Smack Dab in the Middle of Nowhere

By Khaliela Wright

“Here it comes,” I warned David, an exchange student from Lomé, Togo, who was sitting in the passenger seat. “And there it goes.”

He looked at me like I was crazy. “That was not a town,” he said.

I could see he was skeptical of my ability to tell fact from fiction, and it was understandable that Harvard’s population of 238 would seem hardly worth noticing to a boy from a city of 837,437. But of course that’s what those of us who live in these parts like about Harvard.

The town lies along Idaho Highway 6, part of the White Pine Scenic Byway, more commonly known to locals as “The Scenic 6.” From the start of Highway 6 at the Washington/Idaho border to its terminus at Highway 3, there isn’t a single town with a population of more than one thousand. And among them, Harvard is the perfect place to find a little peace and quiet away from the hustle and bustle of urban life.

As we continued to breeze down the highway, destined for Camp Grizzly, I told my passenger that in rural Idaho you need only two things to be thought of as a city. The first is a post office and the second is a church or a bar, your choice. The populace of Harvard opted for the bar.

After collecting my youngest son Samuel, who had spent the week at the Boy Scout Camp, we continued on to the Giant White Campground and Trailhead. There we were to meet up with a group from the Lewiston Day Hikers to take in the scenery and enjoy what nature had to offer.