Category: Nez Perce canoe

Canoes, statues, gifts

Many of you have been following our canoe journey, and some know about the big grant we received from the Oregon Community Foundation to have a Plateau Indian artist put Indian art on Main Street in Joseph.

That one is a long process. We are recruiting artists now–deadline January 15–for a first selection of three artists, who will each be given $1,000 and a month to develop proposals. One of the three will then have a year–and a $25,000 artist’s award–to complete an art project for Joseph’s Main Street. If you know of Plateau artists who might be interested, let us know! The OCF grant will cover most of the costs of this project.

Allen Pinkham Jr.’s small canoe floats! There is a little polishing up to do, but he is now thinking about those 30 foot logs sitting in Jim Zacharias’s log yard! We have some grant money for this project, but we will need more to get a Read The Article

Canoe notes #3

Allen Pinkham Jr. got his dugout canoe into the water at Wallowa Lake in November. He’ll be back for some finishing work on this 16 footer, and then on to the 30 footers! The plan is to build one with the help of modern tools–as was done with the smaller canoe–and then one with traditional tools and methods. And then—he wants a trip on the Snake River in 2018.

Meanwhile, here’s the run-up to launch, and the canoe–and Allen and granddaughter–In the water. That’s son-in-law Travis, whose day job is in a commercial boat-building shop, working with Allen.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BMIwMx7VA0Y

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Canoe notes #2

My childhood recollections of New World history move quickly from Columbus and the Nina, Pinta, and Santa Maria to Squanto and the Puritans on the other side of the continent. In neither case did we get much real history, but rather sloganeering echoes passed from teacher to student for decades, now centuries. And we got holidays—Columbus Day and Thanksgiving—that were and probably still are occasion for grade school pageantry.

But Allen Pinkham, Jr., our Nez Perce canoe carver, sends me back to Alvin M. Josephy, Jr., my mentor and the “Great Reminder.” Alvin reminds us that Indians were here for millennia before Columbus and the Puritans, that they had fashioned high civilizations as well as many simple but effective ways of living on their lands, that there had been catastrophes even before the Europeans came with the great upset, but that Native peoples and the land have been resilient. (I mistakenly typed “had” in place of “have” in that sentence; Read The Article