Wallowa Valley

Trust for Public Land’s Oregon office worked for years in partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the 1990s and early 2000s to protect a 10,000-acre ranch in the eco­logically rich Wallowa Valley. It had great habitat for salmon, bears, mountain lions, bald eagles, you name it.

After years of work, TPL staff had secured the funding and were closing on the land purchase, ready to hand the property over to USFWS. “One day, three members of the Nez Perce Tribe walked into our office and asked us if we knew about that land,” former TPL CEO Will Rogers recalls. “We said, ‘Yeah, it’s got a great habitat on it; Fish and Wildlife is really excited about it.’

And they said, ‘No. Our name for that land is . . . precious lands, and [it] is the ancestral homeland of the Nez Perce Tribe. Chief Joseph was born on that land, and over 100 years ago the U.S. Cavalry chased us out of that land, and we ended up on reservations. And we have kept our love of that land alive, sitting around the campfire at the reservation for the last 100 years.’”

“We basically called our partners at Fish and Wildlife and said, ‘Sorry, we can’t do this,’” says Rogers. The project was already fully funded, the complex negotiations complete, but the Oregon team called the whole thing off and started over, this time raising the money to return the land to the Nez Perce Tribe.

After 100 years in exile, nearly 300 members of the tribe returned to their native land, Appaloosa ponies and all. Their ceremonies and rituals have returned, and the profound spiritual relationship between people and place has been restored.