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Bonners Ferry Man Looks to Re-Establish Fruit Orchards in His Area

Doug Nadvornick/SPR

Casimir Holeski is looking to create an orchard industry in far northern Idaho.

"I live up here in beautiful Bonners Ferry, Boundary County, Idaho, about eight miles north of Bonners Ferry , up on a bench, about 2,700 feet.”

Holeski — and several of his dogs — lead me to a three-acre area he cleared last summer for an orchard. He’s got fruit and nut trees in rows with plans to get more in this summer. He says his is one of the few orchards in a place that was once full of them.

“A hundred years ago there were literally orchards, the old timers that I’ve talked to tell me there was orchards from the rock cut at the hospital, basically the city limits, all the way out to the border. It’s like any spot that was marginal land, they put trees in, they put orchards in. We were shipping apples to England,” Holeski said.

But, he says, some bad weather along the way and a decision to focus the Northwest apple industry on central Washington essentially shuttered the orchards in Boundary County. But many trees are still standing and Holeski believes the county could again become a fruit producer.

“I’m trying to build this grassroots movement to fill this valley with trees again, all this marginal land," he said. "We don’t need to compete with the valley farmers, but we want to grow tree crops again, nuts. The things I know for sure, rock solid, apples, 120-year-old apples. They haven’t been touched by a human in decades. They’re being climbed by bear, browsed by moose, elk, deer. They’re producing like crazy up in the right spots, 120 years later. Pears the same way. I find lots of old plums. Black walnuts, a hundred years plus.”

Holeski says a growing local food movement could bring vibrancy to the economy, keeping nature’s bounty in the area and allowing people to buy produce grown near their homes. He envisions a local co-op.

“We pool our resources for things like cracking equipment for nuts, cider press for cider, right? We work together. We create a bunch of growers, a bunch of value-added producers and a bunch of support businesses. That’s the goal. Create an orchard industry. Bring it back across the border," he said. "Creston Valley, are you familiar with that area? They experienced some of the same adversities and they just didn’t stop. They kept going. Lots of fruit up there. We can do the same thing.”

And part of the strategy is to preserve and grow some of those older varieties of apples so that people can eat and fall in love with them. The challenge, he says, is to find and identify them again.

“Red delicious, yellow delicious. I can identify those. So it’s basically just been diving in, talking to other people who are passionate, different experts, running things by them," Holeski said. "I’m connected to groups on Facebook, the North American Fruit Explorers. I do a lot of research, looking at books, looking at pictures, looking at descriptions.”

And he has connected with Dave Benscoter, a Chattaroy, Washington man who helps people find and identify apple varieties. Benscoter has referred him to Joanie Cooper’s conservancy in Oregon to see if there may be a variety or two there that had been forgotten.

“I’m looking for beauty and I like all the different colors. I like all the different shapes and textures and all that. Different ripening times. But at the top of it is flavor. I want to take a bite and say wow. I want to give it to my dad or one of my friends and I want them to ‘Whoa!’, you know, have an experience that is extraordinary or memorable," Holeski said.

You can find more about Holeski’s work on Facebook: the Boundary County Orchard Restoration Project.