SANDPOINT - While much of the rural West is shriveling as jobs in timber, mining and ranching disappear, the southern Selkirk Mountains area in the United States and Canada is adding people and jobs.A new University of Montana study found that although the region is far from interstate highways and commercial airports, its mountains and lakes are fueling an economic resurgence despite the loss of timber jobs.
"Beautiful surroundings and small communities have attrac-ted a growing population to the southern Selkirk region," UM economics professor Thomas Power wrote in his report for The Lands Council, a Spokane-based environmental group.
The report found three factors fuel the economic growth in the Selkirks: increased tourism and recreation jobs, a growing number of retirees and changes in technology that allow more people to leave large cities and work in attractive rural areas.
The International Selkirk Loop, a region of northeastern Washington, northern Idaho and southern British Columbia, has seen remarkable growth in just the past decade, Power found.
Population on the U.S. side, covering Bonner and Boundary counties in Idaho and Pend Oreille County, Wash., grew from 42,000 in 1990 to 57,000 in 2000, up 34 percent. On the Canadian side, the Creston and Nelson, British Columbia, areas grew from 36,000 to 44,000, up 21 percent.
The biggest community on the U.S. side is Sandpoint, located on the shores of Lake Pend Oreille and just 10 miles from the Schweitzer Mountain ski area.
With four seasons' worth of recreation opportunities, Sandpoint is a Mecca for skiers, boaters, mountain bikers, hikers and sportsmen. There is a large arts community. Homes costing as much as $300,000 are common along the shores of the 37-mile long lake.
The downside is that traffic is so bad, the state of Idaho is preparing a $45 million highway bypass to relieve congestion through this community of 6,800 residents.
Power said natural resource industries peaked economically in the West around 1978-79, and Western states have had a
quarter century to find new ways to survive.
"Small towns have not become ghost towns," Power said. "We've had an in-migration of people."
Not everyone in Sandpoint is writing off the logging industry, even though the timber har-
vest from national forests on the U.S. side of the Selkirks dropped 70 percent between 1989-1998.
"I think timber will continue to play a role, but a much smaller role than in the past," said Kevin Clegg, executive director of the Bonner County Economic Development Corp.
Kathryn Tacke, who studies the region's economy for the Idaho Department of Labor, said population growth has brought its own problems. Many newcomers compete for scarce jobs, she said.
"The number of people who bring their own jobs is grossly exaggerated," Tacke said.
Still, Power believes future economic vitality in the Selk-irks will not depend on logging, mining or agriculture.
His report found that timber employment dropped by 16 percent in the region in the 1990s, while total jobs grew by 50 percent. And of the 12,500 new jobs in Bonner and Boundary counties in Idaho and Pend Oreille County in Washington between 1979-1999, 80 percent were in construction, government, services and trade, not natural resources, the report said.
In 1999, retirement and investment income in the three U.S. counties topped $450 million, while the forest products payroll was around $100 million, Power found.
The southern Selkirks benefited as technology allowed
more people to work in good jobs far from major population centers, he wrote. Some 12,000 people moved from elsewhere into the three U.S. counties in the Selkirks in the 1990s, the report said.
Power, chairman of the economics department at Montana, disputed
the common notion that environmental restrictions have caused severe cutbacks in the timber industry.
Rather, Power blamed the natural cycles of a volatile worldwide industry and extensive use of labor-saving automation in timber. Power also contended that statistics showing high unemployment and low income in the Selkirks are misleading.
Natural resource industries always show high unemployment rates, even in good years, he said.
Also, low wages are the norm in small communities, and are offset by the lower cost of living and a higher quality of life compared to big cities, Power said.
People living in larger cities need higher wages to compensate
for higher costs.
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