30 Acres of Land Transferred Back to the Nez Perce in Wallowa County
By Garrett Christensen on Wednesday, May 17th, 2023 in More Top Stories Northeastern Oregon News
JOSEPH – Wallowa County is part of a long and storied history of the Nez Perce Tribe. Though much of the land today is organized like any other county in the Pacific Northwest, with a smattering of private and public owners, this isn’t the case for all of it. On March 24, 2023, The Wallowa Land Trust, a local nonprofit and conservation organization, signed 30 acres of land from the West Morain area of Wallowa Lake back to the Nez Perce.
Initially Purchased in September 2014 via grant funds from the Oregon Community Foundation, the Trust’s partnership and long history of working with the tribe, gradually coalesced into the idea of transferring ownership of the property. Though bringing its own set of legal complexities, the idea was well received as explained by Wallowa Land Trust Executive Director Kathleen Ackley:
“We started considering it probably three years ago. We asked the tribe if they were interested. They will tell you that the lake and the Wallowa Lake Moraine Basen is a sacred Geological Landscape to the tribe and to Nez Perce people, and so they were very interested. We talked about the constraints because we had grant funding to acquire it and that it did have to be in perpetuity stewardship for an open space wildlife habitat.”
Nez Perce Attorney Geoff Whiting likewise commented on the transfer of land and the area’s significance to the tribe’s history:
“The Wallowa Land Trust from its founding has understood the unique importance of what is now Wallowa County, and of Wallowa Lake, to the Nez Perce Tribe. It is a Nez Perce homeland, part of the 1855 Nez Perce Reservation, and Wallowa Lake is a heart within that homeland.”
The transfer isn’t entirely a first for the tribe within the Wallowa Region, though does represent the first such action for the Land Trust. Prior to the March transfer, the United Methodist Church also transferred property near the town of Wallowa and a “parcel of riparian land on the upper Wallowa River” according to Whiting. Now definitively under tribal ownership, the West Morain donation will, as also stated by Whiting, “be protected for its natural and cultural values.”
As far as the future goes, The Land Trust is open to the possibility of donating additional land to the Nez Perce, if the tribe is interested. This may even expand to donating to other native communities with current or historic ties to the region. At the time of writing, however, nothing is being officially pursued by either the Nez Perce or the Wallowa Land Trust. For those with contentions about the land’s tax status going forward, Ackley noted that the Trust will continue to pay the property tax via stewardship funds that were conveyed to the Tribe. Regardless of the specifics, the transfer represents a milestone in environmental, historical and cultural preservation. As best put by Whiting, “Every step, however small, taken to protect Wallowa Lake and the lands surrounding it is important to the Nez Perce Tribe and is a significant step into the future of our people.”
