Thursday, July 09, 2015

Migration to settle America's West on the trail

By Jerry Harkavy

The "lunatic notion" to attempt a 21st-century journey in a mule-drawn covered wagon along the historic Oregon Trail may have been embedded in Rinker Buck's DNA. After all, it was a longer, more arduous reprise of his "dream summer" of 1958 when at age 7 he accompanied his father on a family bonding trip by covered wagon through New Jersey and Pennsylvania.

Buck's latest trip occurred as he was navigating a rough patch in his life — a divorce, heavy drinking — and like earlier pioneers looking for change, he decided to duplicate what 400,000 of them had done in the 15 years before the Civil War: head west as part of history's greatest land migration.

Not since 1909 had anyone managed that feat, according to Buck, a self-described "history junkie" who hit on the idea of a nearly 2,000-mile-long journey from the Missouri River to eastern Oregon that would put him in touch with the nation's past.

Accompanying him on the trip was one of his 10 siblings, Nick Buck, arguably the most entertaining sidekick since Don Quixote's Sancho Panza. Profane and slovenly, the 250-pound unemployed construction worker with a Fu Manchu mustache had an unbeatable combination of mule-handling expertise, mechanical skills and ability to bond with strangers that made it possible to fulfill their crazy dream.

Completing the cast of characters were Olive Oyl, Nick's "incurably filthy" Jack Russell terrier, and the three Percheron mules that the author bought by phone in Missouri, sight unseen. Jake and the two mollies, Bute and Beck, proved their mettle during the steepest mountain climbs and descents; the three were justly rewarded for their efforts with a comfortable retirement at a ranch in Idaho.


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