Landmark: Wallowa Lake, Part Two

Do you believe in lake monsters?

According to Nez Perce legend, a bride and groom whose marriage was to mend a rift between rival tribes once paddled a canoe away from the girl's village on the shore of Wallowa Lake. As they reached the middle of the lake, a massive creature arched its serpentine neck from the water, smashed their craft, and swallowed them whole. The honeymoon was over.

Some sources claim that fear of the monster affected Nez Perce life for generations. Although the lake was an important fishing site, they refused to venture across its surface, preferring instead to catch their fish in underwater traps set from shore. Indeed, the name "Wallowa" appears to mean either "fish-trap" or "cross," perhaps in reference to the crosspieces on poles used to lower traps into deep water.

Scattered eyewitness accounts keep the story of Wally alive, but my attraction to this lake in Northeastern Oregon lies elsewhere. Five miles long, a mile wide, and 283 feet deep, Wallowa Lake is icy with snowmelt, its history overlaid with the modern trappings of RV campsites and powerboats. But overlooking its crystalline depths lies the grave site of Old Chief Joseph -- the traditional head of the Nez Perce Trail.

On the eve our our journey, we'll camp, like the Nez Perce before us, on the shores of Wallowa Lake. Perhaps we'll venture into Joseph, Oregon for supplies. Surely we will visit the nearby Wallowa Band Nez Perce Trail Interpretive Center. Come morning, we'll bid Old Joseph's remains a solemn farewell and turn our ponies to the Eagle Cap Wilderness and the unknown adventure it holds.

Unless, of course, ol' Wally eats us first.

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Landmark: Wallowa Lake, Part One

Landmark: Wallowa Lake, Part One

It's too early to say exactly when or how my longride on the Nez Perce Trail will begin. I can, however, tell you exactly where: at the grave site of Chief Joseph's father, Tuekakas.

More commonly known as Joseph, the name he adopted upon his conversion to Christianity, Tuekakas is interred near the shore of Wallowa Lake in northeastern Oregon. Although this is not his original grave site -- his remains were moved after his original grave was robbed a second time -- it seems an appropriate place for him to rest, for it is part of the Wallowa Nez Perce's homeland that he refused to sign away.

Though he had signed the Treaty of 1855, Tuekakas' band became part of the non-treaty Nez Perce when he refused to sign the Treaty of 1863. On his deathbed, he said to Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt:

"Always remember that your father never sold his country. You must stop your ears whenever you are asked to sign a treaty selling your home. A few years more, and white men will be all around you. They have their eyes on this land. My son, never forget my dying words. This country holds your father's body. Never sell the bones of your father and your mother."

Hin-mah-too-yah-lat-kekt -- who was, of course, the younger Chief Joseph -- promised to protect the grave with his life. Just over six years later, in October 1877, he broke that promise to save not himself, but those survivors of his embattled people who lay half-starved and frozen on the battleground at Bear's Paw.

Ah, it has happened again. I set out to write about a place, and I have written of people instead . I wonder if it is possible to do otherwise, and still do justice to the place. After all, it often seems that what makes a place is its people...and what makes a People is their place. If it were not so, the Nez Perce War of 1877 would never have been waged. There would be no Nez Perce Trail.

Let us call this Wallowa Lake, Part One, then. I shall try again soon to tell you more about the place our journey will begin.

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Landmark: Wallowa Lake, Part Two