Chief Joseph

On the way we passed through the town of Nespelem on the Colville Indian Reservation. Chief Moses, for whom Moses Lake is named, is buried near Nespelem. (Moses was an irreverent man; when the missionaries asked him "Don't you want to go to heaven?" he replied "No, I just want to go to Nespelem.")

The old-timer at the gas station had never heard of Chief Moses. He did tell us how to find the gravesite of Moses's great friend, the legendary Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce, who in 1877 famously declared "From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever."

Joseph lies in a humble cemetery on the fringe of town, a few miles away from the resting place of his old pal Chief Moses.