The emigrants who traveled the Oregon Trail arrived in the Willamette Valley in late fall, or even after the first snowfall of winter. What did they do then? They were relieved the long journey was over, I’m sure, but how did they go about building a new life? Beginning with […]
Once Oregon City was a thriving town at the end of the Oregon Trail, the largest settlement in the Pacific Northwest. It was the first city in the U.S. west of the Rockies to be incorporated. Now it is overshadowed by Portland, which it once eclipsed in size and importance. […]
I wrote last month about Ayers Natural Bridge, and its fame as a day trip for the emigrants to Oregon. Another wonder they encountered along the trail was Ice Slough, near the Sweetwater River. The Oregon Trail crossed the Sweetwater many times as the river meandered from just past Independence […]
Last year I posted several times about travel along the Oregon Trail in 1847, the year in which the novel I am working on takes place. (Click here and here for samples, or search this blog for “Oregon Trail.”) Several readers have asked what I’m going to do in 2013. My […]
By mid-May, the emigrants to Oregon in the 1840s had settled into a routine. They were past the frontier towns and out on the open prairie. Greenhorns without experience driving oxen and mules had learned to manage their teams. Wives who had never cooked on an open fire had figured […]
I’ve lived at both ends of the Oregon Trail. I grew up in eastern Washington State, near the site of the Whitman Mission. The story of the Whitman Massacre was part of my childhood. I now live in Kansas City, Missouri, near Independence — one of the main jumping off […]
One thing that surprises me as I research the settlement of the American West is how much some pioneers moved around in the new territory. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised because many of these people—particularly the men—were intrepid explorers or filled with wanderlust. Daniel Boone is one famous example. […]
Recently I was doing more research for my current work-in-progress the is set in 1867. (Yes, it’s drafted. Yes, I’m heavily into editing. And yes, I’m still researching arcane issues.) I came across a tidbit of information I hadn’t focused on before, and it got me thinking about how 1867 […]
I wrote last year about attending the virtual conference sponsored by the Historical Novel Society North America (HNSNA). This year, the major Historical Novel Society conference was in England, and I was not able to go. (Someday, maybe I can attend a foreign writing conference.) HNSNA sponsored the mini-conference on […]
Although I have a lot of editing to do on my current work-in-progress (the sixth book in my Oregon series), I am beginning to think about the next book. I’m planning for the seventh novel to be the last book in the series, but who knows? I only have the […]
