Wallowa Valley - Day 1

Sawako and I took a trip to the town of Joseph in North-Eastern Oregon deep in the Wallowa-Whitman National Forest. 

View from the Bronze Antler B&B

It was a long drive (7.5 hours) including a lunch stop at Sacajawea Historical State Park in Pasco, WA.  The park is right at the confluence of the Snake and Columbia rivers and was a great place for lunch.

Pelican on Columbia River at Park

The park included a wonderful interpretive center of the Lewis and Clark expedition from 1804-1806.

Mat house used during the winter

After leaving the park, it was another 3 hours of driving to reach Joseph, Oregon and our B&B, The Bronze Antler.

Bronze Antler B&B

Joseph is a wonderful town that when the timber industry crashed in the early 1980's reinvented itself as a tourist area and a leader in bronze statue casting with a major foundry opening in the 1982.  Because of this you see bronze statues all over town. 

Just south of town is the Iwetemlaykin State Heritage Site which is a wonderful park with great views and a lot of good information.

This park had the grave of the father of Chief Joseph the famous Nez Perce leader who refused the US when the government ripped up a treaty and tried to force the tribe onto a different reservation because gold was found in their original reservation.  Even though he only had a few warriors and many women and children, he fought the US army to a standstill for over 1170 miles from the Wallowa valley  before he was caught at the Canadian border and gave up.  A sad chapter in US history.