Tragedy at Waiilatpu

Umatilla, Oregon to Walla Walla, Washington Thursday, May 23, 2025.

The day off turned out to be a godsend. A storm was raging outside, I got lots of loose ends taken care of, and had great talks with family and friends.

Today’s ride took me through Wallula Gap, an upstream version of the Columbia River Gorge. Dramatic, but the shoulder was narrow, trucks were roaring by, and I didn’t dare take a picture for myself, had to get this one off the web.

This is where the Columbia river turns north, and ceases to become the southern boundary of Washington state. I left Oregon for the last time. Encountered my first three long-distance bicyclists. The first two were an older couple riding from Astoria, Oregon to Plymouth, New Hampshire. They had reserved a string of B&B‘s for the entire trip. They were going faster than me, like everybody does, but it turns out they had e-bikes. I didn’t think that would be practical on a trip like this, they would have to be recharged too often.

The third was David Rapoport, a McGill-educated computer engineer who changed careers and was working at the Alta ski resort in Utah. He was biking from Spokane to the coast, against the wind, but then was heading south to San Francisco. I know from prior experience he’ll have a beautiful tailwind for that stretch.

Next up was the Whitman Massacre site, now known as the Tragedy at Waiilatpu. I’d never heard of it, this was one of the first episodes of violence in our westward expansion, and led to the creation of the Oregon Territory. The story was so poignant, the Whitmans were missionaries who were part of the Second Awakening in the early 1800s, driven to convert the Cayuse Nation to Christianity. He was also a doctor. His intentions were good, and relationships with the natives thrived initially, but then things turned sour. The press of further white migration, rumors of atrocities in the east, disputes over land rights set the stage, but what triggered the incident was measles. An outbreak devastated the Cayuse, and they believed the doctor was trying to poison them. In fact he was trying to help them, but their background immunity was weaker, having no prior contact with Caucasian diseases, so their death rate was higher than the whites, and they became resentful.

Dr. Whitman was warned of this, but he chose to stay. On November 28, 1847, he along with his wife and 12 others, were brutally murdered. All that remains of his Mission is the outline of the foundation.

If you zoom in, you will see an obelisk on a hill. Nothing happened there, it was erected years later, in the same wave of monument-building that also gave us the confederate statues that triggered the beginning of the Jim Crow era. The perpetrators were hanged. The whole episode was so sad, born of a misunderstanding, but the beginning of a wave of Manifest Destiny atrocities that ended so sadly at Wounded Knee. The Park Service video is quite compelling, and explains that the story was more complicated than that.

A reminder of how devastating measles can be, a disease that should be eradicated by now, but is rearing its ugly head again because of the anti-vaxxers.

Also a reminder of the haunting lyrics from the Eagles’, Paradise, The Last Resort

You can leave it all behind…
Just like the missionaries did
So many years ago

They even brought a neon sign
“Jesus is coming”
Brought the white man’s burden down
Brought the white man’s reign

Who will provide the grand design?
What is yours and what is mine?
‘Cause there is no more new frontier
We have got to make it here

We satisfy our endless needs
And justify our bloody deeds
In the name of Destiny
And in the name of God

And you can see them there
On Sunday morning
Stand up and sing about
What it’s like up there

They call it Paradise
I don’t know why
You call someplace paradise
Kiss it goodbye

Yeah.

Had fun chatting with Fred and Madeline, who sent a picture of me riding off.

Walla Walla, Washington. The king of alliterative place names. My stepsister and her husband, Jen and Thom Bolduc, practiced pediatrics there a decade ago, and Thom gave me tips of places to see. Spent a delightful evening with my Warmshowers hosts Laura and David Brannan, their son Samuel, and two adorable pugs. Laura is a general contractor, David a pilot for Alaska Airlines, they remembered that they took their kids to the Bolducs. Small world.

Distance 59 miles, 924 total. Time 9 hours with stops. Elevation gain 1,296 feet

©️ 2024 Scott Luria