by Rich Wandschneider | Feb 17, 2026 | Ellen Bishop, Imnaha, Indian history, Indian treaties, Lewis and Clark, Minam, Nex Perce history, Nez Perce, Nez Perce Homeland, Nez Perce treaty, Nez Perce Tribe, Wallowa Country, Wallowa County, Wallowa History Center, wallowa homeland, Wallowa Lake, Wallowas
Wondering what it must have been like has been a growing yearning as I’ve lived in this Wallowa Country for 54 years and met old-timers, history keepers, and Natives from the three reservations in Idaho, Washington, and Oregon that have stories and questions about...
by Rich Wandschneider | Sep 23, 2025 | Chief Joseph, Nez Perce, Nez Perce Homeland, Nez Perce treaty, Nez Perce Wallowa Homeland, Wallowa, Wallowa Country, Wallowa County, Wallowa Lake
Last week on Wednesday I got up early, looked at Wallowa Lake’s east moraine and the mountain to the west now called Mount Joseph, and hit the road for an appointment in La Grande. It was a gorgeous day, bright, green with first tinges of browns and yellows. Light...
by Rich Wandschneider | Aug 31, 2024 | Alvin Josephy, Bartlett, Grace Bartlett, Nez Perce, Nez Perce Homeland, Nez Perce Indians and the Opening of the Northwest, Nez Perce Tribe, Nez Perce War, Umatilla, Wallowa, Wallowa Country, Wallowa County, Wallowa Lake, Wallowas
This summer we have been doing Friday conversations on local and Nez Perce history. This Friday was the last session for 2024. We focused on Grace Bartlett and her book, The Wallowa Country, 1866-76. I hadn’t read the book in years, remembering always that it was a...
by Rich Wandschneider | Sep 5, 2023 | East Moraine Community Forest, Nez Perce Fisheries, Nez Perce Homeland, Shannon Wheeler, sockeye salmon, Wallowa, Wallowa Lake, Wallowa Land Trust, Wallowa Resources
On Saturday, I made the hike up the west-side trail on the East Moraine of Wallowa Lake. This is a piece of land that the Wallowa Land Trust has worked very hard over many years to keep away from developers. Slowly—over the years, and with the support of the County...
by Rich Wandschneider | Sep 16, 2022 | Chief Joseph Cemetery, Wallowa Lake
September 12 might have been my last swim of 2022. The next swim will be January 1, 2023; it won’t really be a swim, but a plunge, a group of holiday enthusiasts getting in and out of Wallowa Lake as quickly as possible on New Year’s Day. Although in my mind the water...
by Rich Wandschneider | Dec 4, 2018 | Alvin Josephy, America in 1492, Fifty Years in Oregon, Geer, Grace Bartlett, Nez Perce, T.T, Wallowa Lake
Alvin Josephy said many times that the greatest injustice done to the Indian people in this country was not the takings of land, language, and culture, but a continuing failure to acknowledge that they existed—or at least that they ever existed as people in their own...
