A couple of months after we first moved to Joseph, Oregon in 2017, I was going for a walk around the neighborhood when one of those neighbors came running down the road my way. It was a funny day to be running, in early February, especially in blue jeans, but this neighbor turned out to be quite an adventurer and thankfully he had a great tip for us. After telling him where we'd explored a bit thus far, he mentioned "you've been to the park right up the road, right?" Well, no, I hadn't, but it was great to find out about it, and turned out to be a pretty fateful discovery.
The little park up the road was Iwetemlaykin ("at the edge of the lake"), a piece of land that has been a special place for the NimÃipuu (Nez Perce) people for a log time, eventually worked by a local ranching family until it was purchased by the state for preservation instead of being subdivided for development.
The first time I walked through the park I was alone, as is often the case, and it was so quiet as I walked through the grassy hills that when I cleared my throat at one point I startled myself. I brought De soon after, and very quickly we started walking to and visiting this wonderful little place almost every day.
There is something powerful about getting to know a place in this way, to see it change from day to day, even from morning to evening on the same day, week to week, month to month... it becomes a true relationship, and it rekindled something deep within me to get to know a place so well for the first time since I was a kid going to the park down the street every day.
It's a place of many firsts for me as far as species — birds, bugs, plants, foxes, even an otter once — and still the only place I've seen a lot of things, so far. It's where I really started to learn about photography, how to bird with binoculars, how to hike in snow and ice, and some of the little things that locals keep secret.
It's a very special place that we missed a lot being back in Louisiana, and are very happy to be able to visit again. I look forward to getting to know it again with all of the skills and knowledge that I've been working on these last few years.
Updated October 31, 2024
