GRANT AWARD

A Winterkill Tour

A soft whisper of a cloud Floated gently in the jewel-blue sky And the Wind Lightly tossed the tips of the trees Shaking the last little bits of snow Onto the frozen ground -Mina Beckman (One student's Haiku-like poem of memorable images on the trip)

This request provided financial assistance towards the expenses for Seaside High School students with limited resources to participate in a culturally rich tour of sites found in Craig Lesley's novel, Winterkill. The students began reading and discussion of the book before and after school during their lunch break starting a month before the tour.

Lesley's book is about a Nez Perce rodeo cowboy caught between cultures. He wants to pass on some of the old customs to his estranged son, but he's not sure how to go about it. He also wants to get to know his son better. Through the use of flashback, Lesley weaves Nez Perce history into the story. In fact, at times there are parallel stories from different eras going on simultaneously. The story is set in the Northwest, most of it in Northeastern Oregon.

At the end of May, students went on a three-day, two night field trip to visit the sites inspired by the book. They kept personal journals, and on the first morning ate breakfast and discussed the book with Craig Lesley in Portland where they were able to ask questions about the process of writing and the book. They then traveled east through the Columbia Gorge where they visited the Maryhill Museum in Goldendale, Washington.

The students spent the night in Pendleton where they visited the Tamastslikt Cultural Institute on the Umatilla Reservation. The following day they headed for Joseph, Oregon where they visited places such as the gravesite of Old Chief Joseph and visited the Valley Bronze Foundry where the statue at Seaside's Turnaround was made and then took the Mount Howard tram. The following is a student's description of what they saw in the rear view mirror:

Boiling foothills of the Wallowas,
Green grass smothering hill after hill,
Howard and his companions rising in the background,
The silent rulers of the land,
And a falcon slowly wheeling through the sky

-Amanda Cochran

Mr. Mizell wrote an excellent article describing the trip and acknowledging the Clatsop County Cultural Coaltion that can be found in the Daily Astorian, entitled "Winterkill tour takes Seaside Students to the Wallowas", June, 2006.