Wallowa AtlasA LIVING PORTRAIT OF A PLACE
Menu
The atlas/Beyond county boundaries/ Tribal nation
A living record · Tribal nation

Nez Perce Tribe

A sovereign nation whose history and continuing life are essential to understanding this region.

Explore this record Add a photograph ↗
Wallowa Lake and the mountains, seen from the county park at the north end. Regional landscape context for this record.
Wallowa country

Wallowa Lake and the mountains, seen from the county park at the north end. Regional landscape context for this record.

Gary Halvorson, Oregon State Archives · 16 May 2012 · CC BY 4.0 · Image & source ↗

The Tribe’s own history describes Nimiipuu life across parts of present-day Idaho, Oregon, and Washington, with travel for fishing, hunting, and trade reaching farther.

Treaties, displacement, and continuing cultural practices belong to the same account. A present-day county boundary cannot contain that geography, and the atlas does not treat tribal history as a closed chapter.

Nez Perce Tribe ↗

Also known as: Nimiipuu · Nimíipuu

Follow the connections

Read the landscape alongside tribal historyWallowa Lake
Nez Perce Tribe ↗
From the photograph collection

The wider landscape.

All photographs
A road, fence, and open prairie on the Zumwalt.View photograph
Zumwalt Prairie

A road across the prairie

Rick Swart, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife2015-11-15
Glacier Peak reflected in Glacier Lake, in the Eagle Cap Wilderness.View photograph
Eagle Cap Wilderness

Glacier Peak, reflected

Matthew Tharp / U.S. Forest Service2012-08-11
The Wallowa Wild and Scenic River, photographed in May 2017 by the Bureau of Land Management.View photograph
Wallowa River

Wallowa Wild and Scenic River (34998394195).jpg

Bureau of Land Management Oregon and Washington2017-05-25
Original recordings · Connected to this page

Watch this part of the story.

All recordings
Video
History & memory

The 1866-67 Survey of Wallowa County, Oregon and Nez Perce Resistance

From Wallowa History Center · Date unconfirmed

Original accounts

Voices connected to this place

In the organization’s words
“Today, many traditional ways remain part of our tribal culture.”
Nez Perce TribePublication date not stated
From the recordings

People of the Salmon

Jane Fritz, with Nez Perce cultural leaders and other contributors2025
The larger story

Read the connections.

Wallowa Lake and the mountains, seen from the county park at the north end.
Chapter 01 Land & water

The land holds the story.

A river can be a farm’s water supply, a salmon’s route home, and a test of whether neighbors can make room for one another. Follow the Lostine to the East Moraine, where care for the land became a set of concrete agreements.

Read the story
The Wallowa Mountains reflected in the lake, photographed from the north-end county park. This landscape photograph does not depict a particular cultural gathering.
Chapter 02 Indigenous homelands

A homeland, in the present tense.

Treaties, fisheries work, family visits, and a plan that looks a century ahead: Indigenous life changes the county’s story when it is understood as continuing authority and homecoming, as well as history.

Read the story