Rinker Buck Oregon Trail 5-28-16

Meet the Author Who Crossed the Oregon Trail in a Covered Wagon

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Join us in the Louise Parker Berry Community Room at 5 p.m. Sunday, June 12 as we welcome Rinker Buck, author of The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey. In 2011, writer Rinker Buck and his brother Nick set off to make an authentic covered wagon crossing of the 2,000-mile Oregon Trail. They knew that their chances of failure were high. “Even if your wheels break halfway across,” his editor told him, “There’s still a great book there.”

In fact, the Buck brothers’ wheels did break, at South Pass on the continental divide in Wyoming; they flipped their provisions cart in Nebraska; and their axle snapped in two in eastern Oregon. But after making trailside repairs, the Bucks persevered, becoming the first wagon travelers in more than a century to complete a crossing of the trail.