Discover Joseph, Oregon: Art, Nature, and Local Culture in the Wallowa Valley
byIn artsy Joseph in summer, there’s much to see and experience—and not much time written by James Sinks It’s little mystery why Joseph attracts artists in droves. Surrounded by windswept grassy fields and in the shadow of towering peaks and glacier-carved Wallowa Lake, and with the easygoing aura of a place where nobody is in a hurry including hungry herds of loitering local deer, the Western-themed hamlet all but demands that you slow down, exhale and revel. And yet it’s almost impossible—nor would it be responsible—to breathe and bathe in the dramatic landscapes of the northeast corner of Oregon without also acknowledging a sad irony. It was here in 1879 that newly arrived settlers called the town Joseph, after the Nez Perce chief who’d just recently been chased from the valley. Chief Joseph always hoped his people could one day return to their ancestral homeland and the place his father…
