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

The Questions Begin

I told you from the outset that part of the reason I want to ride the Nez Perce Trail is to seek answers to the questions that arise from its history. In general research, I stumbled across one of these questions -- or rather, an example of my reason for asking said question:

Chief Joseph's surrender speech is the most famous evidence of his character and eloquence. In case you skipped that page in your history book, I've reproduced the familiar lines below:

"Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed; Looking Glass is dead, Too-hul-hul-sote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say yes or no. He who led on the young men is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets; the little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are—perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

I was irritated (but not altogether surprised) to discover a reference stating that these words are "attributed" to Chief Joseph, but were actually penned by Lieutenant Charles Erskine Scott Wood. It seems Wood was present at the surrender and claimed to have transcribed Chief Joseph's speech on the spot, but his original, handwritten report from that day instead includes a note in the margin reminding, "Here insert Joseph's reply to the demand for surrender."

I have yet to trace this claim to a more reliable source, but it gives me reason to doubt. Perhaps it isn't true. Perhaps it is true, but Wood had an exceptional memory for language and was able to render Joseph's speech faithfully even after the fact. Perhaps Wood, who later expressed talent as a poet, embellished Joseph's words for popular consumption. (It seems likely to me that he got the gist of Joseph's message right, as the two men maintained a friendship for years afterwards.)

Anyway, my point is this: I do not trust history as it is spoon fed to us in school. Oh, I doubt many of our teachers intended to mislead us. It is likely that most textbook authors were likewise innocent (if ignorance can be considered innocence, particularly when it claims authority). Indeed, I have almost certainly made false claims, albeit unwittingly, in this very blog.

But someone, at some point, willfully misrecorded history for his own ends. Perhaps it was done early on, as in the supposed case of Wood's poetic translation of Joseph's speech. Perhaps it happened later, to put a political spin on modern understanding of historical events. I am not the first to observe that to control the education of children is to control the direction of a society.

Nor am I the first to agree with George Santayana that "those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it." But what, exactly, are we to learn? What are we otherwise doomed to repeat? Much of the history we have been taught as truth is merely the romanticized result of a decades-long game of Telephone, heavily warped by the influence of human nature.

Take the Nez Perce War: Chief Joseph and his people = Good. U.S. Cavalry and white settlers = Bad. Right? That's what they taught me in school.

Anyway, the Nez Perce War is only a case study. The question toward which I'm leading is rather larger. We'll get to that.

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

All in Good Time

I've been pondering the season in which we should undertake our great adventure. Summer is the obvious -- the only -- choice.

At this point, my rough estimate is that we'll spend somewhere between two and three months on the Nez Perce Trail. If we travelled 15 miles every day, we'd cover the 1,170 miles in 78 days; 20 miles per day would get us across in 60 days. However, reality won't be so simple. Some days will be longer, some shorter, and we'll throw in some layover days to let the horses rest. Everything from terrain to weather to the hospitality of strangers will impact our schedule.

Speaking of terrain: The first few hundred miles of the Nez Perce Trail lead through the Eagle Cap Wilderness and Hell's Canyon, then on into north central Idaho and the Bitterroot-Selway Wilderness. These miles will feature a number of river crossings, most notably the Snake River at Dug Bar and the Salmon River at Billy Creek. A lifelong whitewater rafter, I have floated past these crossings many times, and I confess that I regard the prospect with some trepidation.

...which leads me back to seasons. Crossing big rivers on horseback is not something to be undertaken during the spring melt. The Wallowa Band of Nez Perce crossed at Dug Bar on May 31, 1877, and I think they had it about right.

An early June departure sounds good to me. Nighttime temperature will be sufficiently warm, even in the high desert, to make for comfortable camping. The Bitterroots should be clear of snow by the time we reach Lolo Pass (elevation 5,233 feet), and even if our trek takes three months, we'll finish before Montana's deer hunting season begins in early September.

As for the Nez Perce, they took until early October to reach what became the Bear's Paw Battleground in Montana, 40 miles short of the Canadian border. But then, theirs was not an expedition undertaken by choice, for the sake of adventure. It was a desperate, if skillful, retreat from their homeland. To them and the pursuing soldiers, it was not history but real life -- and death.

