WELCOME TO THE

LIVING LAKE PROJECT


Uniting artists, scientists, and communities around the health and future of Coeur d'Alene Lake and its watershed.
  A Quiet Strength by Living Lake Project artist Jessica Bryant, Watercolor
The Living Lake Project began with a belief that artists carry the skills of story, craft, and creative process that help people connect to a place, understand what's happened, and imagine what stewardship could look like next. That only works if artists are treated as partners from the start. The Living Lake Project brings that belief to life through a partnership between the Coeur d'Alene Arts & Culture Alliance, the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, the Coeur d'Alene Tribe Natural Resources Department, and environmental organizations across North Idaho.

Coeur d'Alene Lake carries a complicated history from a century of mining, decades of restoration work, and a present still shaped by both. Living Lake exists to build on the culture of watershed stewardship around that history, through relationships and creative work to connect, repair, and imagine.

The Artist Fellowship is the first initiative in this Project. Ten artists from Kootenai, Benewah, and Shoshone Counties spend 15 months learning the watershed directly, from Tribal knowledge bearers, scientists, and each other, then create original work that brings the region into that relationship too.


Learn More About the Fellowship


OUR FRAMEWORK FOR ACTION




Coeur d'Alene Lake is one of the Inland Northwest's most treasured freshwater ecosystems. It is also one of its most layered: shaped by thousands of years of Indigenous stewardship, a century of industrial mining, and the ongoing work of scientists, Tribal and state agencies, and communities navigating what comes next.

Protecting this watershed requires several approaches from technical solutions to connection, honest reckoning, and the collective will to imagine something better. The Fellowship strives to match artists and creative practice to help the community connect, understand, repair, and reimagine watershed health.
CONNECT

Connect communities across the watershed around shared values and shared futures
UNDERSTAND

Understand the ecological, cultural, and historical forces shaping lake health
REPAIR

Repair relationships, ecosystems, and narratives fractured by industrial legacy
REIMAGINE


Reimagine what lasting, community-led stewardship looks like
2026 - 2027 Fellows
Ten Artists. 
One Watershed. 
Artists, storytellers, and stewards from across Kootenai, Benewah, and Shoshone Counties are exploring what it means to protect and reimagine the health of a shared watershed.

MEET THE FELLOWS
Stewardship, Reimagined

By bridging traditional ecological knowledge, Indigenous wisdom, western science, and the arts, we're creating meaningful pathways for community-led lake stewardship that's guided by local experts and industry professionals.

Learn About The Fellowship
The Land, 
The Lake, 
& The People
The lakes, rivers, forests, and mountains of what is now North Idaho have been home to the schitsu'umsh — the Coeur d'Alene Tribe — since time immemorial, long before this region was shaped by industry or known for summer recreation. Their knowledge and presence remain vital, and this project brings us together with the Tribe, Idaho DEQ, and other partners to understand and care for these lands.
A Watershed 
With a Story
North Idaho's history runs deep — from the ancestral lands of the schitsu'umsh to a century of Silver Valley mining that built towns, poisoned waterways, and left a public health legacy still being reckoned with today. Understanding how we got here is where stewardship begins.

Latest Field Notes
 ADVOCACY FOR THE LAKE

Living Lake Project artist fellows gathered at the Human Rights Education Institute (HREI) for a hands-on advocacy workshop hosted by the Idaho Conservation League and facilitated by Caitlyn Embree, Living Lake Project Steering Committee Member and ICL Community Engagement Specialist. 
Read The Story
This fellowship is our first spark

 We're testing mechanisms for community engagement and producing high-visibility creative work that demonstrates what's possible when artists have space to learn, engage, and build. What the Fellowship produces, and the partnerships it builds, will shape the Living Lake Project's next phase.

Our work happens in partnership with a steering committee spanning government, science, conservation, and the arts:
  • schitsu'umsh (Coeur d'Alene) Tribe Natural Resources Department
  • Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (IDEQ)
  • Basin Environmental Improvement Project Commission
  • University of Idaho / Idaho Water Resources Research Institute
  • Kootenai Environmental Alliance (KEA)
  • Idaho Conservation League
  • Museum of North Idaho (MONI)
  • Silver Valley Economic Development Corporation
  • Emerge
  • J.U.B. Engineering / The Langdon Group
  • Friends of the Idaho Panhandle Avalanche Center
Tracing Alki (2023) by Living Lake Project artist Sarah Thompson Moore, at Alki Beach in West Seattle, Washington.

OUR SUPPORTERS





 The Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program is a federal initiative funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and managed in our region by Philanthropy Northwest, a nonprofit serving organizations across Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

The program was created to make federal funding more accessible to local organizations working on public health and environmental challenges — especially in communities that have historically had limited access to those resources. It supports places facing long-standing challenges like poor air or water quality, extreme weather, or limited access to healthy housing, food, and green spaces.





Uniting artists, scientists, and communities around the health and future of Coeur d'Alene Lake and its watershed"
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The Coeur d'Alene Arts & Culture Alliance is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization with a mission to enrich the community by connecting people through the arts in North Idaho. 

Website design by Cedric Kraynak