Iwetemlaykin State Heritage Site, a public park in the U.S. state of Oregon, is on the south edge of Joseph, along Oregon Route 351. Its name comes from the Nez Perce place name, Iwetemlaykin, which means "at the edge of the lake.” — Wikipedia
There were 10 years between the time I saw that word for the first time and actually heard it spoken. Another five before I would finally begin to comprehend what it meant. Barely.
I was sitting in the back seat of my best friend’s Explorer, her then-husband driving as all then-husbands seemed to do at the time, their four-year old son sleeping next to me in his car seat. We’d spent the day driving, no destination less than 30 minutes from the last stop. As beautiful as the scenery was, there was only so much I could see from that back seat — Kelly’s tall frame blocking the front windshield, and Alex’s toddler window screen blocking the side passenger window. Unused to spending so much time in the back seat, I was tired and a little car-sick.
My tour guides spoke a language of geology and local landmarks — all meaningless to me. Moraine, Hat Point, Lick Creek, Promise, up the Minam. We rounded a corner, the aforementioned moraine in sight, when I spotted the word – Iwetemlaykin – on one of those brown state heritage signs. An improbable collision of vowels and consonants, I tried to sound it out in my head. Curiosity and insecurity were battling it out when the lake came into view and all thoughts of the word were enchanted away by the cerulean water reflecting the mountains in its surface.
Three days later I came back to my city life from that trip still enchanted. Ensorcelled even. I wanted to go back, to breathe the air, explore the mountains, lie on my back and look at the stars. It felt like home in a way I’d never experienced before. The reality was about as unreal as I could imagine. It was quite literally in the middle of nowhere. 90 minutes from the nearest freeway. 150 miles from a city with 100k people. Four seasons, the coldest often lasting 6 months, and no stoplight in the entire county of 7,000 people. I put it out of my head. Mostly.
10 years later, and I’m on a tour of the old craftsman house that will be my next office, guided by a lean, deep voiced, flanneled man who will go on to be my work partner,. He asks how I’m going to spend the rest of my time in the County after my interview. My friends and I are headed to Joseph, I tell him. Do a little shopping, head to the lake.
“You should go to Iwetemlaykin,” he says. I should do what? I ask. A tiny lightbulb starts to flicker in my memory.
“Go to Iwetemlaykin. It’s a sweet little park next to the lake. I make the interns practice saying the name out loud. Tell them they can’t tell anyone they worked here until they can say it without pausing.” I make a mental note to practice it over and over again. What if there’s a test? I really want this job.
The years pass, the job mine. I live in a place where deer are as numerous on my street as bicycles were in my old Portland neighborhood. Weather is the master of all with the mountains its sentry. I’ve survived frozen pipes, mud seasons, bawling seasons, fire seasons, and harvest seasons that include things with heartbeats. I’ve seen Kokanee spawn in the Wallowa, laid on the back deck and watched the milky way, and seen big bucks show off their masculinity in my neighbor’s front yard. I’ve heard coyote when I take out my garbage at night, and owls calling to each other in early morning hours.
This place has become my home, but I never feel fully settled. I’m surrounded by business owners who graduated from the local high school just like their parents, back to the landers who moved here in the 60s and 70s, seventh-generation ranch families who worry over wolves, all quick to point out I’m not a local. Not from here. But who of us is of this place? The home of the Ni’imipu’u, the people. I think that if this world were just, I shouldn’t be here.
But here I am in one of the prettiest parts of a pretty state. My house becomes a tourist destination for my friends and family. I drive house guest after house guest on the mandatory tour of the lake, and sometimes as we pass that brown sign I’m asked “How do you say that word?” Not one knowing that I practice before they get to the County, anticipating the inquiry. My confidence in my pronunciation inconsistent and unreliable. Insecurity still in charge.
Then one day it isn’t. Iwemlaykin, I say with conviction, without pause. The word spills forth like the snow fed Wallowa rushing into the deep lake. Like the rain coming down from the dark clouds hovering over the Zumwalt. The word of this place, land born. Iwtemlaykin, beside the lake, this place claiming the person that lives here, speaking the word through me.