Lake Wallowa and Joseph, Oregon are interesting places to visit. You can ride the tram to the top of the mountain and look around. Timing is everything because the temperature drops 3°F for every 1000 feet of altitude that you gain. The vegetation is like high alpine meadows. If you are lucky, it won't be hazy like it was for me. This year (2000) would not be a good year to visit because of all of the fires around the Northwest. When I walk out of my house, I can smell smoke from grass fires. There is a museum in Joseph called the Nez Perce Crossings. It is owned by Dave and Lee Manuel. If you want to see a real Nez Perce Eagle War Bonnet, you have to visit the museum. Several are on loan for "artistic research" by prominent Nez Perce families. When Manuel creates a statue of a Nez Perce, it looks like a Nez Perce because the features are based on Nez Perce dress. You can count the Eagle feathers and he will tell you that each one was created individually. They have their own foundry to cast his work. I didn't appreciated how much the foundry staff contribute to a casting. It is considerable. A major statue is cast in many pieces and it is the foundry people that put it back together. An artist is only as good as his foundry. There is a tremendous historical presence in the museum. They also have their paperwork in place so that the US Government will leave them alone. The last time I was in Joseph I ended up buying a print of Mark Kortnik's "Predator of Time". The large mountain cat sitting in front of some petroglyph's fascinated me. I have funneled information to he and his wife, which has resulted in their adding paintings based on France's Chauvet Cave images. They also have an art gallery at Joseph. It is also a good place to visit. |
My father followed the Nez Perce War and read just about everything that was ever printed about it. Eventually, he ended up getting me interested in it. I had been traveling around the Northwest in my 4x4 truck and kept bumping into roadside exhibits to the War. This is the place where it started. The Indians had the valley and the whites wanted it. Pretty soon there was a War and the whites had the valley. Reed had been just about everywhere there had been a battle except to Lake Wallowa and possibly the Bearpaw's. The Bearpaw Mountain's south of Chinook, Montana is where Chief Joseph uttered his famous surrender speech. When it came to the Nez Perce War, Joseph was also a victim. He wasn't one of the war chiefs but since they were all dead, someone had to be blamed and he was the "lucky dude". It was simply more proof that the US government didn't understand the tribal system. The trip to Joseph and Lake Wallowa was my way of introducing him to the Wallowa Valley. The only problem was the temperature. We needed to be wearing at least light jackets. It was pretty cool at this point. |
There are many places associated with the Nez Perce that I don't have photographs of. The Grangeville, Idaho and Whitebird area is one of many. The Indians are on the rampage was the fear and but the Nez Perce send four Indians to talk to the troop commander. Some civilians fire on the Indians and provoke them into a terrible fight. The troop commander should have taken the civilian out and gave him to the Indians. The Nez Perce are totally PO'ed at this point and it is the closest to a massacre as the army came in the War with the Nez Perce. It could have been Custer's Last Stand all over again and it would have been some stupid white man that started it and a civilian at that. A few got away. The Nez Perce had the advantage. They were defending their wives and children and the Army didn't stand a chance. The French learned the same lesson in Vietnam. Custer learned the same lesson in in southeaster Montana. You don't build a defensive area in a region that everyone can see. Snipers can tear you to pieces. You can't hide that way. All of the canyon areas looked down on where the fight on Whitebird took place. You can drive around the battlefield and see where people were positioned.
I have been over Lolo Pass but the route taken by the Nez Perce is off to the side and really requires four wheel drive vehicles and a bunch of work. I had the 4x4 but not the team to make it over the old pass. I used to tell people that my idea of a Sunday drive was to drive to Missoula, Montana in a sports car. Once you got to the canyon heading over the top, it was four hours of window washer turns. Most American cars have a window washer. If you turn a corner fast enough, the g-force will force water out of the outside most window washer jet. When you start dribbling water, you are making a window washer turn. The road to the summit of Lolo Pass has four hours of these turns. It was about a 16 hour drive.
