Wallowa, OR

Wallowa is a Wallowa County city in the valley that remains central to Nez Perce history, and Tamkaliks makes that connection visible every July. The three-day celebration and Friendship Feast welcomes Nez Perce descendants back to the Wallowa Valley with song, dance, a horse parade, and a shared meal. Tamkaliks means “from where you can see the mountains” in Nez Perce, a fitting name for a town framed by the valley and mountain ranges. Wallowa's local story also has a painful historical layer: the U.S. Army forced the Nez Perce from their homeland after they rejected a treaty that would have removed them from their land. The town now hosts a homecoming built around that history.