Footsteps of Heroes

Kids' faces press against the windows as our old van maneuvers the hairpin turns. Lupines carpet the canyon slopes, and our eyes feast on the spring green. North Idaho’s high-elevation plateaus drop abruptly to precipitous chasms, canyons once gouged by the onslaught of melted glaciers. And deep in their bottoms, the rivers rush with the sound of the ancient monster’s roar.

This is Nez Perce country, a country once belonging to a people whose creation story began at the Heart of the Monster, an unexplainable landmark, a mountainous heap of earth along the Clearwater River near where I live.

I’m a teacher in a rural school, teaching the story of Chief Joseph and his 1,170-mile escape. Recently, four students and I followed their footsteps over the Rocky Mountains along the trail of their doomed break for freedom.

“We could write journals--” Haley has the intensity of a scientist.

“Like Lewis and Clark,” says Tonya, her younger sister by two years.

“I sometimes write things down. It makes me less stressed,” Haley pushes a chunk of wiry hair behind an ear.

“It makes me more stressed when I have to write,” says Stephen, fifth grade.

“Journals can help people process things,” I say. “Even if, Stephen, it might mean work.” Stephen looks me straight in the eye and nods. He’s trusting and will take my word for it.

Opening our travel atlas of the Northwest, we plan our first stop, Wallowa Valley, Chief Joseph’s homeland, “the land of winding rivers.”

On the outskirts of Joseph, a wealthy, tidy town, we find the grave of the father, Chief Joseph. “Never sell the bones of your mother and father,” was his parting words to his son by the same name. Apt instructions as miners plundered the riverbeds and incoming ranchers strung endless miles of barbed wire. General Howard, the one-armed captain, reluctantly relayed the orders from Washington: all non-res Indians must turn themselves in.

“How many of you have grandparents that were forced to leave their homelands?” I ask.

Stephen knows the story of his great-grandfather, orphaned in Germany during World War II. “My great-grampa never even knew his mother and father.”

“Our great-grampa fought in the war in the Air Force. He dropped bombs on the South Pacific,” says Haley.

“My Great Grampa fought for Germany,” says Leah.

“So they were fighting each other, essentially,” Haley stands her chin slightly raised. She and Leah are often at odds.

As we approach the grave, the kids hone in around the pillar, a conglomerate of stones built in a tall cairn, inscribed with CHIEF JOSEPH DIED 1870. Trinkets adorn the stone: painted rocks, small toys, beaded pens. To many, the Nez Perce seem invisible, but we know otherwise.

“Can we touch this stuff?” says Stephen bending closer to examine a toy car decorated with beads.

“No way,” says Haley. “Don’t you know that’s a desecration!” Stephen shuts up.

“Real sage grass and tobacco,” says Tonya quietly.

Haley studies the jewelry and intricate dream catchers. She doesn’t say anymore after her outburst with Stephen.

Haley: The grave site seems so mysterious. I wish I could have met Joseph and his family. Would I have been a friend to them? What makes friends?

Tonya: The Indians living here had strong characters. They knew their heritage and respected their ancestors.

Only a few miles farther, Wallowa Lake, a glacial lake almost three hundred feet deep, reflects the snowcapped mountains of the surrounding Eagle Cap Wilderness. The day is spotless and serene. The kids sit along the lake rim, writing, imagining themselves in a bygone era, an era of colliding cultures, and the playing out of the ideologies of Manifest Destiny.

Stephen: I wish I had been an Indian. I would like to ride horses and fish.

A week later, we take a day to travel to Lapwai, Idaho, the Nez Perce agency headquarters where 5,000 Indians met to receive the orders to surrender. The general’s boarding house still stands alongside derelict trailers, a trading post with crafts, and a cemetery. We walk through, examining the graves and dates, recent dates documenting premature deaths juxtaposed with historic engravings like: “Last Survivor of the Nez Perce War.” This is reservation land.

Fifty miles south of Lapwai is Tolo, an ancient lake on the camas prairie, our next destination. In ancient times, it was a mastodon watering hole; an exhumed skeleton in the nearby town grins from behind a glass case. For hundreds of years, Tolo was the gathering place for the five Nez Perce bands, and it was there in 1877, that they met before surrendering to the agency. But the idea of captivity proved intolerable for some angry Indian youth. They crept out one night, and defying their elders, vengefully murdered several white ranchers as retribution for a father’s violent death.

Stephen: My brother Damien would be just like those angry Indians who killed some ranchers. Some people can’t handle things like other people.

Stephen, at age ten, is processing the fact that his older brother has schizophrenia. Now ten years old, he wonders why the brother whom he loves so much, seems different. Why does he sometimes scream and explode in anger?

