By Billie Jean Plaster and Chris Bessler

ON A MAP, LAKE PEND OREILLE looks like an ear, or perhaps a question mark missing the dot. Not that you can really tell much about its shape when you're down on the water. It's simply too big to discern much more than water, sky and mountains stretching on and on.
       How big is big? Well, for instance, the 43-mile-long lake is nearly as long as Lake Ontario. At its greatest girth, the lake is just over six miles wide. And in one respect it outdoes all but five lakes in the nation: It's a lot deeper.

Big Depth
       In fact, when we say our lake is deep, we mean it is deeper than the famous Loch Ness. The U.S. Navy didn't choose to test submarines at Lake Pend Oreille for nothing. It is even rumored that the Navy once lost a submarine in the deep, dark waters. At 1,158 feet deep, it's the fifth deepest lake in the nation. The Navy still continues to perform tests in Lake Pend Oreille from its research station at Bayview. And like Loch Ness, our lake is also reputedly the home of a large water monster, affectionately called Pend Oreille Paddler. Actually, the various sightings could be giant sturgeon, which historically reached lengths of 12 feet and longer, but doubts linger.

Big Shoreline
       If you wanted to paddle around the lake's shore in a kayak, you would have to make approximately 118,539 strokes with an oar to follow the 111 miles of shoreline.
       If you are somewhat less ambitious -- or have less than the week or so that a circumnavigation might take -- there are plenty of places where you can reach the lake by car, bike or foot, or can launch a boat. Check out the Lake Towns page, or go to the Lake Good Drives page.

Big Geology
       In prehistoric times, Lake Pend Oreille was part of a massive inland sea called Lake Missoula, which was formed by an ice dam created by huge glaciers protruding down the Purcell Trench that extends down from Canada through the Kootenai Valley. The lake extended far into western Montana; when the ice dam broke, the resulting flood scoured out the channel scablands that are today a major geologic feature of eastern Washington.
       Many visitors to Lake Pend Oreille are captivated by its rugged beauty that begs comparison to the fiords of Scandinavia. The exceptional beauty comes courtesy of the surrouning mountain ranges which in areas seem to plunge straight up out of the depths of the lake. The three major mountain ranges which surround the lake are the Selkirks to the north, Coeur d'Alenes to the south and Cabinets to the east.

Big History
       The lake's history stretches back to its native inhabitants, the Kalispel Indians, who lived here for thousands of years. There are only about 250 Kalispel Indians now, most of whom live on the tribe's small reservation on the Pend Oreille River in Washington, and the tribe is not officially recognized in Idaho. But the lake is very much their home ground, and well into the 1930s Sandpoint was the site of annual gatherings of Kalispel, Kootenai and other tribes who held horse races, played traditional games and kept their culture alive.
       There's some difference of opinion, but the lake's very name may arise from the Kalispel Indians. Some believe the name Pend Oreille, meaning ear pendant in French, was bestowed by early French trappers and explorers to describe ear ornaments worn by the Kalispel. Others believe the name given by those early white explorers simply describes the lake's shape.
       The first well-documented white man to arrive at Lake Pend Oreille was the Canadian explorer David Thompson. A surveyor for the fur trading North West Company, he built the first structure in the Northwest, called the Kullyspell House, on the Hope Peninsula in 1809. The lake's colorful history includes the gold rush era beginning in 1866, when the lake was used as a thoroughfare for prospectors traveling from the Columbia River to the gold fields of Helena. Steamships like the Mary Moody took miners from Buttonhook Bay north up the lake and then east up the Clark Fork River as far as the impassable Cabinet Gorge rapids until 1869 when the gold rush died down.
       The lake's largest community, Sandpoint, was first settled in 1880 when Robert Weeks opened a general store, and the Northern Pacific (NP) surveyed the area. The town grew slowly from then on as a mining and timber center. Hope was once a booming railroad community with the construction of the NP line in 1882. The Chinese who worked on the railroad lived in the community until the 1920s.
       A big chapter in the lake's history was written during World War II, when Bayview was the site of the Farragut Naval Training Station through which some 300,000 enlisted men passed. There is still a naval research station in Bayview. The community was also busy early this century when mines and lime quarries flourished.
       In the 1950s, the Army Corps of Engineers built the Albeni Falls Dam on the Pend Oreille River, the outlet of the lake. Today, lake levels are controlled by operations of the dam, with levels fluctuating from a low of 2,051 feet above sea level to a typical high summer pool of 2,062.5 feet. At the current time, lake communities are advocating a change in dam operations that will permit a more stable lake level year-round, which would benefit the lake's kokanee fishery.
       Meantime, there's no shortage of historical vignettes from the lake's colorful history. Once such was a scandal surrounded the community of Midas, now Garfield Bay, when profiteer Jim McNicholas raised money from investors to explore the area for valuable ore. When nothing was produced, the unlucky (or unscrupulous) promoter was jailed. Others followed, but the town never did have a productive mine.
       These days it's just the natural beauty of the lake itself that is the gold mine, attracting visitors from around the world to appreciate its many attractions.