Oregon Trail (Buck)

The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey
Rinker Buck, 2015
Simon & Schuster
464 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781451659160


Summary
An epic account of traveling the length of the Oregon Trail the old-fashioned way—in a covered wagon with a team of mules, an audacious journey that hasn’t been attempted in a century—which also chronicles the rich history of the trail, the people who made the migration, and its significance to the country.

Spanning two thousand miles and traversing six states from Missouri to the Pacific coast, the Oregon Trail is the route that made America. In the fifteen years before the Civil War, when 400,000 pioneers used the trail to emigrate West—scholars still regard this as the largest land migration in history—it united the coasts, doubled the size of the country, and laid the groundwork for the railroads. Today, amazingly, the trail is all but forgotten.

Rinker Buck is no stranger to grand adventures. His first travel narrative, Flight of Passage, was hailed by The New Yorker as “a funny, cocky gem of a book,” and with The Oregon Trail he brings the most important route in American history back to glorious and vibrant life.

Traveling from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Baker City, Oregon, over the course of four months, Buck is accompanied by three cantankerous mules, his boisterous brother, Nick, and an “incurably filthy” Jack Russell terrier named Olive Oyl. Along the way, they dodge thunderstorms in Nebraska, chase runaway mules across the Wyoming plains, scout more than five hundred miles of nearly vanished trail on foot, cross the Rockies, and make desperate fifty-mile forced marches for water.

The Buck brothers repair so many broken wheels and axels that they nearly reinvent the art of wagon travel itself. They also must reckon with the ghost of their father, an eccentric yet loveable dreamer whose memory inspired their journey across the plains and whose premature death, many years earlier, has haunted them both ever since.

But The Oregon Trail is much more than an epic adventure. It is also a lively and essential work of history that shatters the comforting myths about the trail years passed down by generations of Americans. Buck introduces readers to the largely forgotten roles played by trailblazing evangelists, friendly Indian tribes, female pioneers, bumbling U.S. Army cavalrymen, and the scam artists who flocked to the frontier to fleece the overland emigrants.

Generous portions of the book are devoted to the history of old and appealing things like the mule and the wagon. We also learn how the trail accelerated American economic development. Most arresting, perhaps, are the stories of the pioneers themselves—ordinary families whose extraordinary courage and sacrifice made this country what it became.

At once a majestic journey across the West, a significant work of history, and a moving personal saga, The Oregon Trail draws readers into the journey of a lifetime. It is a wildly ambitious work of nonfiction from a true American original. It is a book with a heart as big as the country it crosses. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—December 29, 1950
• Where—Morristown, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., Bowdoin College
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in northwest Connecticut


Rinker Buck is an award-winning American author who first became known as the author of a 1997 memoir Flight of Passage. His second book, The Oregan Trail, based on his trip with is brother in a covered wagon along the famous trail, was released in 2015.

Early life
Rinker Buck was born and raised in Morristown, New Jersey, the fourth child of Mary Patricia Buck (nee Kernahan) and political activist and Look Magazine publisher Thomas Francis Buck. He has five brothers and five sisters.

Flight
In the winter of 1965/1966, Rinker, then only15, and his older brother Kernahan, 17, a licensed pilot, devised a plan to rebuild their father's 1948 Piper PA-11 and fly it from Somerset Hills Airport (N64) in Basking Ridge, NJ to Capistrano Airport (L38) in San Juan Capistrano, CA. Their journey took six days and was completed in July 1966. The flight is the subject of Buck's 1997 memoir Flight of Passage.

Journalism
Buck began his career in journalism shortly after graduating from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. His first job was writing for the Berkshire Eagle in 1973. He then served as reporter for New York, Life, Hartford Courant, Adweek and several other national publications.

Awards
Buck is the recipient of three awards: Eugene S. Pulliam Journalism Writing Award; Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award; and the Max Kurant Award for Excellence in Aviation Coverage (AOPA). (From Wikipedia. Retrieved 8/20/2015.)

