Public Access Was A Personal Goal Blm Planner Honored For Commitment To Recreation

When he was a 14-year-old Michigan boy, Terry Kincaid decided he wanted to move west and be a park ranger. He would ride horseback in the woods for weeks on end. He’d meet up with grizzlies.

“I never thought I’d have two computers on my desk,” says Kincaid, outdoor recreation planner for the federal Bureau of Land Management in North Idaho.

Kincaid doesn’t need a machine to tell him some things do not compute. Early on, he saw a disparity between the fact that only 2 percent of Lake Coeur d’Alene’s shoreline was publicly owned and the fact that Idaho had the most boats per person among Western states. How would all of those boaters get onto one of the biggest and most beautiful bodies of water?

Like the ranger of his boyhood fantasies, he saw the BLM coming to the rescue. So it has, buying and developing lakeside land over the past decade for recreational access and habitat protection.

For his role in that, plus a long list of other achievements, Kincaid is winning state and national recognition.

This month, he went to Sun Valley to pick up the Take Pride in Idaho Award for outstanding achievement in recreation and tourism. In June, he’ll be in Washington, D.C., where he will be recognized as the BLM’s National Legends honoree by the American Recreation Coalition and the Recreation Roundtable.

“I get a plaque and a trip to Washington,” he says. Then he adds with a grin that lights up his face as quickly as a camera flash - “I wish it was a fishing trip to Alaska.”

His love of the outdoors prompted him to study recreation management at Michigan State University. He took a job with the BLM on July 4, 1974 in the then-sleepy town of Coeur d’Alene. He was transferred to Cottonwood to spend four years as a white water ranger on the Salmon River. In 1979, he returned to Coeur d’Alene.

“This is the best duty station the BLM has,” he says. “That’s why I’ve stayed here so long. Anything else would be a downgrade.”

Upgrading things has been a big part of Kincaid’s job.

“I remember when I started with the BLM. The campgrounds had fire pits full of broken beer bottles and stinking outhouses. It was embarrassing to put up a sign saying this is BLM land.”

Kincaid’s personal pride in BLM sites impresses Sandy Emerson, a member of the Kootenai County waterways board.

“Terry cares about them. He feels responsible when bad things happen, like vandalism,” says Emerson.

When Kincaid has to deal with rule-breakers, Emerson says, “he goes about it matter-of-factly and business-like, and thanks them very much. He’s such a pleasant guy.”

Kincaid had to get tough when the BLM acquired the former stateowned, county-controlled boat access at Mica Bay. It had become a hangout for drunks.“A guy pulled a machete on the campground host. A couple of weeks later, a guy pulled a gun on her.”

So the BLM banned alcohol and firearms and strictly enforced the rules. “The first year, we wrote 250 tickets,” Kincaid says. “The second year, it was 75. The third year, 10.”

BLM manages the land at Mica Bay, but at Kincaid’s suggestion the county maintains the dock. Such cooperative efforts are a hallmark of public land management these days, and Kincaid excels at it.

When the Forest Service could no longer easily maintain its Rainy Hill and Medimont campgrounds along the Coeur d’Alene River, he had his BLM crew take on the job. After all, he says, they were driving by twice a week to go to the BLM’s Killarney Lake campground.

While grateful Forest Service officials didn’t do anything directly in exchange for that, Kincaid notes that their telecommunications staffer takes care of BLM radios.

Partnerships just make sense, Kincaid says.

“You have a broader constituency, and multiple budgets,” says Kincaid. “Besides, everybody always owes you a favor.”

Kincaid is good at doing favors, according to Kurtis Robinson, supervisor of Kootenai County parks and waterways.

“Terry is very knowledgeable, very articulate, very forthright and more than willing to help,” Robinson says. “He also knows when to shut up.”

Kincaid can see the big picture, Robinson says. “At the same time he understands the details, even down to how to stripe a parking lot.”

Kincaid’s biggest ongoing project is development of a boaters’ park on Blackwell Island, where Lake Coeur d’Alene flows into the Spokane River. The plan is popular, but not universally so. Neighboring property owners appealed unsuccessfully to the BLM to stop it. While they cited wildlife concerns, Kincaid believes the biggest concern was feared intrusion on their lifestyle. The city annexation needed to extend utilities to the site could lead to more development on their quiet side of the river.

Responses to Kincaid’s work often depend on the length of time that people have been in the area.

“When I encounter tourists, they all want my job,” he says.

“I run into longtime residents and they’re very generous with their opinion that I’m ruining everything and I’m responsible for all these people coming into the area.

“Newcomers don’t want to see any changes. They came here because they liked what they saw.”

Kincaid has served on the waterways board, an unusual volunteer commitment for a lands agency staffer. He’s good at drumming up volunteers, too, especially among Boy Scouts. He’s a former troop leader.

“Children will inherit the earth,” he says. “It’s real important that they they get a good, sound education in natural resources.”

Kincaid is 49. He and his wife, Simone, have two teenagers. The family, he says, doesn’t share his personal passion for outdoor recreation.

Which is?

“Fish, fish, fish,” he answers with the flash-fire grin. “I’ll fish anywhere there’s water.”