The Nez Perce camp in Big Hole Battlefield, Montana had the Indians in the looked down on mode. The Nez Perce were resting peacefully by a stream and the Army crept over the hill. Their equipment also included artillery. When you visit the Big Hole Battlefield Area, you can walk around where the Indians were camped and then walk up to where the soldiers were located. The army should have carried the day but it was soldier's on foot against horse soldiers and the horse soldiers had the mobility to flank the foot soldiers. This time the horse soldiers were the Nez Perce. The first thing they did was capture the artillery. They should have turned it loose on the infantry but rolled the weapon down the hill into the creek. Now it was an even fight and the Army had the strategic advantage. The Nez Perce by this point had packed up and left the area. This was the battle they won and where the lost the war. They lost between 60 and 90 people either killed or wounded. They really didn't have enough warriors after that to carry on with the fight.
It took me a long time to find where the Camas Meadows fight took place. In fact, I had to get lost to find it. We have to blame my father for this. He died and after the funeral my brother loaded stuff into a rental truck and headed to his in-laws in Salt Lake City, Utah. After being alone in his house for 30 minutes, I was close to a panic attack and had to go some place to clear up my mind. I had really intended to spend a week in Utah. My father's youngest sister had her 90th birthday party coming up but after everyone left, I couldn't handle the silence. The house didn't have an air conditioner and that added to my problems. I took off and ended up heading for Yellowstone. We had spent a lot of time as a family there and that was a place to visit. I got to Idaho Falls, Idaho and there things fell apart. I was on the inside of a long truck and missed the sign and the turn off to West Yellowstone, Montana. Next thing I know is that I am way off course. I'm almost having a panic attack and stop in Dubois, Idaho for some directions. The lady in the service station tells me that the closest road to West Yellowstone is the road that ran in front of the service station. I head down it knowing that I will come out at Mack's Inn, which is on the road I should have taken. About midway on the drive from Dubois to Mack's Inn, I pass a sign identifying the location as where the Camas Meadows fight had occurred. It was on private property but at least I knew where it was. When I got to West Yellowstone, I figured that getting lost had only cost me around 30 minutes of time and in the process of recovering I had learned something that I considered pretty important.
Getting to the Bear's Paw Battlefield required a lot more time and work. It was the summer of 1998, I had a new car and I figured it was time to finish the Nez Perce trail. It was going to be an even summer. I was going to the Bear Paw's battlefield, which the US Army won, and then I was going to the Little Big Hole battlefield, which the Indians won. Chinook, Montana is really out of the way. There is only one hiway that crosses northern Montana and that is the one that goes through Havre and Chinook. There are two ways to get there from where I am. You can head through Glacier Park or drive down to Great Falls and up that way. Well, Great Falls is home to one of the greatest country Artist's that ever lived by the name of Charlie Russell. If I was going to get into that county, I was going to Great Falls and visit the Charlie Russell Museum. This computer has a Charlie Russell painting for a mouse pad. It is one of the good ones with the plastic surface that doesn't wear out and you can clean.
I drove to the portage area on the Missouri, which is where Lewis and Clark portaged around the Big Falls on the Missouri River. There is a cool Lewis and Clark visiting center on the river. There are a number of falls in the area and each falls has a little power generating station on it. If you can generate power and not disrupt things too badly, you might as well and they have. I have photographs of the big springs in the portage area but that was the only interesting thing to photograph.
Anyone following the development of the American West has heard of Fort Benton. Fort Benton was really responsible for the development of the west, which also includes the western prairies of Canada. There was a wagon trail that left there and ended at Fort Walla Walla on the Columbia River. This sounds like another termination because Fort Walla Walla is a relatively short drive from where I live.
The drive to Fort Benton was uneventful. It was a little town on the river that had historical significance. Fort Benton was as far up the Missouri as the sternwheeler's could travel and that is where all of the supplies to battle the Indians were dropped off. Distribution of supplies to the rest of the west was through the trail to Fort Walla Walla. The development of Canada also depended on Fort Benton because that is how they got their supplies into the western prairies.
