On the trail
22/09/15 05:22
Emigrants traveling on the Oregon Trail would have been impressed. Of course, they took a different route than we, heading from Independence, Missouri across Nebraska to Scottsbluff, up to Laramie, through South Pass to Fort Bridger in southwest Wyoming, across Southern Idaho then up to Baker City to meet the Columbia River. Our route would have been known, at least in theory, to Oregon Trail travelers, though they would have known about the Missouri River and not much about what is today western South Dakota except that it was home to the Sioux Indians and dangerous country through which to travel.
Travelers on the Oregon Trail, of course, wouldn’t consider leaving on September 20. If that is when they arrived in Missouri, they would have spent the entire winter there, gathering supplies, making friends for the journey, and waiting until spring brought good weather and sufficient grass to feed their animals along the way. Leave too early and there wouldn’t be enough feed for your animals. Leave too late, and the snow would catch up with you in Eastern Oregon and survival would be in question. Those who took the southern route from Fort Hall through Nevada and across the northwest corner of California faced serious shortages of food for the animals in the desert and they still could get caught in the snow in the Cascades.
Oregon Trail travelers hoped to make about 15 miles per day. Most of them walked most of the way, riding only occasionally when illness or injury made it difficult to walk. The oxen would pull the wagon and had to be kept in good health because they were the power for farming once the family arrived in Oregon City and staked out their land in the Willamette Valley. Their wagons were equipped with all of the household goods they thought they would need, whatever personal possessions they had, tools, and farming implements.
They would have been impressed with our camper, complete with four bunks, a spacious double bed, a complete kitchen with all the utensils and a bathroom with a shower. In place of oxen, we pull our camper with a reliable, modern pickup with both heat and air conditioning. They couldn’t have imagined traveling in climate controlled comfort. We, of course, can’t imagine traveling without a network of service stations along the way that allow us to stop for refueling whenever we want.
Our camper would have been considered to be very spacious to Oregon Trail travelers. Most of them had 4’ x 10’ farm wagons. They would not have been impressed with our food stocks. A thousand pounds of food was considered standard for the journey. The total weight of their loaded wagons would have been about the same as our trailer. Our truck, however, weighs more than their team would have weighed.
They would not have been able to imagine our rate of travel. We covered roughly one third of the trail - 770 miles - in 1 1/2 days. We were covering four days of travel at their pace each hour. In the span of two weeks in August and one week in September we covered the span of the Oregon Trail both directions. And when we went west, we crossed the Rockies on a northerly trail, closer to the Lewis and Clark route.
Compared to the Oregon Trail travelers, our trip was pretty safe. We didn’t have to worry about getting run over by a wagon (almost certain death for Oregon Trail travelers) and we had virtually no risk of accidental gun shot - one of the common risks that ended the journey for many travelers on the trail. Cholera wasn’t a fear of ours. Some wagon trains lost as many as two-thirds of their travelers to that disease.
They, like us, didn’t have much to fear from Native Americans. A very few violent encounters that occurred along the trail have been blown out of proportion in the minds of many people today. Most of the encounters with indigenous tribes along the Oregon Trail were positive, with a little trading between the people. Most encounters were friendly. Wagons were circled to corral livestock, not to defend from flaming arrows.
A lot has changed since Marcus and Narcissi Whitman made the trip in 1836. They traveled in advance of the main flow of settlers. The first mass migration did not occur until 1843, when an estimated 1,000 people journeyed together. From that time on it is estimated at 500,000 people attempted the trail, taking from 4 to 6 months to complete the journey. After 1848, a pretty good number of settlers headed to California in search of gold. About half of the 300,000 people who followed the great gold rush traveled overland on the Oregon Trail.
Then, in 1869, the transcontinental railroad was completed and there was a whole new way of traveling across the country.
We, of course, do not need to set up a new life now that our trip is complete. We don’t have to find suitable land, build a house and figure out how we’ll get enough food to survive the winter. We have a home and a job to which we are returning after a trip taken for pleasure.
The real luxury of our lives, however, isn’t the speed of our travel, the comfort of our camper or the home and job we enjoy. Compared to the travelers on the Oregon Trail, we have the luxury of being able to stay in touch with family even though we live in different locations. Our daughter and son-in-law live near the beginning of the Oregon Traill Our son and his family live near the end. We live north of the 1/3 mark of the trail. But we talk to our family members many times each week. We get to see them face-to-face a couple of times each year. We often are able celebrate holidays and birthdays together. When the travelers on the trail said good bye to family it was the last they saw of their loved ones.
