Two 5th graders from Wallowa Elementary School collect dirt for the tree planting.
By Bill Bradshaw for the Wallowa County Chieftain
Wallowa Elementary School fifth graders dug in to help restore riparian vegetation on the Tamkaliks grounds Tuesday, Nov. 5th. Eleven students in Jennifer Gibbs’ 5th-grade class at Wallowa Elementary School divided up into four groups, ready to go to work. Angela Bombaci, education coordinator for the Wallowa Band Nez Perce Homeland Project (aka, Tamkaliks grounds) guided their efforts. The WBNPHP includes 320 acres of land, with the Wallowa River and its riparian zone running along its south-east boundary.
The mission for the afternoon was to help restore a portion of the riverside riparian area. The students would plant riparian-zone native trees and shrubs, including black cottonwoods, chokecherries, red osier dogwoods, wild roses, and ocean spray on about 5 acres of land near the northeast riverbank.
Local botanist and conservationist June Colony introduced the students to the shrubs and trees they were to plant, provided instructions, and talked briefly about the ecosystems along the Wallowa River.
“Each plant has its own way to survive,” she told the students. “And each has its best place to grow.” Colony pointed at the very tall and stately trees along the river.
“See those cottonwoods over there, how tall they are?” she asked. “You wouldn’t want to plant them right next to the longhouse, would you?”
Bombaci said the purpose of the planting is multifaceted.
“This is partly for education and partly to make a good community space,” she said, adding that a project later this fall will build off-stream river channels so that young salmon and steelhead will have refuges from fast-moving river waters. be more about restoring native habitat.
This upcoming project will restore the kind of riparian habitat the once occupied the lowlands and marshes along the river.
“This whole valley was full of cottonwoods, willows, and water-loving plants,” Bombaci said. “But when the river was channelized much of the riparian zone was eliminated and changed into pastures or hay fields.” Now there’s just a thin strip of riparian zone left, right along the banks of the river. Gradually, the Homeland Project wants to return their land to a place for fish and wildlife as well as people. “One of our goals on this property is to embrace native plants to have them be habitat for wild animals to kind of leave the land as it is,” she said. “Of course, it was used as pasture and for farming before we purchased it. Our long-term goal is to deal with weeds and invasive species and restore native plants and habitat.”
The Wallowa Band Nez Perce Homeland Project provides a place for the descendants of Chief Joseph’s band of the Nez Perce, also known as the Wallowa or Wallama band, to come home to. The nonprofit has a board that includes Wallowa Band descendants who today live on the CTUIR reservation near Pendleton, at Lapwai, Idaho; and near Colville, Wash., where the Chief Joseph Band was exiled, as well as local Wallowa County residents.
“The idea is this is an outpost of the homeland, a home base where people can come, visit, camp and have access to the place where their people lived, where we can celebrate culture and hold the Tamkaliks Powwow the weekend before Chief Joseph Days in Joseph,”she said.
Jennifer Gibbs, the teacher in charge of the students during the planting exercise, was happy with the day’s outcome.
“The kids are learning and are very enthused. … It’s still school, it’s just that school can be outside. It shows they can learn other places besides just in the classroom.”