Walking man
Tribal Elder Steve Rife repeats Trail of Tears trek

By Ron Karten
Smoke Signals staff writer

Tribal Elder Steve Rife is at a rest stop a little north of Sutherlin, which itself is about 120 miles and a five-day walk north of Table Rock near Medford.

Rife’s in the midst of making his third commemorative walk from Table Rock to Grand Ronde. He is walking up Interstate 5, approximating the actual route of the Applegate Trail.

Today, Applegate Trail is better known as the Trail of Tears that brought several Tribes and Bands from southern Oregon’s Umpqua Basin and Rogue River Valley together for a 33-day, 263-mile march in 1856 to what has become the Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde Community of Oregon.

Settlers here and there along the way set up ambushes to kill Natives, according to a diary of the forced march written by Indian Agent George Ambrose, who escorted them to Grand Ronde.

Rife relives some of the memories of those times.

“They’re throwing (expletive) at me, like they do every year, but I just stay right there,” Rife says.

He’s been out on the highway, on the outside of the barrier, between the barrier and the white fog line, and people throw stuff out the windows of their cars at him.

Coming from vehicles speeding by at 70 mph, “The bottles would have taken me down if they had hit me,” Rife says.

And Rife, a Vietnam-era veteran of both the Marines and the Army, does not see much of the world in those terms.

“I took my lessons from John By-God Wayne,” he says.

He makes the walk to remember the Trail of Tears, but also, on a personal basis, to mark 2004 as the year that cancer took out after his family, hitting him, his wife, his sister and his aunt all in one year.

His brother, Ron, also a Tribal Elder and also an Army veteran, drives the motor home as a service and sleeping quarters for Rife most of the way. As backup preparation for the trip, they pull behind a wire mesh trailer that holds a motorcycle, gas can, spare tire and air compressor.

At the rest stop near Sutherlin, Ron has taken the motorcycle for a side trip. He took his daughter to a doctor’s appointment. And during that time, Steve’s friend, Rose Waff, supports the effort by driving the motor home.

“It’s scary parking, let alone walking, on the shoulder,” she says.

“I do it,” Rife says, “because I’m stubborn and I can.”

It is nearing 5 p.m. on Thursday, July 2, as Rife and Waff rest in the motor home, a 1976 Dodge that Rife bought for the trip for $2,000. 

“I’ll be lucky to get another two miles today,” Rife says of the walking.

So far, the day had given him three blisters, and the motor home a busted solenoid.

“It’s working. We already fixed it,” he says of the solenoid.

In addition, Rife has been making it a practice to walk the Trail with his ribbon shirt.

 “Even though it is hotter than all bejesus, I’ll put it on,” he says.

And sometimes he carries the eagle staff. “The eagle staff gets tired of walking so at times I let him ride,” he jokes.

In 2004, Rife was diagnosed with lymphoma and bone cancer. Last year, he quit taking all the medication and he’s gained some weight. A healthy amount. But he doesn’t have the strength he used to have. So the eagle staff rides more than it used to.

He’s made some friends along the way, too. This trip, he stayed in the Rogue River State Park campgrounds for two nights running. They stayed there on Sunday, and after the day’s walk on Monday, the team drove back to stay again.

“They want us to put on a powwow there,” Rife says. “It’s a nice campground. We stay there every year.

“A lot of people offer us rides, especially when I’m carrying the eagle staff. One guy said, ‘You need a ride or do you enjoy walking?’

“Some lady gave us cherries and Band-Aids, but I won’t use the Band-Aids because they didn’t have them back then.”

On the other hand, he says, “When they made this walk it was raining. They had it rough in another way.”

Much of the walk, according to Ambrose’s journal, was “pleasant,” if “frosty and cool” at night, but the trails were rugged and bare, and the livestock kept running off at night to find forage.

Rife reached Grand Junction in Grand Ronde on Monday morning, July 6, five days before he would resume the last mile of the walk for the Saturday noon Grand Entry of the 2009 Veterans’ Powwow.

In the last hot days of the walk, Rife has taken to resting inside the motor home from the heat of the afternoon, and then resuming the walk as darkness set in.

“This is something I choose to do, and I will do it as long as I’m able,” Rife vows.

“The payoff,” he says, “is what I feel inside.”