WINTHROP, Wash. — A sign a couple of miles west of Pateros on Highway 20 advises motorists to watch for deer on the 40 miles ahead toward Winthrop. It’s to be taken seriously, especially during the winter months when deer come down the mountains to forage on what’s left behind in apple orchards and hayfields.
When photographer Kelly Gillin and I drove to Winthrop in mid-January, the sign said 379 deer had been killed by vehicles in the past year. I saw a dozen ravens feeding on the carcass of one, under the watchful eye of an eagle waiting patiently a few yards away. The sign doesn’t say if any motorists have been killed.
People who live in the Methow Valley know they share the beautiful area sloping down from the Cascades with abundant wildlife. It’s a principal reason why they live there. Nature and the recreational opportunities it offers are what has also attracted a growing community of new settlers, in spite of a dearth of jobs. Nature in the form of minerals and timber were a magnet for Winthrop’s first settlers. Recreation and tourism have drawn others to the region much later.
Guy Waring is credited with starting the town of Winthrop. Harvard-educated and groomed to work in his father’s Boston engineering business, Waring instead struck out for the West to define himself on his own terms. He started a trading post in Loomis before resettling near the fork of the Methow and Chewuch rivers and opening a store there in 1891. The store burned to the ground the following year, but Waring worked other jobs to earn money to rebuild and restock his store. A mining boom enabled Waring’s Methow Trading Post to flourish and the new town around it to grow.
He opened a saloon, a sawmill and other stores in four outlying areas including Twisp and Pateros. He started a cattle ranch, planted apple orchards and started a real estate company to sell lots in Winthrop.
Waring’s business ventures ultimately failed and he moved back East in 1917. But Winthrop survived as a logging and ranching town. Its rugged beauty and abundant wildlife were always a magnet for tourists and hunters. But the town’s opportunity to cash in on tourism exploded with completion of the North Cascades Highway in the early 1970s. The highway created a much shorter, scenic route for tourists from Western Washington’s urban centers.
Otto Wagner, who had succeeded where Waring failed in the lumber industry, came up with the idea and initial funds to restore Winthrop to its Old West look. Some of the same architects and artists who had successfully transformed Leavenworth into a Bavarian theme town were hired to westernize Winthrop in 1972.
“It works. It gets them here,” says Joe Costales about the theme town’s ability to draw tourists. Costales, better known around town as “Joe Duck,” owns the Duck Brand Restaurant and Hotel named after Waring’s Duck Brand Saloon, which is now the Winthrop City Hall two doors down Riverside Street.
Costales says the town is busy with tourists spring through fall when the North Cascades Highway is open. Business slows in the winter, but good snow brings lots of skiers and snowmobilers on weekends and holidays.
Kjell Lester, owner of White Buck Trading Co. and Museum across the street from the Duck Brand, says he likes the quiet winters even though it’s hard on business.
“I like to live the simple life,” says Lester, a third-generation Winthrop native. “There’s fishing, hunting and hiking. You can go out and climb 5,000 vertical feet in the morning and come back to town for dinner.”
People come to Winthrop for outdoor recreation in a valley of stunning landscapes, but many stay because of the tight community of alternative-thinking settlers.
I heard this time and time again as I stopped to talk to people in town, at the new Winthrop Ice &Sports Rink and on the Methow Valley Sport Trails Association’s Nordic ski trail.
“We came here and we couldn’t get away. We were smitten,” says Chris Garner, a ski instructor for the trail system. Garner and her husband, Brad, left Santa Barbara, Calif., in 2002, looking for a peaceful place of beauty where they could backcountry ski, hike and bike.
“There’s a lot of people like us here. A lot of baby boomers who can work from their home. A lot like us who have to work two or three jobs,” she says. Chris teaches yoga as well as Nordic skiing. Brad works odd jobs in construction. They also own and operate the Badger House Inn downtown.
Tim Colvin says he moved his family to Winthrop two years ago so his two boys, ages 6 and 9, could grow up in a tight social community and in an area rich in outdoor sports. Winthrop fit the bill.
The boys play on a hockey team Monday and Wednesday, train on the Nordic ski team Tuesday and Thursday, are on a downhill ski team at Loup Loup Ski Bowl Fridays and participate on a biathlon team Saturday. Colvin works at the ice rink in the winter and runs a soccer camp in the summer.
“There’s a lot of families here who came here for that sense of community,” he says. “There’s a lot of socializing. A lot of human contact. There are times when you have to say no. There’s almost too much to do here sometimes.”
Tom Sullivan was adding some new lights at the ice rink.
An electrician by trade, Sullivan is one of many people who has volunteered countless hours on the community rink, Colvin says.
“This is why we’re here,” says Sullivan, referring to the community spirit in the town. He says he came to Winthrop to ski 30 years ago and found he couldn’t leave. “This is really, truly, one of the neatest places there is.”
We found the best example of community while driving from Winthrop to Sun Mountain Lodge, the luxurious ski and bike resort about 10 miles west of town.
We stopped to photograph skaters on Patterson Lake. Several cars followed us into the parking lot.
“Come on down and join us,” invited one group of people carrying food down to the ice-covered lake.
“If you want to play hockey, there’s some extra sticks in the back of my truck. Help yourself,” said another fellow who rushed down the hill with his skates and young daughter in tow.
Kelly Gillin plays in a Wenatchee hockey league and had his skates in the car, so it didn’t take him long to decide where we would spend the next hour or so.
While he took to the ice to join in on a rousing game of pond hockey, taking a few photos along the way, I hung around the shoreline where a dozen people were setting up an impromptu buffet table and bar.
“This is really rare to have ice this good,” said Bart Schuler, as he helped his daughter put on her skates.
“This was pretty spontaneous,” said Paul Shaw, a Winthrop house designer who was making trips back and forth from his car with sled loads of fried chicken, deviled eggs and a propane stove to make hot chocolate. “We came out here a couple days ago and saw how great the conditions were, and we knew we had to call everybody. We’ll have 50 or 60 people here before long when school gets out and people get off work.”
Gary Phillips, also a house designer, skated in from the hockey game as the sun dipped behind the snow-capped Cascade peaks. “This is beautiful. Hockey with friends on a frozen lake. It’s right out of a Norman Rockwell painting.”
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
