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    The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey
    The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey
    The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey
    Audiobook16 hours

    The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey

    Written by Rinker Buck

    Narrated by Rinker Buck

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • #1 Indie Next Pick • Winner of the PEN New England Award

    “Enchanting…A book filled with so much love…Long before Oregon, Rinker Buck has convinced us that the best way to see America is from the seat of a covered wagon.” —The Wall Street Journal

    “Amazing…A real nonfiction thriller.” —Ian Frazier, The New York Review of Books

    “Absorbing…Winning…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.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times

    A major bestseller that has been hailed as a “quintessential American story” (Christian Science Monitor), Rinker Buck’s The Oregon Trail is an epic account of traveling the 2,000-mile length of the Oregon Trail the old-fashioned way—in a covered wagon with a team of mules—that has captivated readers, critics, and booksellers from coast to coast. Simultaneously a majestic journey across the West, a significant work of history, and a moving personal saga, Buck’s chronicle is a “laugh-out-loud masterpiece” (Willamette Week) that “so ensnares the emotions it becomes a tear-jerker at its close” (Star Tribune, Minneapolis) and “will leave you daydreaming and hungry to see this land” (The Boston Globe).
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateJun 30, 2015
    ISBN9781442386228
    Author

    Rinker Buck

    Rinker Buck is a staff writer for the Hartford Courant and a former reporter for New York magazine, Life, and many other national publications. The article that launched this book won the Eugene S. Pulliam National Journalism Writing Award and the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award. He is the author of the acclaimed Flight of Passage and First Job and lives in northwest Connecticut.

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    Reviews for The Oregon Trail

    4.5/5

    57 ratings13 reviews

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    • 5/5
      This entertaining, often enthralling, mix of history, humor, travelogue, family memoir, and no holds barred social commentary reminds me of my favorite Bill Bryson books--especially A Walk in the Woods about Bryson’s (mis)adventures hiking the Appalachian Trail. When Rinker Buck discovered that large stretches of the Oregon Trail still exist, he had romantic visions of a back to basics journey across the western half of the continent and began obsessively and meticulously preparing for a mule-drawn covered wagon trip along the old pioneer route. Since he was divorced and his daughters were grown, why not? Rinker planned to go solo, but even replica wagons have breakdowns, so fortunately for both him and his readers Rinker’s handy, force of nature brother insisted on coming along too--a brusque, big-hearted, syntax challenged, mechanically gifted giant of a man who has some resemblance to Harry Potter’s Hagrid.Rinker blends the fascinating if fraught history of the mass migration westward into the story of his own journey. Pioneer journals were his guides, and the sections devoted to their lively accounts of trail travel were some of my favorite parts of the book. Rinker also writes movingly about his father, an adventurous, family-centered man who inspired his trip. I found the chapter about the surprising (to me) importance role of mules in 18th and 19th century America--starting with George Washington as a savvy land speculating donkey importer and mule broker--utterly captivating, and it’s a good example of the atypical historical perspectives and insights that make this book so riveting. But The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey is as much about the modern day West and its people as it is about the past, and as an Easterner I learned a lot--Rinker, his brother, and their mule team often spent their nights in open publicly maintained corrals where teenagers gather to hang out and practice rodeo skills, not something we encounter here in the Boston to Washington megalopolis. The writing about the actual trip is detailed but evocative, so I felt like I was watching the scenery and riding along in the covered wagon myself. I wasn’t quite so interested in the wagon maintenance aspects of their journey, but I’m sure those sections will delight some readers.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Really enjoyed this book. The reason that I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 5: it has more detail about the wagon and trail pup configuration and the views. I really like the info that Rinker shared about some of the trail journals that he had read.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      I started this book several years ago but got stopped by the research in the first couple chapters. But this time I was more patient and made it through that part and glad I did. I grew up in Oregon with a dad that loved the Oregon Trail. I have 4 ancestors that traveled the trail. I have driven most of the trail. So this book was right down my line. I could have used a bit more site and location info. But I would not cut out anything. I lovedthe family comments, like my family, and the political comments gave me a couple chuckles. Obviously we think alike. I did grin at his comments made about the west, so clearly the author is a east coast native. My only disappointment was they stopped too soon. I would have loved it if that had hit the Barlow Trail. But I understand, it was time to end and Baker City is a great place to land. Loved the book despite a few minor faults.
    • 3/5
      Liked the history and historical facts about the trail. The author/ narrator ( same person) came off as a typical north eastern elitist. Ripped on religion, people who are religious, people in RV’s and Midwest states. Mr Buck, not everyone is as perfect as you.
    • 5/5
      most entertaining, authentic, brilliant presentation .will listen again some time.
    • 4/5
      When this book was proposed by another member of my book club, I was unenthusiastic. The more I read, the more enthusiastic I became. Buck's book is filled with history, observations about the contemporary American west, and honest talk about his family and his own weaknesses. He tells the story of his journey by mule-drawn wagon from Missouri to Oregon with grace and humor, but most of all with consummate skill.
    • 5/5
      This is a fascinating history of the Oregon Trail and a modern travelogue of the route. You’ll learn a lot about wagon handling and the history of mules in America, as well. I could use a little less family psychodrama, but all in all, this is a great read.
    • 4/5
      Two brothers decide to head west on the Oregon Trail, complete with a wagon and mules. They run into plenty of obstacles, as you might expect, including accidentally crossing into private property and balky mules and wagon breakdowns, but the trip gives author Buck an opportunity to reflect on the original Oregon Trail pioneers and to muse about life in general. A great trip.
    • 5/5
      One of the most enjoyable audio books I have listened to
    • 5/5
      The Oregon Trail by Rinker Buck is a very highly recommended account of two brothers traveling along the Oregon Trail today.

