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The Wisdom of Chief Joseph

AT THREE O’CLOCK precisely, in the sleepy little town of Joseph, Oregon, they rob the bank. While ordinary, peace-lovin’ townsfolk go about their daily business (the men in placket-front shirts, the women in crinolined skirts), three desperadoes ride down Main Street and hitch their horses to a rail. Spurs jangling, hands poised above gun holsters, they mosey down to the corner of 2nd Street and enter the bank. For a moment all is quiet, then a woman screams and gunshots ring out.

From behind me, the sheriff starts shooting. His deputy, up on the roof, joins in. Across the wide expanse of Main Street the gunfight rages. Two baddies bite the dust, but then the tide turns. The deputy’s body lands beside me and outlaw Cyrus Fitzhugh makes it back to his horse with the money and hightails it out of town.

As if this isn’t startling enough, a descendant of Chief Joseph is riding through town, resplendent on his magnificent pinto, his spectacularly feathered headdress gleaming brilliantly in the sun. And palefaces are actually applauding. It is a poignant moment, for Chief Joseph and his tribe of Perces Nez Indians were chased from their homeland here in 1877 and attacked in a series of 13 battles all the way up to the Canadian border.

On the edge of town there is even a tipi village, where a free Friendship Feast is being held by some of the ‘indigenous peoples’ (as they wish to be called). The angular outlines of the closely grouped tipis form stunning geometrical patterns, like white sails against the blue sky.

The ritual ride through town of Chief Joseph’s descendant heralds the start of an eagerly awaited parade that is the climax of Chief Joseph Days, the high point of the local calendar. It takes two hours for the 150-or-so ‘acts’ to file past. They include floats, stagecoaches, rodeo queens, posses of riders and even Boy Blue, ‘the Brahmin steer that thinks it’s a horse’. One wonders what the persecuted old chief would make of all this, in the town now named after him.

The Fall of 1996 marked the centenary of the original bank robbery and it was agreed that the year’s daily re-enactments were even more stirring than usual. Sadly, the spectacle ended a few years later because the ranch hands who played the various roles had more important duties to attend to. But the strange, true story of the robbery and its aftermath continues to resonate.

Dave Tucker, one of the three outlaws, was shot three times but survived. He spent several years in jail, saw the error of his ways and later actually became vice president of the bank he had helped to rob. Cyrus Fitzhugh disappeared with the loot into the snow-dusted mountain country around Hell’s Canyon and was never caught. Perhaps he perished in the wilderness, or maybe he made it through the Wallowa Mountains north of Joseph, managed to cross the treacherous Snake River in Hell’s Canyon and survived the Seven Devils Range of Idaho on the far side.

Both ranges are nearly 10,000ft (3,000m) high. The highest peak in the Seven Devils is He Devil (9,393ft), while the highest peak in the Wallowas is Sacajawea Peak (9,838ft). The Wallowa Mountains are protected as the Eagle Cap Wilderness, named for its most prominent if slightly lower 9,572ft peak, but it is more colloquially known as Little Switzerland and even boasts its own Matterhorn. Fired by the tales I heard during Chief Joseph Days, I wanted to see what this still roadless country was like, so I shouldered a pack and set out to investigate.

The Seven Devils proved hard to negotiate. There are few trails and the mountains are steep and rugged. Great rock outcrops make cross-country travel awkward. Reaching He Devil’s rock pillar summit required bushwhacking through forest and scrub, and scrambling across boulder fields and snow. The summit plinth was an airy perch, far from anywhere. Its logbook informed me that, on that day, 11 July, I was the first person to climb the mountain that year.

On top of Eagle Cap

The Wallowas are a more extensive and scenic range, criss-crossed by a network of trails that make the remote interior more accessible to trekkers. I took the East Lostine River Trail to the achingly pretty Lakes Basin, where pine-shored lakes nestled beneath rugged granite peaks. The colours astounded. At the foot of Eagle Cap, sparkling white icebergs calved into Glacier Lake, which was deep blue in the centre and emerald green around its shores and islets. The more vivid green of its surrounding vegetation contrasted with the red screes and grey crags that towered all around. Lush meadows provided idyllic campsites. A breeze took the edge of the heat and kept the skeeters at bay. Snow melt provided refreshing drinking water. This was prime backpacking country.

The next day, as I stood at the summit of Eagle Cap and surveyed the pristine wilderness at my feet, I recalled the words of a Nez Perce woman who had spoken passionately at the Friendship Feast of two principles that modern society could learn from the old tribal life. The first was infinite renewability – the idea that the earth would survive, with or without us, whatever we do to it. The second was reciprocity – the idea of living in harmony with the earth, never taking from it more than we need, and giving a little back for all that we take.

Chief Joseph was eventually caught just short of the Canadian border. His touching surrender speech, one of the greatest ever recorded, ended with the words: ‘I am tired; my heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever.’ He was taken to Washington, where he enthralled his captors with stirring speeches that still echo around the Friendship Feast. ‘Treat all men alike. Give them all an even chance to live and grow. They are all brothers. The earth is the mother of all people.’

I doubt that Cyrus Fitzhugh survived his attempted escape through the Wallowas and Seven Devils. Somewhere out there, his loot may still await discovery by some bemused backpacker. I come away from Joseph and Little Switzerland with stories of Wild West cowboys and Indians, with memories of untouched wilderness, and with new hope that men can live together, in harmony with each other and the environment.