Nespelem, Washington — Chief Joseph Is Buried Here; the Story Continued

Chief Joseph is buried near Nespelem, a fact important enough to draw visitors and powerful enough to distort the community if it becomes the whole story.

Joseph and his band of Nimiipuu were forced onto the Colville Reservation after war and years of exile, and he died there in 1904. His grave ties Nespelem to one of the Northwest's best-known nineteenth-century histories.

Nespelem did not freeze in that century. Tribal families, institutions and government continue within a living reservation landscape whose Indigenous history extends both before and after Joseph.

The grave matters. Present-tense community life matters more.