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Published: September 15th 2009
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Field of wildflowers
The warning about rattlesnakes kept me out of the field. Walla Walla, Chief Timothy Park and Hells Canyon
The stop in Walla Walla was to see our good friends Bonnie and Les Griffith. Bonnie is an accomplished artist who works in pastels and mostly does beautiful landscapes. (You can check out her work on her website at www.bonniegriffith.com/).
Besides good food, laughter and catching up, Bonnie took us to the Whitman National Historic Monument, where the early missionaries, the doctor Marcus and his wife Narcissa Whitman, had lived, taught, farmed, proseletyzed and medically cared for both Native Americans and Oregon Trail immigrants for many years.
I was intrigued by thoughts of Narcissa, daughter of a judge in a small midwest town, who “offered herself” at 28 years of age, to go west with Marcus Whitman and help him with his missionary work. She's said to have been the first “white woman” to travel so far west, and their daughter was the first “white” child to be born in Oregon. Tragically the little girl, who ended up being their only child, drowned accidentally in the stream by their house at about the age of two.
Worse was to come. Times were changing. In 1841, 25 “immigrants” from the
Phil at Chief Timothy Park
The hammock comes out at our site with a little stand of trees. Oregon Trail stopped at the Whitman mission, by 1844 the number was 1,500, by 1847, 5,000. With them they brought scarlet fever, whooping cough and respiratory illnesses, from which the local Indians suffered greatly. Smallpox and an ague (now believed to have been malaria because it only spread in the areas where the anopheles mosquito was present) had also been brought to the Northwest by fur trading ships.
The Whitmans were well aware that the Cayuse Indians had a tradition of killing a medicine man whose patient died, but they carried on at the mission. When measles hit the area and killed off nearly half the local Indian population, the coincidence of white immigrants and pestilence was all too clear. On the very day Marcus had attended the funeral of three more Indians, some young warriors, reportedly believing they had to stop “Whitman's” poison from killing their people, attacked the mission, killed Marcus, Narcissa and 11 others and took 50 hostages, who were later released. Thus began a series of violent confrontations between settlers and Cayuse, Yakima and Palouse peoples which lasted on and off for 30 years.
Growing up in Massachusetts, I'd never heard of any of this, so am finding the sagas to do with the local Indians and the Oregon Trail quite rivetting.
Monday was back-to-work time for Bonnie and Les, but before we left Walla Walla, Bonnie gave us a large quantity of her fabulous homemade meusli and also her hummus, both of which lasted us for several days.
Next stop was Chief Timothy Park, recommended by the Griffiths, just short of Clarkston, on the Snake River. This at last was entirely new territory for us, and we felt we'd really begun our trip. On our way, we stopped in a small town to buy a good thermos and found the local cafe consisted of 3 tables in the collectibles and hardware store, wedged in between the rakes and shovels on one end and the greeting cards on the other, with hanging pots of artificial flowers and decorative lamps on each little table. It had wi-fi! We're starting to realize that there are many more variations on the coffee shop than we experienced in Portland.
At Chief Timothy Park Phil got the hammock set up in a grove of trees and I got to have a swim in the Snake River. The campsite was next to a large field of wildflowers, but the sign warning about rattlesnakes kept me from dancing out through them, and to Phil's disappointment it also dissuaded me from sleeping out under the stars.
Hells Gate State Park was next, a short trip over the river and across the border into Idaho. Though we'd thought we'd take a boat trip up the amazing canyon, the next trip going that we could afford (a half day trip) wasn't for 3 days, so we gave up on the idea.
But it was at this campground that I made a little friend, a talkative and tender 4 year girl in the site across from us. She approached me shortly after we arrived and offered me some bark chips she'd collected with which to start our fire. In return I gave her a little white Teddy bear which had so far survived the purges of the van. She was delighted with it and hung with me thereafter. She was camping with her Dad and over time we found out that they were temporarily homeless, but he'd just managed to get a job in Lewiston. The job would start in 2 more weeks, and then he hoped to start putting things back together for them. It made me wonder how many other folks were living in parks this summer due to foreclosures and lay-offs.
It also appeared that her mother was off the scene. Next morning my little friend raced over to give me a good-bye gift (her lego car)--she was sad we were leaving so soon. So I gave her a little decorative candle within a glass spherical holder and said whenever her Dad let her light it she could remember we were friends, and I gave her my email address so someone could help her write to me someday if she wanted to.
Some little chance meetings in life can be so intense!
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Chrys
non-member comment
Wow!
Love your blog! I went back and read the previous entries too. I love the history, the touching moments and your observations. We're thinking of a car trip to Idaho, Utah, Montana etc. with the kids--maybe next summer... Thanks Martha!