The Blues

After a rousing breakfast at an aptly named local place, we took off for the National Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. While it was a great place, and its location was beautiful, I would have to respectfully disagree that this was the museum "not to be missed", as suggested by several sources. We didn't find it as interactive as we imagined, though the displays and the movies were good. To be fair, there is a lot of repetition for us, as it is assumed that few people have been on anywhere near the whole trail, and therefore they would have not been to the various interpretive centers and museums along the way. For example, we went to one presentation on food and cooking along the trail, and they asked how many in the group of about 40 had been to Independence Rock, and Phoebe and I were two of the three who had. Phoebe got called on to tell people about it, which was thrilling.



The one thing we learned a lot about in this particular museum that we hadn't seen before was the written guides that emigrants followed as they traversed the trail--very interesting stuff, with advice about how and where to cross rivers, what to bring, how to deal with different situations. We bought a reproduction copy of one of those guides, so that we could read it more thoroughly.

Today, we saw our first sight of tall pine trees--lots of 'em in the Blue Mountains--and wondered at how the pioneers must have felt seeing such a sight after months crossing the dry prairie. Phoebe immediately pointed out that the childrens' job of walking next to the wagon and collecting buffalo chips to make fires was over (for now, at least) as the forest meant that firewood was plentiful. There are many diaries that speak of how struck they were by the area's beauty. It was a relief even to us, and our journey has been so painless by comparison.

When we arrived in Pendleton (home of the famed wool shirts and blankets), we headed straight for the Tamastslikt Cultural Center, imagining that we could take it in in the hour and a half we had before it closed. Ha! This is a wonderful (and large!) place, the only interpretive center on the entire trail that is owned by Indians. This photo was taken in their garden, at the beginning of a large display of tipi-like structures that illustrates the evolution of housing over the history of the tribes--this is one of the oldest. Just for a little perspective--the Oregon Trail pioneers were here about 150 years ago. These peoples report that they have lived here for 10,000 years. History, like all things, is surely relative.


The museum focuses exclusively on the culture of the surrounding Indian tribes, the impact on the Indians of the westward expansion, and the importance of preservation of language, traditions, and culture. We are going back tomorrow in order to try to take more of it in, and maybe, just maybe, to buy a few hanks of gorgeous seed beeds available in the store there (I can't help myself). There is spectacular beadwork on display in the museum. I've put a link to the center in the links section, so you can read more about it. It was wonderful to spend a good portion of a day (and then another day) focusing on the story from a different angle, from a different voice. I was very moved by what I saw so far, and look forward to seeing it at less than a sprinter's pace, as well as to have the time to talk with Phoebe about what all of this means.

One last note...at the gift shop at Tamastslikt, I found a picture book to share with Phoebe (and hopefully with some of you), called The Great Change.

It's a Native American story, with beautiful watercolor illustrations, in which a grandmother explains death to her granddaughter, when the child asks why things die, and most pointedly why her grandfather had to die. She explains that it must happen so that the circle of life will not be broken. It jumped out at me from the shelf, and I flipped open to a page on which the grandmother says that "...the 'special part' of Grandpa became part of everything that lives, my girl!". And it was done--as you can imagine.