standing around the fire in the normal, brown, duck coverall dress jumping up and down, hands in their pockets, trying to stay warm.  While on camera, he said that we looked like we were doing the “Cisco Disco”.  The name stuck.  

Many years have passed since that cold, morning and now thousands of people come to Bear Lake to do a Polar Plunge, eat chili and a myriad of other things.  Maybe some diehards will still be to catch and eat a fresh cisco.  I might have to try it again. 

 

  

Winterfest is this weekend!

 The Bear Lake Monster Winterfest is Bear Lake’s biggest annual winter event. The next time this family friendly event is being held is on January 22-24, 2021. Most activities take place in the Utah Bear Lake State Park Marina and Sunrise Resort & Event Center. The state parks entrance fee at the Marina will be waived for those attending the event, with a hope that you’ll donate to The Family Place non-profit for which the event is fundraising. The event is put on by the Bear Lake Rendezvous Chamber of Commerce, Bear Lake Valley Convention & Visitors Bureau, Garden City Fire District, and Bear Lake State Park.

Reflections of Winter

Photo by Carol Ann Dyer

 

No Parking At Summit Brake Check Allowed

 RE: Logan Canyon parking (specifically Logan Summit brake check)

There is no parking on the summit at the brake check area. There are signs that specify this. The brake check is filling up with trucks and trailers. Commercial vehicles are not able to safely check their brakes, if at all. If your vehicle is parked there, you will be ticketed and possibly towed.

This also goes for some other recreation areas. If you’re parked on or over the fog line, you can plan on a ticket or getting towed. This is becoming a problem. Pass this on to people you know who use these areas.

LDS Church Adds Visitor's Chapel

 

 

New Chapel to Accommodate Bear Lake Valley Visitors

In May of 2020, the Paris Idaho Stake of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints located in the Bear Lake Valley began a new era of Sacrament meeting attendance for the visitors to that beautiful recreation area.  The large influx of visitors who desire to attend Sunday services has brought an increase in   attendance of 800 to 1000 or more, to each of the four local wards.  In response to this increase, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has built a separate chapel to accommodate these visitors.  The new chapel is located at 300 West 100 South Garden City, Utah.

A new branch titled the “Bear Lake Visitor Branch was created to facilitate the visitors of the four wards namely: Garden City 1^st and 2^nd Wards, Laketown Ward, and St. Charles Ward.  The Bear Lake Visitor Branch has a total full time membership of nine individuals who are called to serve as the Branch Presidency and branch members.

The new branch chapel is designed to accommodate 760 people in one large room.  There are no classrooms but does include four restrooms, a small kitchen and a Sacrament preparation room.  Since there are no permanent benches, folding chairs are set up into rows for those who attend. Having a single large meeting room allows the building to also be used for other large meetings such as wedding receptions, Seminary graduations, and other large social gatherings conducive to chapel settings.

There has been a special spirit in the meetings that have been held through the challenging times of 2020.  It seems that all who enter the building do so with a sincere desire to be there and feel the spirit of our Father in Heaven.  Those who attend are asked to help with prayers, music, and the administration of the Sacrament, and clean up after the meetings. 

At the dedication that was held on Nov. 29, President Shane Roberts, the stake president of the Paris Idaho Stake stated in the dedicatory prayer, “We recognize that many have gathered information about the visitors who come in large numbers to be together as families and create memories.  We feel blessed that those who come want to attend Sacrament meeting while they are here.  May those who visit here be drawn to this building because of the wonderful spirit felt, the tender mercies they will be blessed with and the peace of the Savior that will be felt.”

The branch presidency and the Paris Idaho Stake welcome all who visit the Bear Lake Valley to attend the Bear Lake Visitor Branch Sunday Sacrament meetings.

The schedule is as follows:

WINTER: After General Conference in October through General Conference in April- 11 a.m. Every Sunday.

SUMMER: After General Conference in April through General Conference in October- Two meetings every Sunday at 9 a.m. and 11 a.m.  (Additional Sacrament meetings may be added in the future to accommodate larger crowds.)

Save the following for your cabin or guests:

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints

You are invited to attend Sacrament Services at

 

The Bear Lake Visitors Branch

 

100 South 300 West, Garden City Utah

 

Summer (Apr 1 – Oct Conf.) - 9:00 a.m. and 11:00 a.m.

 

   Winter (Oct Conference-Apr Conference) – 11:00 a.m.

 

All Visitors Are Welcome

 

Branch President: Michael Madsen             435-757-6039

 

First Councilor: Martin Argyle                    435-881-7604

 

Second Councilor: Craig Floyd                   435-757-1257

 

Branch Clerk: Alan Michaelson                   208-390-4568    

 

 

Lake Slush

Photo by Carol Ann Dyer

 

Covid 19 Stats

COUNTY :Bear river Health District

We are reporting 64 new cases on Sunday January 17. We currently have 17,310 total cases in our health district. The table below separates the total cases by county. Please note that the district total and the totals by county will not always match. Some cases that are still being investigated are missing county data. This will be added during the case investigation and totals will be updated accordingly.

BOX ELDER  CASES          4274   TOTAL HOSPITAL  175   DEATHS       29

CACHE                             12867                        439               22

RICH                                                 90                               5                  0

TOTALS                     17231                        619               51