The road from Fort Benton to Havre was a two lane but Montana didn't have a daytime speed limit that summer. It was a long ways but with the cruise control setting on 80+ mph (130kph) distances were covered in a hurry. That got me to thinking. If you pass someone, you would probably speed up to 90 mph (144kph) and would need around 10 seconds to get around the other car. Two cars approaching each other at a combined speed of 180mph will cover 0.5 miles (0.8km) in 10 seconds. You passed very carefully. If you could see what kind of car it was, you were too close. You would see a clump of cars and there was always a Montana State Police car in the middle. When you went by at 80 and hugging the white fog-line, they didn't even ping you with radar. It was cool.
This was also a bad year for grasshoppers. They were really thick. When some of them hit the windshield, they sounded like you had been shot at. Someof them looked as large as birds as they were coming in and made you want to hide under the dash. You never saw a motorcycle doing more than 65-70. One of my nephews, who cares for a really cool airplane and has a big motorcyle, explained they leave 4" (10cm) welts where they hit. I thought that how fast they drove their motorcycles was a function of how they handled pain and their desire to get somewhere. People from populated areas don't understand that once you leave a town in Montana, it is a long ways until you "get somewhere". Think of driving across the State of Rhode Island just to get to the next town.
The Bear's Paw Battlefield is around 18 miles south of Chinook, Montana. It is well identified but not very large.
The entrance to the Bear Paw Battlefield about 18 miles south of Chinook, Montana. |
The depiction of the surrender of Chief Joseph to Colonel Miles on the stone marker where the surrender occurred October 5, 1877. |
The first question you have is how did the US Cavalry sneak up on the Nez Perce. You are in a creek bottom, which has been eroded around 10 feet from the rest of the river flood plain. The Nez Perce camped in this more sheltered area.
The army was charging on horseback down a good strip of land to ride on. This is the flood plain above the eroded section. |
The view of where the Army came from as viewed by the Nez Perce camp. You usually see this view like there is a high mountain behind the camp. There was some obvious artistic liberty in such paintings. |
The view to the entrance of the battlefield. The horses were kept beyond the parking lot. The Nez Perce couldn't get to them once the Army arrived because one of the first things the Army did is run them off. There wasn't any way out this time. The object in the immediate foreground is where Olokote fell. This is just to the southwest of the Memorial. |
The Nez Perce camp was below just the Memorial. It is relatively low and should have been out of sight. How the did Army scouts see them and the Nez Perce not see the Army? |
The Nez Perce had lost a lot of equipment at the Bighole battlefield and needed the shelter. There isn't any answer as to why they didn't have scouts out but the Army was very close before they were seen and didn't have much time to setup a defensive structure. Some of the Nez Perce were able to leave before the Army arrived. They made it to Sitting Bulls camp in Canada. Most of the casualties were taken by both sides in the first 20-45 minutes of battle. The Army backed off after about an hour of fighting.. The Nez Perce horses had been run off. They weren't going anywhere and all the Army had to do was wait until the other group showed up with all of their artillery and they could take care of the problem at a distance. When Howard showed up, Chief Joseph tried to surrender to him but wasn't permitted to. There is a stone marker where Joseph lifted his rifle and uttered the words that are still famous. All you usually see is "From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever".
The Nez Perce were told where they would go temporarily, which ended up being a lie. Washington over ruled the local army and the Nez Perce were sent to Indian Territory, which is modern Oklahoma. The Nez Perce didn't fare very well down there. Eventually, Chief Joseph was allowed back into Washington State where he eventually died on one of the Indian Reservations north of where I live. He was never permitted to go back to the Wallowa's. That area was now firmly in the hands of the white's. There was an newspaper article a while back about the Nez Perce purchasing land around Joseph, Oregon. They finally made it back home.
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