A6
NEWS
Blue Mountain Eagle
Wednesday, July 27, 2022
An Oregon Trail pilgrimage
By CLAYTON FRANKE
Baker City Herald
BAKER CITY — Hun-
dreds of thousands of peo-
ple traveled the Oregon Trail
in the 19th century, and Don
“Dundee” Martin is honoring
their journey.
Like his pioneer counter-
parts, Martin travels with a
wagon and an ox.
He eats Oregon Trail
foods — steel-cut oats, rice,
nuts and dried meats and
fruits.
He wears traditional pio-
neer white canvas pants with
suspenders, camps in thun-
derstorms and carries enough
water to last him a week.
But unlike those of his
forebears, Martin’s wagon is
a single-wheeled cart — aes-
thetically similar to a pio-
neer wagon, covered in can-
vas supported by curved oak
beams.
And instead of pulling
the cart, his ox is a stuffed
toy that rides on top of the
wagon.
Martin passed through
Baker City on July 6 as he
attempts to walk the entire
historic Oregon Trail.
He stayed overnight at the
home of friends Carla and
Wayne Inman, and then took
a rest day.
Besides his cart and his
stuffed ox, Martin — who
lives in Prineville — has dif-
ferent motivations than the
19th century travelers bent
on settling in a new land.
Martin said he’s walking
the trail as a cultural and his-
torical pilgrimage.
“A pilgrimage is an oppor-
tunity to get away from your
day to day life, do some-
thing physically demanding
that you would not otherwise
be doing, share experiences
with fellow travelers, get a
different sense of perspec-
tive and do some self reflec-
tion,” Martin said. “There’s a
lot of good things that come
out of it.”’
On July 6 Martin strode
west on the shoulder of
Pocahontas Road, facing the
Elkhorns, gripping the leath-
er-wrapped handlebars of his
Clayton Franke/Baker City Herald
Don Martin’s wagon is designed to look like a miniature version
of an Oregon Trail prairie schooner, albeit with modern touches
such as a GPS unit.
Clayton Franke/Baker City Herald
Don “Dundee” Martin of Prineville pushes his wagon along Pocahontas Road on Wednesday, July
6, 2022.
Clayton Franke/Baker City Herald
Don “Dundee” Martin of
Prineville is walking the route
of the Oregon Trail this year as
a way to preserve its culture
and history.
cart with fingerless gloves.
His outfit was a mix
of 19th century farmer,
long-distance hiker and deer
hunter — those traditional
white pants with an orange
long-sleeve shirt and floppy
orange hat, for visibility.
His pants were tucked
into wool socks inside hik-
ing sneakers, the foam heel
squashed, the tread deeply
worn.
Martin is on his third pair
of shoes out of the four he
brought. Now 2,075 miles
and 81 days into the trip, he
hopes the fourth pair will get
him through the final 400
miles to Oregon City.
a Garmin GPS unit, which
tracks his mileage and pro-
vides a location tracker
where people can follow
along online.
Martin’s wagon — nick-
named “Ollie,” as in “ollie,
ollie oxen free” — like 19th
century prairie schooners
contains everything he needs
to live for weeks on remote
parts of the trail.
Unfortunately,
though,
the wagon, he said, has “zero
capability in mud.”
“There’s still Kansas mud
in that thing,” Martin said.
He also carries camp-
ing gear. He usually can find
public land to camp on, but
if he can’t, he’ll just start
knocking on doors.
“Most people that know
what you’re doing are happy
to share their yard for a
night,” Martin said. “If you
look, generally there’s a
place where you can stay.”
Martin said one of the
“high points” of his pilgrim-
age is meeting new people,
“trading stories with them,
just talking to them, hope-
fully inspiring a little more
interest in the trail.”
A trail (re)blazer
A modern accessory
Attached to the front of
the cart is a device that Ore-
gon Trail pioneers could
scarcely have imagined —
Martin’s journey started
on April 16 in Independence,
Missouri, a common jump-
ing-off point for westbound
immigrants. Since then he’s
passed through Kansas,
Nebraska, Wyoming and
Idaho.
It’s a long walk, but Mar-
tin said that’s not the reason
so few people complete —
or even attempt — the hike
today.
Other long-distance hikes
in the West are longer, like
the Pacific Crest Trail or the
Continental Divide Trail, but
are frequented by hundreds of
hikers a year.
Those routes are desig-
nated for hikers and horse-
back riders, and unlike the
Oregon Trail, they haven’t
been supplanted by highways.
Over 3,000 people per
year attempt an Appalachian
Trail “thru hike” — complet-
ing the entire trail in one year
— which Martin completed
previously and is about the
same length as the Oregon
Trail.
Last year, 451 people sum-
mited Mount Everest in the
Himalayas. But Martin said
he knows of fewer than 10
who have walked the entire
Oregon Trail since modern
roads were constructed.
And its lack of foot traffic
isn’t because of difficult ter-
rain, either, Martin said. He
said some sections with hills
are more difficult than others,
but for the most part, he’s just
walking.
“Physically, it’s very
FOLLOW IN DON’S FOOTSTEPS
You can track Don “Dundee” Martin’s progress on his Ore-
gon Trail pilgrimage at https://share.garmin.com/M1125 and
read his journal entries at www.trailjournals.com/journal/
entry/648425
non-demanding,”
Martin
said.
According to Martin and
against popular belief, most
people on the Oregon Trail
walked beside their wag-
ons instead of riding in them.
Martin said early settlers
picked the easiest route on
purpose — that’s how “tod-
dlers, elderly and women and
babes in arms” were able to
complete the trail, he said.
The reason the hike isn’t
more popular today, Martin
said, is because people have
forgotten about it.
“After the trail went out
of use, people almost imme-
diately forgot about it,” Mar-
tin said.
“It did not occur to people
that this would be a really sig-
nificant event that ought to be
preserved in some way,” he
added.
“Arguably, the trail should
be 2,000 miles of hallowed
ground.”
And he means that literally
— tens of thousands of peo-
ple died and are buried along
the trail, many in unmarked
graves.
Preserving the past
Martin not only wants to
preserve the historical and
cultural aspects of the trail,
but the physical trail itself.
Today, the trail isn’t so
much a footpath as an “imag-
inary line,” Martin said,
much of it covered in inter-
states and lesser highways,
where walking is “not an
idyllic experience.”
And many other parts of
the trail run through private
land.
“It’s not well preserved
everywhere,” Martin said.
“The few parts that are on
public land, because it’s
never traveled, are all back
to sagebrush. It’s not some-
thing that you’re going to
be able to readily travel on
foot.”
Picking a specific histor-
ical route is difficult, Mar-
tin said, because the trail was
a “living, breathing thing.”
Pioneers changed the route
frequently based on weather
conditions or environmental
factors for that year.
That’s why Martin plans
to write an Oregon Trail
guide to help and inspire
future hikers after he finishes
the trail himself.
With Martin’s GPS map-
ping a current route to the
coast, he’s a pioneer of the
modern Oregon Trail —
reblazing a trail with hopes
others will follow.
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