Last week, I was in Joseph, Oregon, for a writing workshop. Writers and readers from around the West came to connect and learn, explore, and expand. I dusted off this piece and read it at open-mic. I trust it will carry weight again—for the first reading or the tenth.
Full of snowmelt and spring rain, the Imnaha River squeezes through Blue Hole.
The Imnaha Dreams
Last summer camping on the Imnaha River, I had a dream. It was August, but on the river in the bottom of a forested canyon and at elevation in the Wallowa Mountains, it was cold. I slept in the bed of the pickup, curled into my down sleeping bag, with multiple layers of clothing and a hat. I don’t remember much about the dream except that it terrified me, and I awoke as I was about to be decapitated.
Startled awake with the sound of water rushing downstream to join the Snake River, the trees crowding in above me, and the stars brilliantly clear in the gaps between the branches far above, I wondered what had occurred on this site. I lay awake a long time thinking about the dream and whatever energy I had tapped into.
As happens, the year waned. The dream, all but forgotten, left my conscious memory.
Last week, I was camping on the Imnaha. I had a dream. It was June, but in the river bottom, in an open ponderosa pine park and in the spring rain at elevation in the Wallowa Mountains, it was cold. I was a few miles above the previous campsite; I slept in the camper in the bed of the pickup. Big Cat was with me. I don’t remember much about the dream except that it terrified me, and I awoke when every hair on the back of my neck and head was standing on end, both in the dream and not.
Jolted awake by the dream, I heard the river and the rain on the roof of the camper, I had the sense that I was in the wrong place. Lying awake, I remembered last year’s dream.
The Imnaha was home to the Niimíipu, the Nez Perce. These were the last grazing lands of Chief Joseph’s band. They lived in these canyons, in the mountains, and on the grassy slopes. They grazed their horses and lived their lives here, on a shrinking allotment of land “given” to them by the US government in this far-flung corner of Oregon and then slowly taken away again as white settlers discovered its value. There were promises and skirmishes and then Chief Joseph fled with other Nez Perce who would not agree to forced relocation to a reservation.
Most of us have heard some piece of this story. Pursued by numerous factions of the U.S. military, they crossed the Snake River, the mountains of Idaho, and The Big Hole in Montana. They wove their way through Yellowstone, the Sunshine Valley, the Absaroka Mountains, and north again to the Bear Paw Mountains of central Montana. Finally, after 1,170 miles and multiple battles, they surrendered. They were 40 miles from the Canadian border. They were relocated to Kansas, and Chief Joseph was never allowed to return to the Imnaha.
I don’t claim to have any connections to the past, no clairvoyance; I don’t channel spirits. But, I believe that the land remembers a lot of things we choose to forget. There was peace and there was some type of balance. Then, there was not. Everything has energy; we all come from entropy, take shape, and then return to entropy. Blood that soaks into the soil, flesh, and bone scattered by scavengers and decay doesn’t cease to exist; it takes a new form.
Maybe the dreams were just dreams, my subconscious pushing me into places I don’t want to go or reminding me of things I have not fully processed. Despite the terror that woke me, I don’t think the violence was directed at me. I think it was a reminder.
The river, the forest, and people, both Native American and, at this point, of European descent too, have flowed through this place for generations. Today, we often camp in remote places and feel some sense that we have discovered them for the first time, no matter the fire ring, the litter, or the road. We read the roadside signs about what was, who was, and when it was. We snap a photo. We move on.
We forget that there were others in this place long before any of us discovered it. Not just people passing through on a summer trip but those who lived and died here, sometimes violently, sometimes unjustly.
The next night before sleeping, I smudged the camper, the truck, and myself, burning sage as an offering to the people who came before us and in their memory. Water, trees, people will continue to flow through this land. May it be a more peaceful journey for us all.
Early summer wildflowers spread across the open ridge line.
Exceptional. I wept.
I am grateful to you, Denny.
I love the idea of the land having a memory. Of course, I lived in a house with a ghost. I saw her, my wife saw her, and both my daughters (teens at the time) did as well. She would appear in their dreams. We eventually figured out who she might have been–a woman from the 1820s who lost her baby, and died about a year later, and had lived in the house. The folks who moved into the house after we left also saw her. She moved things around, too. What we have finessed all these years is what happens if you decide to take it seriously. We treat it as a thing that happened, but not as an indicator of what else might be possible. Which always leads to the “Are Angels Real?” issue. I still have no idea what to make of it all. But if I took it seriously I imagine I would be trying to explain how such a thing could be possible without, for lack of a better word, magic, or some other explanation that would explain the possibility of multiple realities. Well, not magic, but something close to it. We were haunted. Gently and without rancor, but haunted nonetheless.
It sounds as if you were haunted twice. I guess it’s a feature of most indigenous cultures that the land is alive. Well, if that’s the case, there’s no reason why the land wouldn’t have memories, there’s no reason why some of those memories might be tragic and hurtful, and there’s no reason why the land couldn’t communicate that hurt and pain. That certainly sounds like the case here. But it leads to the same question that I have been dealing with for several decades now–what if this is real?
I think making an offering was exactly the right thing to do.
I think it is real. And I feel fortunate to be open to it. To be gifted this awareness opens many new perspectives on what we often consider dead landscapes.
I think “gifted” is about right–this knowledge isn’t offered to everyone, I suspect. Some people spend their lives looking for it. For others, like you apparently, it seeks you out.
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Thank you Tamara. Your words always provide me with insights that cause me to step back and consider what has been and then to ponder our future.
Thank you, Cathy. I try to see the multiple sides of our world – the human side comes least easily. xoxo
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Eloquent as always Beautiful as always Insightful as always
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