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The Museum of North Idaho in Coeur d'Alene occupies a spot that would have been one of the first places inundated when the Purcell Trench ice dam failed and Glacial Lake Missoula began its catastrophic drainage. The museum sits at the edge...
The Museum of North Idaho in Coeur d'Alene occupies a spot that would have been one of the first places inundated when the Purcell Trench ice dam failed and Glacial Lake Missoula began its catastrophic drainage. The museum sits at the edge of the Rathdrum Prairie, the broad outwash plain that served as the initial flood corridor -- a highway of water, ice, and debris that carried the lake's contents westward toward the Columbia Plateau. When the ice dam collapsed, the floodwaters surged across this prairie at estimated speeds of 65 miles per hour, depositing the heterogeneous mix of boulders, gravel, sand, and clay that forms the Rathdrum Prairie Outburst Plain visible throughout the area today. The museum, founded in 1973, collects and interprets the history of the Coeur d'Alene region, from the first inhabitants thousands of years ago through the logging, mining, and steamboat eras. The museum's location in what was the flood's opening corridor gives its exhibits an added dimension: every story of human settlement in this area unfolds on a landscape that was violently reshaped by ice age catastrophe. The Rathdrum-Prairie Aquifer beneath the city, one of Idaho's most important water sources, fills the flood gravels deposited here.
The Museum of North Idaho is closed for the winter season and reopens February 4, 2026. New address is 720 E Young Ave, Coeur d'Alene (relocated from the former Northwest Blvd. location). Hours vary by season: Tuesday–Saturday 11 a.m.–5 p.m. in spring/fall, daily 11 a.m.–5 p.m. in summer.
The museum sits on the Rathdrum Prairie, an outwash plain built almost entirely from sediment delivered by Missoula Flood outbursts from the upstream ice dam in the Clark Fork valley. Coeur d'Alene Lake itself occupies a basin that was repeatedly scoured and then partially filled by flood debris; the lake's modern depth and shape are direct legacies of the Purcell Trench lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet and the floods that followed each ice-dam collapse. The museum's regional-history galleries cover the Cordilleran ice-sheet story alongside Coeur d'Alene Tribe history and the area's mining and logging eras. Ice Age Floods interpretation is one strand among several rather than the museum's primary focus.
The Balbas et al. (2017) ¹⁰Be chronology and more recent OSL/rock-surface luminescence dating (2023) have refined the timing of the Clark Fork ice-dam failures upstream of this area, but no museum-specific scholarly update has been published.
The IAFI Coeur Du Deluge Chapter (Sandpoint, ID) is the closest active chapter and runs programs into the broader Idaho Panhandle. Coeur d'Alene itself does not host a chapter, but field trips to Rathdrum Prairie features routinely pass through.
Best visited February through November when open; allow 60–90 minutes. Worth combining with a Tubbs Hill walk and a stop along the Spokane River corridor to see flood-deposited gravels.
IceAgeFloods National GeologicTrail
“The Museum of North Idaho collects, preserves and interprets the history of the Coeur d’Alene Region. to foster appreciation of the area’s heritage.”
In the 1960s, the North Idaho Hoo Hoo Club, an organization of loggers, lumbermen and foresters, first entertained the idea of establishing a museum. They incorporated on May 1, 1968 for a museum focusing on the history of the Coeur d’Alene Region (Kootenai, Benewah and part of Shoshone counties).
Through the efforts of volunteers and community support, the Museum opened its doors on the North Idaho College campus on July 28, 1973. In 1979, they remodeled a City-owned building and relocated to its current location.
Location: 115 Northwest Blvd, Coeur d’Alene, ID 83814Phone: (208) 664-3448
The Museum is open Tuesday to Saturday from 11 am – 5 pm.
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Ice Age Floods Institute is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt non-profit EIN 91-1658221Donations and member fees may be tax deductible
Three vantages no single photograph can hold, the same treatment that made Dry Falls legible.
Ground-level panoramas along the feature, so the scale of the flood landscape is something you stand inside.
An aerial reveals the geometry of catastrophe: scour, channels, and bars that are invisible at eye level.
A model of a key outcrop you can rotate and measure in the browser, the rock itself, on the page.
Capture window mid-June through mid-July 2026 · slots fill on this page as the campaign delivers.
Flood-extent overlay shows the maximum reach of the Missoula Floods.
The site in its place along the flood path, with the maximum flood extent drawn over the modern map.
View on the interactive map Cinematic timeline · 3D flood · every captured site