We’ve been coming to Wallowa Lake in the NE corner of Oregon for years. Beth requested that we make this the last stop on our vacation this year. It’s kind of a nostalgia trip for the kids.
Before heading here on Sunday from Lewiston, we backtracked a bit to visit the new interpretive center on the Nez Perce reservation. The Nez Perce tribe got a raw deal all around, like all of the tribes of the Northwest, but perhaps moreso. At the interpretive center we learned that their name resulted from a mistake made by French trappers who thought they had pierced noses. They didn’t, but the name stuck anyway. They signed a treaty in 1855 giving them a large reservation comprised of the middle portion of Idaho, NE Oregon and SE Washington. But when gold was discovered a few years later the whites moved in anyway, and the treaty was renegotiated with some but not all of the tribal bands. The new reservation was much smaller and entirely in Idaho. The Wallowa band, led by Chief Joseph, had to be forced out of their homeland by the Army, leading to the famous thousand-mile flight to Canada that ended 40 miles from the border. The Army forced the tribe to a reservation in Oklahoma. Today Chief Joseph’s father, Old Chief Joseph, is buried next to Wallowa Lake. But Chief Joseph never made it back to the Wallowas. He died and was buried on a reservation in Washington.
We’ve always come here from the west, but today we came here from the north. The distance from Lewiston is only 90 miles, but the road winds up and down some amazingly rugged country. For one stretch of about 13 miles, the speed limit is 25. It was very scenic though and worth creeping along the twists and turns.
We returned to civilization at Enterprise, Oregon, the sleepy county seat of Wallowa County. Jane remembered a pretty good Mexican restaurant, so we went there for a late Sunday dinner. It was one of the few places that was open.
Then we got in early at our motel at Wallowa Lake. We’ve stayed here several times and the kids like it because it has a miniature golf course. Beth and Daniel played a round of golf and then we went down to check out the lake. It was kind of breezy and I checked out the water – very cold. It comes right off the Wallowa Mountains that rise up to about 9,000 feet right behind the lake. There is some snow left up there.
Later in the afternoon, the whole family played a round of golf and I won a free game by making a difficult put on the last hole (beginners luck!).
Tonight we decided to picnic like we did last night, so we went into the nearby town of Joseph to get some groceries. Joseph has become more and more of a tourist town, which I’m sure is good for their economy, but not very appealing to the Scheppkes.
Tomorrow will be the last day of our vacation, so we will try, I’m sure, to make the most of it.
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