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 | Oct 13, 2021 | Nex Perce history, Nez Perce, Nez Perce Fisheries, Nez Perce Homeland, salmon, Wallowa, Wallowa Country
On Saturday, Indian elders helped dedicate the “side channel project” on the Nez Perce Homeland grounds in Wallowa. The Wallowa River, Nez Perce Fisheries workers told us, had been shoved to a side, channelized decades ago, probably in the 1940s and 50s, so that more...
by Rich Wandschneider | Jun 27, 2021 | Chief Joseph, Indian treaties, Isaac Stevens, Nez Perce, Nez Perce treaty, Nez Perce Tribe, Walla walla treaty, Wallowa, Wallowa Country, Wallowas, walwa’ma
Above the Clearwater: Living on Stolen Ground is Bette Lynch Husted’s memoir of growing up on a dirt-poor, white, family farm in Nez Perce Indian country in Idaho. Their meagre plot had once—and long—been Indian country. Nez Perce Reservation lands were reduced by 90...
by Rich Wandschneider | Mar 15, 2021 | 1855 treaty, Chief Joseph, Civil Rights, Civil Rights Act of 1964, Nez Perce treaty, Nez Perce Tribe, Wallowa, wallowa homeland, women’s rights
Our national founding documents talk about all men being created “equal,” and many see the history of the country as a gradual expansion of “all men” to include black men—14th Amendment, 1868; women—19th Amendment, 1920; and, in 1924, when they were finally given...
