County Hopes Mining Law Rescues Road Boundary County Commissioners Start Drive To Keep Forest Service From Obliterating Boundary Creek Road

Boundary County officials are betting on an old mining law to stop the U.S. Forest Service from closing a historic road.

Landslides destroyed a portion of Boundary Creek Road last spring. The road leads to some prime hunting and berry-picking grounds in the Selkirk Mountains. It’s also the only access to the historic Continental silver mine.

Instead of fixing the damaged area and reopening the road, the Forest Service decided to obliterate it.

Commissioners, backed by a petition signed by 1,000 residents, are formally protesting the closure. They say the road was built before 1908, when the Forest Service acquired the land.

Because the road originally was intended for public access it must remain that way, county officials said, citing a late 19th century mining law.

“This road is a public road. It always has been and gives the public the right to access it,” Commissioner Murleen Skeen said.

A portion of Boundary Creek Road has been gated for years because of the annual landslides. District Ranger Elaine Zieroth made a decision last month not to fix the problem area and eliminate about five miles of the road.

“It’s the most expensive road on our district by far,” Zieroth said. In 1985 and 1993, the Forest Service spent $60,000 to repair the road. Another $500,000 was spent in 1975 to rebuild it.

The road has a tendency to slough and dump tons of sediment into Boundary Creek. The stream is habitat for bull trout, a fish that could end up on the endangered species list.

In the past, it was easy to justify fixing up the road because it was the only access to that area of the forest, Zieroth said. Canadian officials also used it because the road crosses the U.S.-Canadian border.

Now two other roads, Smith Creek and Saddle Pass, allow hunters and other adventurers access to the same area. “They are not losing access,” assistant district ranger Allen Chrisman said. “But they are losing a road that to some people is a very important piece of history to Boundary County. We fully understand that. It was not an easy decision.”

Boundary County officials are adamant about holding onto their historic road.

Gates have gone up in many areas of the county to protect grizzly bear and woodland caribou habitat. “When the word obliteration came up, everyone kind of decided maybe we need to draw a line in the sand and we are not going to go along with this,” Skeen said. “These are our forests, the public’s forests.”

It actually was Forest Service officials who suggested the county look at the old mining law to prove the road’s early existence.

Commissioners found minutes of a July 1901 meeting alluding to surveys and to laying out the road.

Basically commissioners say the road was a county road and still is. The county does not want the responsibility to maintain it, however.

“We couldn’t afford to do that. We just want it maintained as a public right of way,” Skeen said. “At least that way it would be ungated.”

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