Sage words

SOAP LAKE — Lyn D. Nielsen loves the Grand Coulee, and that love shines through in her work.

Nielsen, who grew up on Vashon Island, is the author of three novels set in the Coulee City area, the “Place of Sage” trilogy.

“When I was a teenager is when I first fell in love with this area. Because when we grew up, four kids, we weren't rich by any means. So summer fun was all about road trips and camping, swimming, biking - that was summer fun. And mom and dad would bring us over to go camping in the desert. I did a youth group bike trip when I was 16 to Sun Lakes. That's how I first discovered this area. And so I really started at a young age learning about the desert.”

She married her high school sweetheart, Dan Nielsen, and the two were raising their children in Snohomish, north of Seattle, until 1996, when Lyn felt called to Coulee City. And that’s where “Place of Sage” was born.

She found a patch of land out of town and the two began a nine-year project. Lyn and the children, now teenagers, stayed in Coulee City while Dan commuted, rising at 2 a.m. on Monday to drive to the Seattle area and coming back home Friday evening. In the meantime, they built their home on land she dubbed “Place of Sage.”

“It was an amazing place. It was a place where I truly discovered how real God is and how personal He is, because it was a struggle. It was hard. We built a house in a year, just on the weekends, Dan and I and our kids, and our family members would come and help. You know, that was an amazing feat in itself. It was a rugged time in a rugged land. But it's a time in my life that is both the best and the hardest years.”

While the house was being built, Nielsen began her first novel, also called “Place of Sage,” about a family, Luke and Jamie Stemple and their two children Kayla and Chris. The story switches between present-day conversations between Kayla and her own daughter Riley, and flashbacks to the 1970s when the Stemple family was doing just what the Nielsens did: living in Coulee City, building a home in fits and starts and struggling with faith.

“We were living it while I was writing it,” Nieslen said. “And some of the chapters were written ahead of time before we even lived it, which got to be quite amazing when we actually lived what was written.”

“Place of Sage” was written to inspire readers during dark times, Nielsen said. But it also reflected a deep love of the area. The names of the towns and some other places have been changed, but local readers will have no trouble finding their bearings.

“When we moved over here, I just immersed myself. I was hiking all the time. I started meeting a ton of local historians and I would just go search out people. I've got a great friend who works at the Colville Tribal Museum, and I was always up there bugging him.”

Eventually the Nielsens had to sell their beloved land and move back west of the Cascades. They lived in Monroe, where Lyn worked at a hospital and Dan plied his trade as a builder. While they were there, Nielsen began her second book, a sequel called “The Road Back to Sage.” This one continued the Stemple family’s adventures, but with less connection to her own life.

“It was a little harder to write, being displaced, you know? I was no longer attached to this land called ‘Place of Sage.’ So, I had no idea how I was going to stay inspired to write this book. But we still owned a summer home over here, and I was still bouncing back and forth.”

In the middle of her sequel, Nielsen felt that God was calling her to write something completely different: a book for children. It’s written in rhyme and involves eight dogs, three kids, a wise grandma and an earthquake.

“I would wake up in the middle of the night and just start jotting the next page,” she said, “But I didn't have the title. And one day, my daughter and my son-in-law and my three grandkids came over to our house. I always got up about four o'clock because I would write before I went to work. So I'm in my office working, jotting what I had woken up with the night before. And my son-in-law comes by and he sits in the living room. And all of a sudden he yells, ‘Hey, there's a dog on my feet!’ I just went, ‘Bingo. There's the title of the book right there.’”

“Hey, there’s a Dog on My Feet!” features bright, colorful illustrations by Ron Wheeler and carries the message to kids that God is always with them, Nielsen said. While the kids’ grandmother is there, the book is deliberately vague about whether they live with her or not, she added, so kids in any family situation can feel it applies to them.

In 2017, the call of the sagebrush became too strong to ignore, and the Nielsens returned to the Coulee, settling on a small ranch east of Soap Lake.

“When we bought the property we're on now, we immediately started working the land. We've got a small orchard; we have a garden set up; we've got a couple of dogs and a cat. Currently we rent out 35 acres to a rancher and once a year he brings his cows. So right now I can say I'm the proud owner of 106 cows and the rancher just laughs at me, ‘Lyn, you're kind of a foster rancher’ and I'm like, ‘Hey, this is a ranch.’ And for about two months a year, my cows are home.”

Returning to the area helped Nielsen write “In Time and Sage.” But, she says, just because it’s the third book in a trilogy doesn’t mean the Stemple Family saga is over. There’s one more mystery left, she said, and she may let the torch be passed on to Riley.

“(The second and third books) were just pure fun to write, but still based on what I know. I write to always inspire people and to point to God; he is the one who makes all things possible, takes an impossible situation and just turns it on its head. You know, I look back and I cannot believe that I even lived through that time, really. And God is amazing; he brings us through the things that we never think we can live through.”

Joel Martin may be reached via email at jmartin@columbiabasinherald.com.