Book Reviews
Absorbing.... The many layers in The Oregon Trail are linked by Mr. Buck’s voice, which is alert and unpretentious in a manner that put me in mind of Bill Bryson’s comic tone in A Walk in the Woods.... He’s good company on the page, and you root for him.... He’s particularly winning on how, as he puts it, "the vaudeville of American life was acted out on the trail." ... This shaggy pilgrimage describes a form of happiness sought, and happiness found.
Dwight Garner - New York Times


Enchanting.... Interspersed with the story of his westward journey, Mr. Buck entertains and enlightens with discourses on American history and culture.... He has delivered us a book filled with so much love—for mules, for his brother, for America itself.... Long before Oregon, Rinker Buck has convinced us that the best way to see America is from the seat of a covered wagon.
Gregory Crouch - Wall Street Journal


Awe-inspiring.... Charming, big-hearted, impassioned, and a lot of fun to read.... If Buck doesn’t quite make you want to hitch up your own wagon, his rapturous account will still leave you daydreaming and hungry to see this land.
Boston Globe


Interwoven in Buck’s adventure tale is a fascinating history of the development of the trail, its heyday, and the colorful characters that made the journey.... Whether their primary interest is American history, adventure travel or a captivating memoir, readers are sure to be delighted by this humorous and entertaining story that allows us to believe that Walter Mitty–like fantasies can indeed come true.
Associated Press


A quintessential American story.... The Oregon Trail attains its considerable narrative power by interweaving pioneer history with Rinker-and-Nick-and-mules interpersonal strife with poignant memories of the author’s father, who took his own family on a covered wagon journey through New Jersey and Pennsylvania in 1958.... This makes The Oregon Trail a rare and effective work of history—the trail stories of the Buck brothers bring humor and drama, and the pioneer biographies supply a context that makes every other aspect of the book snap into sharp relief.... The experience of The Oregon Trail stands squarely opposite much of what is modern—it’s slow travel with poor communication, it places struggle before comfort, and it represents a connection with history rather than a search for the newest of the new. In that sense, you’d think the book would be slow-paced and fusty, but it’s really something else: raw, visceral, and often laugh-out-loud funny. For anyone who has ever dreamed of seeing America slowly from the back of a wagon, The Oregon Trail is a vicarious thrill.
James Norton - Christian Science Monitor


A trip back in time.... Buck brings the land to life in a richly researched book that draws heavily from journals kept by the pioneers and their memoirs.... His exploration of America and himself is a joy to read. (4 out of 4 stars)
USA Today


What a way to spend a summer! Rinker Buck lived the dream of countless red-blooded Americans.... The Oregon Trail is must reading for anyone in love with the West.”
Jules Wagman - Cleveland Plain Dealer


This book is a keeper.... The straight-ahead title scarcely does justice to this rollicking good read, a book that’s as much fun as the Brothers Buck seem to be as they travel from Missouri to Oregon by covered wagon.... Observant, conversational, and often funny, The Oregon Trail makes for a satisfying trip.
Seattle Times


An incredible true story.... Weaving a tale somewhere between a travelogue and a history lesson, Buck traces the iconic path literally and figuratively as he re-creates the great migration with his brother and a Jack Russell terrier.
Entertainment Weekly


Laugh-out-loud masterpiece.... Alternately harrowing and exhilarating.... The book is an unremitting delight.
Willamette Week


An entertaining and enlightening account of one of America’s most legendary migrations. Even readers who don’t know a horse from a mule will find themselves swept up in this inspiring and masterful tale of perseverance and the pioneer spirit.
Publishers Weekly


Romantic.... Compelling.... The Oregon trip is fraught with mishaps, near-death experiences, and plain bad luck. But there were also angels along the way helping them get through.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Astonishing.... By turns frankly hilarious, historically elucidating, emotionally touching, and deeply informative.... A crazy whim of a trip on a covered wagon turns into an inspired exploration of American identity.
Kirkus Reviews

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