THE CHIEF JOSEPH TRAIL RIDE
ON BIG BLEND RADIO: Listen to the interviews with world champion horse trainer Christy Wood and friends covering the Chief Joseph Trail Ride in this YouTube playlist.
A progressive trail ride hosted by the Appaloosa Horse Club (ApHC), a portion of the Chief Joseph Trail Ride is completed each year, with the entire sequence taking thirteen years to complete. Its route traces, as closely as possible, the Nez Perce National Historic Trail which follows the route Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce took while attempting to escape the US Cavalry in 1877.
Chief Joseph or Young Joseph (March 3, 1840 – September 21, 1904), succeeded his father Tuekakas (Chief Joseph the Elder) as the leader of the Wal-lam-wat-kain (Wallowa) band of Nez Perce, a Native American tribe indigenous to the Wallowa Valley in northeastern Oregon, in the interior Pacific Northwest region of the US. He led his band during the most tumultuous period in their contemporary history when they were forcibly removed from their ancestral lands in the Wallowa Valley by the United States federal government and forced to move northeast, onto the significantly reduced reservation in Lapwai, Idaho Territory.
The 1,170-mile Nez Perce National Historic Trail was created in 1986 as part of the National Trails System Act and is managed by the U.S. Forest Service. The trail traverses through portions of the U.S. states of Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana and connects 38 separate sites across these four states that commemorate significant events that took place as the Nez Perce tried to escape capture by the U.S. Cavalry. The sites are part of the National Park Service’s Nez Perce National Historical Park, managed overall by the National Park Service, with some sites managed by local and state affiliated organizations
“I am tired of fighting. Our chiefs are killed. Looking Glass is dead. Toohoolhoolzote is dead. The old men are all dead. It is the young men who say, “Yes” or “No.” He who led the young men [Olikut] is dead. It is cold, and we have no blankets. The little children are freezing to death. My people, some of them, have run away to the hills, and have no blankets, no food. No one knows where they are — perhaps freezing to death. I want to have time to look for my children, and see how many of them I can find. Maybe I shall find them among the dead. Hear me, my chiefs! I am tired. My heart is sick and sad. From where the sun now stands I will fight no more forever.” Chief Joseph
Learn more about Christy Wood at www.WDNHorse.com and learn more about the Appaloosa Horse Club and the Chief Joseph Trail Ride at www.Appaloosa.com.
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment.