Pittsburg Landing

The canyon wren spirals over the backeddy, the hiss of my butane stove, and across the state-line…

Bizzarity: A 22nd visit to the Nez Perce Cemetery at Nespelem

Of stolen art, murdered mountain lions, Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, prisons with no walls and the Capitol Christmas Tree. It is still morning in Nespelem, but just, and a little foggy near the hilltops yet. A southbound sun has about won the fight with the fog in spite of the resistance of a […]

Nespelem, Washington — September 21, 2014

Sandy Compton Chief Joseph Nesplem

“He was not a war chief, you know. Some things they say he did, he didn’t do.” — Marguerite, who introduced me to Thunder-Rolling-in-the-Mountains It’s a long way from Las Vegas, Nevada, to Nespelem, Washington, in the hilly scrub and sage country north of Grand Coulee Dam — a long way and a long time. […]

May your children live in interesting times — a Chinese curse

This morning, I’m at White Bird canyon in north central Idaho. A red-tailed hawk sails along the bottom of a scree slope below me at the edge of the White Bird Battlefield segment of the Nez Perce Trail National Historic Trail. I am standing in a display that explains the beginnings of the Nez Perce […]