All Over Albany

The Oregon Trail at Nortshire Saratoga

If you're certain age you probably remember playing The Oregon Trail computer game*, trying to get your virtual covered wagon from Missouri to Oregon.

Well, a few years ago a journalist named Rinker Buck and his brother actually did try to get from Missouri to Oregon by wagon. And he wrote about it in the aptly-titled book The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey. Buck will be at Northshire Saratoga this Saturday, December 5 at 7 pm to talk about the book. It's free.

Book blurbage:

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. ...

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. ...

Here's a recent NYT review, and NPR interview.

And if you ever played the Oregon Trail computer game, you'll appreciate this bit: Buck's brother is an actual carpenter.

* You can now play one of the early versions of The Oregon Trail online.

Northshire advertises on AOA.