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On Friday morning we checked out of our RV park in Clarkston, Washington and drove ten miles east to Spalding, Idaho. I know we said we were in a hurry to get to Montana but what’s another day or two? We spent the afternoon exploring the Spalding Visitor Center of the Nez Perce National Historical Park. The park, created in 1965, is unusual in that it is not one large entity, instead it is a collection of 38 sites scattered across four states: Montana, Idaho, Oregon and Washington.

The park includes locations that are crucial to the telling of the Nez Perce story, from creation to modern times. Some of the sites are on the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho but many are not.

At the confluence of the Snake and Clearwater Rivers (where we stayed in modern day Clarkston) the Nez Perce would gather to harvest spawning salmon. South along the Snake are some of the sites of the Park; Buffalo Eddy has petroglyphs and pictographs at least 8,000 years old, Hasatino was a village site used until the 1900s and Dug Bar is the crossing where Chief Joseph and over 800 members of his tribe forded the swift river in 1877.

The Visitor Center is well thought out and informative. It appears that the Park Service is working with the Nez Perce to tell the whole story, not just the white man’s version. There were reminders throughout the site that this area was once part of the Nez Perce home, that the Nez Perce have survived and that they still consider it home. Today’s Nez Perce may be scattered far from their original homeland but they remain connected to it.

To the Nimiipuu (as the Nez Perce call themselves), their history began thousands of years ago when Coyote defeated a monster and created the Nez Perce. The Heart of the Monster site in Idaho preserves this place of creation. The Nez Perce spent thousands of years traveling the high prairies and canyonlands of their home, through modern day Idaho, Oregon and Washington. They followed the seasons and knew where to collect camas, fish for salmon and hunt buffalo.

They were not alone in these lands, the Shoshone inhabited southern Idaho, the Chinook lived to the west in Oregon and Washington, and the Blackfeet lived to the north in Idaho and Montana. Skirmishes were not uncommon between the tribes. The Shoshone, especially, were considered enemies of the Nez Perce. Yet the Nez Perce and other tribes survived, even thrived, well into the 1800s.

According to Nez Perce legend they were filled with dread when they saw their first white men in the Fall of 1805. The tribe decided to kill the men because their presence was an ominous sign that predicted disaster. An elderly Nez Perce woman, Wetxuuwíis, intervened and the lives of the members of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery were spared.

The Nez Perce and the members of the expedition became friends during the weeks that the Corps prepared for their final leg out to the coast. The Nez Perce shared food with them and even taught them how to make dug-out canoes using the burning method.

On their return trip through Nez Perce land in 1806 the Corps stayed a month with their friends. After the mountain snow pack had sufficiently melted to allow passage, the Corps left. They left behind not only promises of peace, but nine months later, some offspring.

History records little about the children conceived during that stay. The Nez Perce have a story which says that one of the youngsters was Clark’s son. There is however, a clear record of what happened to the promises of peace, and it is an ugly one.

Missionaries were the first to settle among the Nez Perce. Ironically, they came at the request of the Nez Perce. In 1831 four Nez Perce traveled to St. Louis looking for “the book of Heaven and the teachers”. Two husband and wife teams answered the request. The Whitmans settled near today’s Walla Walla, Washington and the Spaldings settled at the Nez Perce wintering grounds at Lapwai (near where the Spalding Visitor Center now stands).

We walked down the hill to the area where the Spaldings built their cabin. Small irrigation ditches that the Spaldings and Nez Perce dug still snake through the flat, wide bottomland. It was easy to see why the Nez Perce overwintered here since it is out of the wind and there is plenty of water in the Clearwater River.

The Spaldings were well received by the Nez Perce. The fireplace is all that remains of the Spalding cabin which was the first home, school and church in Idaho. The Spaldings baptized over 900 Indians, the first two were the elder Chief Joseph and Chief Timothy, before leaving in 1847. The Spaldings left after the Whitmans were murdered by Indians. The clash of cultures had begun…

More and more settlers began pouring westward, seeking opportunity, wealth and land. In 1855 a treaty with the US government was signed by the elder Chief Joseph and the first Nez Perce reservation was established. The treaty granted much of their original homeland to the Nez Perce and was agreed to by all the bands of the tribe.

In the 1860s gold was discovered on the reservation and the Nez Perce were overrun with settlers. The Indian Agent stationed at Spalding did little to stop the influx. The agent’s green painted house at Spalding, built in 1862, still stands and is now used by the National Park Service.

In 1863 a new treaty was offered by the US government that reduced the reservation to one-tenth its original size. Some bands of Nez Perce signed the treaty but other bands, those in Oregon who stood to lose their homes, refused to sign it. These nontreaty Nez Perce, as they became known, continued to live on their land until May of 1877 when the Army issued an ultimatum: move to the reservation in Idaho or we will move you.

The Chiefs of the nontreaty bands, young Joseph, Looking Glass, Toohoolhoolzote and others tried negotiating in hopes of remaining. In May some nontreaty youth, frustrated with the continued injustices the tribe suffered, murdered some local settlers. The act set in motion the unwanted Nez Perce War which would end four months and 1,100 miles later.

The nontreaty bands attempted an arduous journey over the Bitterroot Mountains into Montana, in an effort to reach Canada. The 800 plus group was forced to surrender just 40 miles south of the Canadian border at Bear Paw, Montana. Chief Joseph was the only surviving chief and his words of surrender are famous; “Tell General Howard I know his heart. What he told me before, I have it in my heart. I am tired of fighting… From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.” The long journey is now memorialized as the Nez Perce National Historic Trail which winds from Wallowa Lake, Oregon to the Bear Paw Battlefield in Montana.

Chief Joseph continued to appeal the US government for the right of his people to return to their homeland. He became respected as an eloquent spokesman for peace, not that the fame did him (or his people) much good. In 1904 when Chief Joseph died at the Colville Reservation in Washington the doctor said he died of a broken heart.

The town of Spalding was active until the 1960s. Now only the church remains in use. Lance and I were sobered by our visit. The westward expansion of the US came at a heavy price. We were glad we visited though, it’s always more tangible when you can experience a place and not just read about it. We were pleasantly surprised to see the active role modern day Nez Perce have in this Park; after all, their story is still unfolding.

Photos: The Nez Perce National Historical Park photo album shows more pictures from this RV Day Trip.

Dates: We visited the Nez Perce NHP on Friday, September 15th, 2006.