      Author Rinker Buck, his brother Nick and Nick's “incurably filthy” Jack Russell terrier named Olive Oyl traveled over 2000 miles for four months along a route that was the Oregon Trail. They went from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Baker City, Oregon, through six present-day states, Missouri, Kansas, Nebraska, Wyoming, Idaho, and Oregon, in a covered wagon pulled by three mules named Jake, Beck, and Bute. In the fifteen years before the Civil War 400,000 pioneers used the trail to emigrate west. The last documented crossing was in 1909, so this trip was a historical reenactment or at least a taste of what happened during the great exodus west.

      All it took to spark Rinker Buck's decision to travel the trail was learning from Duane Durst, an administrator from the Kansas Historical Society, that the 2100 mile length of the trail has been "meticulously charted and marked, with long, undeveloped spaces now preserved as a National Historic Trail. Except for two bad stretches of suburban sprawl around Scottsbluff, Nebraska, and Boise, Idaho, most of the rest of the trail is still accessible along remote farm and ranch roads in the West." Rink decided he had to travel the trail, and do it in as authentic a manner as possible.

      If a travelogue of his adventures on the Oregon Trail today wasn't enough, Buck also includes a plethora of additional information on a wide variety of topics related to the trip. We learn a great deal about mules, wagons, the pioneers, cholera, marking the trail, plants along the way, burials along the trail, and the Mormon experience, to name a handful of topics. Buck also talks about a trip his family made in 1958. At that time his father decided to take his family on a month long "See America Slowly" vacation. They traveled in a covered wagon from central New Jersey across the Delaware River to south central Pennsylvania on a month long trip.

      On the back of the wagon for this childhood trip his father had a sign made that said: "We’re Sorry For The Delay—But We Want The Children To SEE AMERICA SLOWLY New Vernon, New Jersey to Valley Forge, Lancaster, Gettysburg, Penna." For their new trip Nick had taken the board to a sign painter in Maine for the similar messaging he considered appropriate for our trip. Painted on the back of the original sign was the new one: "We Are Sorry For The Delay, But We Want To SEE AMERICA SLOWLY St. Joseph, Ft. Kearny, Scott’s Bluff, South Pass, Farewell Bend."

      Buck is a perfect writer for this harrowing adventure. As he writes, "Only a delusional jackass, or someone seriously off his medications, would pull off the road at the Hollenberg Ranch one fine summer afternoon and concoct such a preposterous scheme. But you can’t save an addictive dreamer from himself, and that jackass happens to be me." He's a great story teller and includes a lot of self-deprecating humor along with all the additional support information. Even while letting us in on the mishaps and failures of the present trip, he includes references to past experiences and stories from his childhood, and manages to tie the two experiences together.

      After spending my early years in Nebraska, I learned about the history of the Oregon Trail every year of elementary school. It was fascinating to read this account of the trail today and the hazards crossing it. The year Rinker and Nick undertook this adventure was also a very wet year, with lots of rain, thunderstorms, and flooding, so it was not an easy year to travel the trail. I had to laugh at the fact that: "The brisk and incessant prairie winds of Kansas and Nebraska were one of the most persistent obstacles to travel that the pioneers complained about in their journals." I thoroughly enjoyed this book!

      Disclosure: My Kindle edition was courtesy of Simon & Schuster for review purposes.
    • 4/5
      I found this to be a very engaging, witty, and revealing book. While it is primarily a story of the 21st century transit of the Oregon Trail by Rinker and Nick Buck - it is also packed with history of this timeless slice of Americana generously mixed with plenty of family dynamics of these two brothers. I especially found myself becoming more and more taken with the three mules that provided so much to the venture - and not only their muscle and sweat !
    • 5/5
      I enjoyed listening to this story. History along with the modern day journey. The relationships made not only with the people, but with his team. Rinker’s relationship with Jake at the end saying goodbye for now really got me in my heart.
    • 5/5
      Great story it has everything history, family, mules, and self reflection. A really well done book I listened as I drove from El Paso, TX to Salem, Oregon.