Voices from the Oregon Trail
Ben Wendlandt
Day 1
The trails so far have been good to us. No one has gotten hurt and none of the wagons have lost anything. I have heard rumors about how the trail gets harsher as you continue on. I can only hope that's not true, for the sake of my family and the entire wagon train.
Day 2
We came across a stream and decided to fill up our water barrels. We filled up 12 in all. One of the women in our wagon train is pregnant, and their child is due soon, which would mean another addition to our wagon train. At the end of the day, we reached a fork in the road. One option was the burial grounds trail, which is short and leads directly to where we are going, but is rumored to be inhabited with violent Indians. The other follows a river and is safer, but it is much longer. In the end we decided to take the risk and use the burial grounds trail, for fear we wouldn't get to the snow pass to be able to cross it. Hoping for the best.
Day 3
Later today tragedy struck. One young man died of sickness, and another died when she fell from her wagon into a fast flowing river. After his and her solemn burial, we continued on our way. We came across a fork and chose to take the most direct route, the massacre trail. I am mourning our dead, but we have started to see so many graves on the trail that is has become normal to see them.
Day 4
We have finally made it to the mountain range that will lead us to Oregon. Every wagon dropped 400 weight units so that their wagons could make it up the mountain. We decided to take the snow pass that would lead us straight to Oregon. All the other options were safer, but we wouldn't get to Oregon until next year. As soon as we entered the pass, we knew we had made the wrong choice, but could not back out now. Eventually our wagons got stuck and we knew it was pointless to try to survive any longer. I watched my family die until I was the last one still living in the train. I write this as I sit in my wagon, knowing I don't have much time left.
Signing out for the last time,
Ben Wendlandt
Fording rivers
Wagon Crossing River. Digital image. Young Gardener. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.
Graves
Grave on the Oregon Trail. Digital image. Panoramio. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.
The Great Plains
Great Plains. Digital image. The Hauenstein Center. N.p., n.d. Web. 11 Mar. 2015.