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been much for the trail. I might have been one of the ones who stayed behind. But in today’s world I love to travel and as I travel I like to remember those who have gone before.
Today we’re off the trail and back to work. It has been a good trip.
Travelers on the Oregon Trail, of course, wouldn’t consider leaving on September 20. If that is when they arrived in Missouri, they would have spent the entire winter there, gathering supplies, making friends for the journey, and waiting until spring brought good weather and sufficient grass to feed their animals along the way. Leave too early and there wouldn’t be enough feed for your animals. Leave too late, and the snow would catch up with you in Eastern Oregon and survival would be in question. Those who took the southern route from Fort Hall through Nevada and across the northwest corner of California faced serious shortages of food for the animals in the desert and they still could get caught in the snow in the Cascades.
Oregon Trail travelers hoped to make about 15 miles per day. Most of them walked most of the way, riding only occasionally when illness or injury made it difficult to walk. The oxen would pull the wagon and had to be kept in good health because they were the power for farming once the family arrived in Oregon City and staked out their land in the Willamette Valley. Their wagons were equipped with all of the household goods they thought they would need, whatever personal possessions they had, tools, and farming implements.
They would have been impressed with our camper, complete with four bunks, a spacious double bed, a complete kitchen with all the utensils and a bathroom with a shower. In place of oxen, we pull our camper with a reliable, modern pickup with both heat and air conditioning. They couldn’t have imagined traveling in climate controlled comfort. We, of course, can’t imagine traveling without a network of service stations along the way that allow us to stop for refueling whenever we want.
Our camper would have been considered to be very spacious to Oregon Trail travelers. Most of them had 4’ x 10’ farm wagons. They would not have been impressed with our food stocks. A thousand pounds of food was considered standard for the journey. The total weight of their loaded wagons would have been about the same as our trailer. Our truck, however, weighs more than their team would have weighed.
They would not have been able to imagine our rate of travel. We covered roughly one third of the trail - 770 miles - in 1 1/2 days. We were covering four days of travel at their pace each hour. In the span of two weeks in August and one week in September we covered the span of the Oregon Trail both directions. And when we went west, we crossed the Rockies on a northerly trail, closer to the Lewis and Clark route.
Compared to the Oregon Trail travelers, our trip was pretty safe. We didn’t have to worry about getting run over by a wagon (almost certain death for Oregon Trail travelers) and we had virtually no risk of accidental gun shot - one of the common risks that ended the journey for many travelers on the trail. Cholera wasn’t a fear of ours. Some wagon trains lost as many as two-thirds of their travelers to that disease.
They, like us, didn’t have much to fear from Native Americans. A very few violent encounters that occurred along the trail have been blown out of proportion in the minds of many people today. Most of the encounters with indigenous tribes along the Oregon Trail were positive, with a little trading between the people. Most encounters were friendly. Wagons were circled to corral livestock, not to defend from flaming arrows.
A lot has changed since Marcus and Narcissi Whitman made the trip in 1836. They traveled in advance of the main flow of settlers. The first mass migration did not occur until 1843, when an estimated 1,000 people journeyed together. From that time on it is estimated at 500,000 people attempted the trail, taking from 4 to 6 months to complete the journey. After 1848, a pretty good number of settlers headed to California in search of gold. About half of the 300,000 people who followed the great gold rush traveled overland on the Oregon Trail.
Then, in 1869, the transcontinental railroad was completed and there was a whole new way of traveling across the country.
We, of course, do not need to set up a new life now that our trip is complete. We don’t have to find suitable land, build a house and figure out how we’ll get enough food to survive the winter. We have a home and a job to which we are returning after a trip taken for pleasure.
The real luxury of our lives, however, isn’t the speed of our travel, the comfort of our camper or the home and job we enjoy. Compared to the travelers on the Oregon Trail, we have the luxury of being able to stay in touch with family even though we live in different locations. Our daughter and son-in-law live near the beginning of the Oregon Traill Our son and his family live near the end. We live north of the 1/3 mark of the trail. But we talk to our family members many times each week. We get to see them face-to-face a couple of times each year. We often are able celebrate holidays and birthdays together. When the travelers on the trail said good bye to family it was the last they saw of their loved ones.
I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have been much for the trail. I might have been one of the ones who stayed behind. But in today’s world I love to travel and as I travel I like to remember those who have gone before.
Today we’re off the trail and back to work. It has been a good trip.