Becky Kramer

Chuck Strickell was swamped with calls when a "For Sale" sign went up on his Blackwell Island float home. Would-be buyers gushed over the $32,000 cabin on floats, with its promise of fishing off the back porch. But every showing ended with a deal breaker.

COEUR d'ALENE – The crowd on the beach chanted, "Five, four, three, two, one … " As the second hand on the official "Polar Bear Plunge" clock neared noon, women in red bathrobes tossed back shots to fortify themselves. Men's bare chests, women's bikinis and a mass of legs emerged from underneath coats and blankets.

Anti-Italian sentiment was so strong during the 1930s that when Roger Fruci showed up for a pre-arranged internship at a Spokane law firm, the firm wouldn't hire him. "Are you not hiring me because I'm Italian?" a baffled Fruci asked the managing partner.

COEUR d'ALENE – Yvonne Ellis would pose one question to eager, young entrepreneurs: How's your risk tolerance? Seven years ago, Ellis founded The Backup Training Corp., a company that produces CD-ROM training courses used by 30,000 police officers each year.

John Brewer has resigned as president of the Spokane Regional Convention and Visitors Bureau to take a job in his home state of Montana. "The decision was a very tough one for us, because we immediately fell in love with Spokane when we moved there four years ago," Brewer said Wednesday.

A historic Bolivian mining district is the backdrop for Coeur d'Alene Mines Corp.'s new silver project. The company will build a $135 million open-pit mine at the base of Cerro Rico, the "rich hill" that was the site of a 1545 silver strike. The strike led to the Spanish colonial settlement of Potosi, a mining center high in the Andes Mountains.

Got a teenager with unbearably smelly socks? A shower wall that molds? A cut that won't heal? Try adding a little silver. The versatile metal shows up in more than jewelry these days. Clothing companies add silver threads to athletic socks as antibacterial agents. Silver is woven into bandages and added to refrigerators and water filtration systems to kill germs. It's also found in most electronics. "If you drive a high-end car, there's probably 10 ounces of silver driving around with you," said Ron Davies of the Silver Users Association in Fairfax, Va.

Five years ago, Steve Goss washed out of the mining industry like a piece of iron pyrite falling from a prospector's pan. His firm, a penny mining stock, failed for lack of financing. Speculative investors – the traditional funding source for high-risk mining ventures – had abandoned the industry to chase after dot-coms.

LOOKOUT PASS, Idaho – In skier logic, even a thin layer of snow on the slopes is better than no snow at all. Hundreds of people showed up at Lookout Pass Ski Area Saturday, toasting the launch of the Inland Northwest's ski season.

Navigating Wal-Mart's crowded aisles isn't easy the day after Thanksgiving, particularly when you're part of a three-shopping-cart caravan. But Joanne McCoy of Wallace and her two daughters were women of purpose Friday.

POST FALLS – A log-and-glass foyer is taking the hard edges off of Buck Knives' new building. When visitors step into the $8 million factory, they'll see a 35-foot-tall fireplace, slate floors and Douglas fir logs. Large glass windows look out onto forested hills.

COEUR d'ALENE — Judy Henry's artwork looks like something that might have graced your great-grandmother's parlor. Wistful maidens sigh over marriage proposals. Fairies lounge in the center of roses. Even the nudes have a certain blushing innocence.

A marina proposed for Dover, Idaho, has been reconfigured to take up less of the Pend Oreille River. Developer Ralph Sletegar's initial plan called for a 13-acre marina, extending nearly one-third of the way across the river's channel. The width of the project raised concerns about boat passage and congestion.

Coeur d'Alene residents should vote on a proposal to close two blocks of Sherman Avenue, several merchants said Tuesday. "This is as important a decision as the downtown and the people of Coeur d'Alene will ever make," Tom Robb, owner of the Iron Horse, told other merchants during a quarterly breakfast meeting of the Coeur d'Alene Downtown Association.