Chinook: Forty Miles from Freedom

Sixteen miles south of Chinook, at a site called Bear Paw, one of the most heartbreaking episodes in American history came to an end on October fifth, eighteen seventy-seven. Chief Joseph and the Nez Perce had led the United States Army on a twelve-hundred-mile running battle across Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana, trying to reach Canada and freedom. They were about forty miles short of the border when the Army surrounded them in a shallow coulee.

After a five-day siege in near-freezing temperatures, Chief Joseph surrendered with words that have echoed ever since: from where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever. Chinook's Blaine County Museum tells this story through a multimedia exhibit called Forty Miles from Freedom. The battlefield is now part of Nez Perce National Historical Park, managed by the National Park Service.