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About Wallowa County chieftain. (Enterprise, Wallowa County, Or.) 1943-current | View Entire Issue (May 15, 2019)
ON TO STATE! JOSEPH, ENTERPRISE/WALLOWA WRAP UP DISTRICTS, MOVE ON TO STATE | A8-9 Enterprise, Oregon Wallowa.com 134th Year, No. 5 Wednesday, May 15, 2019 $1 Editorial from our past: Gwen Coffi n Editor’s note: We’ve writ- ten often with affection towards past Wallowa County Chieftain editor, Gwen Coffi n. We thought that it would be a treat, but also valuable to run one of his past editorials. This particular edi- torial is meaningful because it shows a glimps of the courage and foresight that Coffi n would rely on through his long tenure as editor and publisher of the Wallowa County Chieftain. Steve Tool/Chieftain Moccasin/shoemakers Dustin Lyons and Tera Ptacek hold up one of their custom footwear items and a mold. The couple make a living producing footwear from a shop on their property. W hen historians sit down to write the history of the pres- ent war we venture a guess that the government’s treatment of the Japanese in this country will come in for some pretty severe criticism. There is very little to be said in favor of what has been done so far. In the hysteria of the fi rst few weeks after Pearl Harbor the Army decided that the pres- ence of thousands of Japanese in the Pacifi c coast region consti- tuted a threat to the safety of the country and a policy of whole- sale deportations to concentra- tion camps was decided upon. No effort was made to deter- mine who were loyal Japanese and who were disloyal or poten- tially so. All were given short notice to dispose of their homes and their businesses preparatory to being moved to hastily impro- vised camps where thousands were crowded into barracks with few facilities for maintaining life on anything like a normal basis. The whole business is for- eign to our conception of fair play and orderly process. Had the procedure adopted been nec- essary the picture of families being torn from their homes and mode of life and sent to distant internment camps would not have been quite so pathetic. But it is highly doubtful whether the policy was ever really necessary. We have not felt obliged to send German and Italian nation- als to concentration camps in wholesale batches, although it would be exceedingly diffi - cult to make out anything like a convincing argument in favor See From our past, Page A7 THESE MOCCASINS ARE MADE FOR WALKIN’ Steve Tool Wallowa County Chieftain Although cowboy boots appear to be the favorite footwear for most of Wal- lowa County, Alkahest Moccasins and Leathercrafts may change that. The business, owned by Dustin Lyons and Tera Ptacek, recently moved to Wallowa County to ply their craft in their work- shop on the west side of Wallowa Lake. Alkahest is an alchemy term for a uni- versal solvent. “We tend to joke that our shoes are going to solve all your problems,” Pta- cek said. “I also like to think of it as tak- ing something raw and turning it into gold.” The couple moved to the Wallowa Valley about a year ago from southwest- ern Oregon. The two were big travelers before starting their business. They worked in Alaska during the summer and traveled in the winter. After one of their return trips to Alaska, they saw shoes similar to the ones they make now, but couldn’t afford them. The shoes made an impres- sion, though. Two years later, when the couple thought of settling down, the shoe subject came up again and the cou- ple moved to Ashland where a master Steve Tool/Chieftain Just a few of the models of moccasins/ footwear made by Alkahest Moccasins and Leathercrafts. The business is owned by Dustin Lyons and Tera Ptacek of Joseph. bootmaker lived and the couple started taking classes at William Shanor and Julie Bonney’s school of shoemaking and design. “Dustin and I had never sewn before, but after we made our fi rst pair of shoes and from there, we said, ‘OK, let’s make this our business,’” Ptacek said. “That’s been eight years we’ve been doing this.” The moccasins look entirely origi- nal and Ptacek said that one man orig- inated the style in the late 1960s and it spread to four other makers who eventu- ally passed the skill on to others. “We’re just trying to keep it going,” Ptacek said. Product is made from leather with a combination of machine and hand sew- ing. They generally work fi ve days a week and six to eight hours a day. If demand is heavy, it’s seven days a week. The couple splits the shop time. “Being a couple, you have to make time to have your space,” Ptacek said. “I get morn- ings and he gets afternoons, but if it’s right before a show, we’re both in the shop.” The couple doesn’t just work off of patterns, they relish doing custom work on the moccasins as well as their hip belts and purses. The design elements sported by their product is one of the most attractive things about them. The couple does many of the designs from their imaginations, such as their tree root motif. Nearly all of the designs are taken from nature. “We’re willing to work with people,” Ptacek said. “What’s fun sometimes is when you come in the shop and there’s no timeline and you start cutting out leather pieces and putting them together and letting your creative mind take over. Things just start appearing.” See Moccasins, Page A7 Nez Perce elders visit county classrooms Ellen Morris Bishop Wallowa County Chieftain Two Wallowa Band Nez Perce elders shared some very nontraditional sto- ries with students in class- rooms across Wallowa County on May 6-8. Coyote (Itsey’eeye) did not appear in a single one. Instead, Albert Redstar and Veronica Redstar, brother and sister, told the heart-felt saga of the post-1877 lives of the Wal- wáama, or Joseph band of the Nez Perce. Fishtrap Story Lab and the Alvin Josephy Library at the Josephy Center co-spon- sored visit. “It’s been a very long and diffi cult journey for Joseph’s people,” said Josephy Library Director Rich Wandschneider. “Even in Wallowa County, it’s not widely understood that Joseph’s band was largely exiled to the Colville Reser- vation in northern Washing- ton, instead of being close by at Lapwai. It’s great for the schools here to help tell that story.” See Nez Perce, Page A7 Ellen Morris Bishop Albert Redstar and Veronica Redstar, members of the Joseph Band of Nez Peace, visited Wallowa County classrooms to share stories of Chief Josephs band’s history, exile, and present- day customs.