On June 16, 1877, the Nez Perce moved camp to White Bird Canyon where they would be fortified against army attack. All hope for peaceful negotiation unraveled. Driving down White Bird Grade, a historic road in itself, remembered for its notable engineering and incredible elevation drop, we pray our brakes are in good condition.

Stephen: I was rooting for the Indians in my mind. Their lookouts gave the fake coyote howl, a warning that the army was coming. The warriors defeated the army! I wish I could have been a warrior on horseback.

Haley: It seems so peaceful but I’m wondering if beneath me lies the bones of the thirty-three slain soldiers.

“Sandra, when are we going to have lunch?” Leah asks.

“You done writing?”

“No, I’ll just remember stuff.”

“Choose a good spot and we’ll join you in a minute.” Leah is often fidgety and she is eager to show off her bag lunch. Meadowlarks are whistling, their black V-neck stark against their yellow breasts. It is fun to be outdoors on a school day.

“Kids, can you think of a way the Nez Perce story could have taken a different turn right here at White Bird?

We review the challenges our country faced at the end of the 1800s. This was a political struggle over land, but was it also a moral struggle?

“It makes me mad to think how the Indians were robbed of their land,” says Haley. “It was unfair.”

“Do you think there are things happening today that in 150 years, future generations will view us as being morally in the wrong?”

“Maybe,” says Leah.

Haley says, “You know, I never thought about people looking back at us from a future time.”

It is the afternoon of the same day and we follow the route to the South Fork of the Clearwater River where the army caught up with the Nez Perce, toting a howitzer to the bluff directly above where they were camped. Because of the extreme danger they were facing, Chief Joseph ordered the women and children to pack only what was necessary, cross the river, and head for the Weippe Meadows. We are now close to home and the river where we spend endless summer hours.

Leah: I’m imagining how hard it was to leave behind clothing, toys, and tent covers. Afterward, the soldiers looted their stuff.

Haley: How could somebody point a cannon at a group of families with women and children, beautiful horses, and open fire from close range? Then live with what they’d done.

Next, we trace their dramatic route across the Rocky Mountains on the Lolo Trail. The kids laugh and sing as we jostle up a dirt track that will take us to the start of the Lolo Trail. Once a foot trail, it is now accessible by four-wheel drive truck or side-by-side.

The views are breathtaking, a wrong turn, fatal. It’s difficult to do on a good day, but we imagine traveling on foot and horseback with eight hundred people—old people and babies. It took the group eleven days while battling frostbite, malnutrition, and attacks from the pursuing cavalry.

“A moose!” Haley cries, and we all lunge to the right side of the truck. Less than twenty feet from the van is a mother moose with two calves.

“That is so cool!” says Stephen, who often misses unusual sights because of his slow reactions.

Stephen: Idaho wilderness is very big and wild. The moose was defending its calves. The Nez Perce were just trying to do the same thing. That is instinct.

Leah: I’m imagining walking in the shoes of the Nez Perce. They were wise to stick together like a team. I hope I grow up and find a team where I belong.

Once over the pass, fresh generals with new battalions mounted surprise attacks. An attack at Big Hole, Montana, amounted to a near massacre. But the group pushed on, evading troops in the newly formed Yellowstone Park, then headed north to Canada. Cold and weak with hunger.

“We’re going to Yellowstone?”

“Holy cow!”

“Yes. We have booked primitive campsites; it may still be very cold, but we have learned about tenacity haven’t we?”

Yellowstone, the kids’ dream. We camp in frosted tents on Yellowstone Lake. We watch thousands of buffalo with young, and spot a grizzly, a pronghorn, Rocky mountain sheep, and goats. We hike through Lamar Valley and watch Old Faithful. “Lock it in,” I tell my students. “There may be things you go through in life where one beautiful memory might save you.”

Tonya: This is the most beautiful place in the world-- geysers and mud pots steam and bubble from deep in the heart of the earth!

Haley: Me and Leah have made friends. We don’t need to be the same to be friends. Don’t judge or look down on anyone. That’s my new rule.

Leah: I’m happy on this trip. I need to look at things through others' eyes and not just my way.

Stephen: I want to grow up to be brave like the Indians and stand up for my people.

With public opinion across the nation leaning towards the plight of the fugitives, the army was anxious to capture this group of predominantly women and children. Anxious and embarrassed. On October 5, 1877, snow blanketed the ground, his people were freezing wounded dead. Chief Joseph surrendered.

Defeated? Maybe. But in the canyons of the West, his spirit still echoes the spirit of endurance, bravery, and freedom.

May our country’s true heroes live on in the hearts of our young.