Would they, I wonder, have been comforted to know that we remember?

Friends in the Business

I've been in touch with the Long Riders Guild.

True to the honorable image portrayed by the Guild's website, founder CuChullaine O'Reilly replied to my initial inquiry in less than a day. Though he was traveling between meetings in Europe, his message was both gracious and full of promised guidance.

I've spent a great deal of time on the aforementioned website, and would recommend it to anyone. The quote below sums up the Guild well:

As Long Riders we categorically believe equestrian travel has no frontiers, political or otherwise. It is the heritage of every nation. Though we individually originate in every imaginable country, we as a group represent no specific nation. We will not be simplified by categories into sex, creed, allegiance to one horse breed, or lines drawn on a map. We are comrades of the saddle whose agreed upon international language is "horse." We believe the only valid definition of a Long Rider should be courage in the face of danger, resolve in the presence of hardship, and continual compassion for our horses.

Further, we acknowledge the inherent bodily perils involved in equestrian travel to both horse and rider. Yet we in no way condone or sponsor any expedition that knowingly subjects its mounts to needless suffering. The Long Riders' Guild has no obsession with mileage. Though our members have set an assortment of world records during the course of their equestrian travels, we do not encourage a needless quest for kilometers, nor the lightning flash crossing of continents. We encourage our members instead to undertake a life-changing equestrian journey that explores not only the unknown portions of the world, but their own souls as well. Indeed, being a Long Rider is more than just a matter of miles. It is a question of honour, dignity and behaviour.

Ah. That is the sort of creed to which I can subscribe. It's nice to know there remain such people on this earth; I expect this journey will reveal many more.

And, methinks Chief Joseph would approve.

The Road Ahead

I hope you aren't holding your breath.

A long ride means a long planning period. There's much to be done before setting hoof on the trail. Horses must be selected and trained, routes mapped, supplies gathered, endless logistics untangled...

That's the fun part. Good thing, because I'll be doing it for years. At least two years -- likely more.

That, of course, is because of the less fun part: careers, finances, our farm. What we're going to do about those is a bit of a mystery.

Ah well. I'll solve it somehow.

Oh, The Places We Will Go

I've always been a bit of a history buff. (It's genetic. Blame my dad.)

Naturally, when my friend Spartacus Jones put me onto the idea of a long ride, I knew that not just any 1,000 mile trek would do. I wanted to retrace history.

The Oregon Trail came to mind. That, however, is not terribly original. It is also very long. Plenty of longriders have made 2,000 mile journeys, of course, but they must have had more time and money at their disposal than I.

I thought again.

A bit of web surfing revealed scores of possiblities. The one that caught my eye was the Nez Perce Trail. At 1,170 miles, it's long enough to meet Long Riders Guild standards (I confess that I hope to someday be worthy of the honor of a membership invitation). It's in my corner of the country, which makes it more practicable than, say, the Wilderness Road. It offers a pleasant blend of wilderness and rural landscape.

More importantly, the Nez Perce Trail bleeds history -- almost literally. This is the path of Chief Joseph's historic retreat from the U.S. Army in 1877, when he fled with his people in an effort to keep peace with the whites while refusing to sign a treaty that would drastically reduce Nez Perce lands.

But the story is not so simple as that. The Nez Perce Trail is littered with with heroes slain, with villians triumphant and innocents lost, with betrayal and chicanery and revenge -- but also with courage and wisdom, perhaps even hope.

It holds questions, too, for me. Come, we will ask them together.

Trailhead

Oh, dear.
I have an idea.
Another idea. A big one.
When I get big ideas, they turn into big dreams.
And when I have big dreams, I always make them come true.

I want to be a long rider. I want to know what it is to ride day upon day, mile upon mile, until I am my horse and he is me, until the pace of Earth absorbs us, until we learn to see each place and person plainly. Until we meet ourselves.

1,170 miles ought to do it.

(I'm sorry, Honey. Want to come?)