Yesterday, I spoke about how the mobility provided by horses allowed the Cayuse to translate their lush grasslands into dominance over the Central Columbia and to exact tribute in the form of […]
29. Weaponizing the West: Part 1
28. The Spiritual Power of Horses in Old Oregon
To recap: the extensive Indigenous slave trade with the Spanish in the Southwest, and a fight for new technology (the horse), drove Indigenous cultural change on the western edges of New France […]
Race and Apples 5: Indigenous Cultures Saved by the Border
Today, a piece of good news. The orchards and berry farms of Washington saved many Indigenous families and children from British Columbia. They saved them because their mothers stole away with them, […]
A Little Stroll Through Pacific Northwest History
Here we are in Dry Falls. A few things to note. First, the road. That must be the Cariboo Trail of 1858, not the main one that ran up Moses Coulee to […]
A Mission of Peace
In 1848 Father Charles Marie Pandosy was ordained on the Oregon Trail when news that the Whitman family had been massacred at Walla Walla, in the Columbia Plateau. Fear led to the […]
The Story So Far
Two things for you today: a cool monolith from the Peshastin Pinnacles, and the complete pdf version of my summary of my year wandering in the grass, which I presented to the […]
Learning from the South
Images of people change with time. Here is John Chukuaskin Ashnola’s grave from Upper Keremeos. He became chief of the Ashnola people in 1866, until his death some fifty years later. He […]
Okanagan Okanogan 