Dreamscapes Travel & Lifestyle Magazine
Issue link: http://read.dreamscapes.ca/i/739845
DREAMSCAPES FALL/ WINTER 2016 24 M y road trip has begun in Inde- pendence, Missouri. Inspired by the tales of westward-bound pioneers along the Oregon Trail, I want to share in their heroic journey. The Oregon Trail was a 3,500-kilometre east-west wagon route that connected the Missouri River to Oregon. Originally only fur trappers and traders made this difficult journey on horseback. But by 1836, when the first migrant wagon train left Independence, a passage for wagons was being cleared to the Pacific Coast. Between the mid-1830s and 1869 around 400,000 families headed west with dreams of a better future; tens of thousands died on the route. The transcontinental railroad, completed in 1869, made the trip west faster, cheaper and safer and almost overnight the wagon trail was abandoned. However, the landscape still bears many reminders of the pioneers—even down to ruts created by their wagon wheels. The Oregon TRAIL EDITORIAL & PHOTOGRAPHY BY CHRIS ROBINSON ABOVE: The open road in Wyoming: Backcountry roads paralleling the Oregon Trail are gloriously uncrowded and offer countless grand vistas. OPPOSITE LEFT: Pioneer wagon, Oregon Trail, Nebraska: Pioneers walked the entire Oregon Trail beside their wagons, which were only for their goods. OPPOSITE TOP RIGHT: An 1860s cabin at Old Prairie Town, Ward-Meade Historic Site in Topeka, Kansas. OPPOSITE BOTTOM RIGHT: Pioneer diary at the National Historic Oregon Trail Interpretive Center, near Baker City, Oregon. THE OPEN ROAD, THE ANTICIPATION OF WHAT'S AROUND THE NEXT CORNER—A ROAD TRIP SIMPLY THRILLS THE SOUL!