The Oregon Trail was an extraordinarily dangerous adventure undertaken by hundreds of thousands of American emigrants, some of whom lost their lives along the way. Some, including the Applegate brothers of St. Louis, Missouri, wondered if there might be a safer passage. Their charting of the largely forgotten 500-plus-mile Applegate Trail—its harrowing story captured in Alta Journal’s five-part Alta Serial by writer Ruby McConnell—would become an indelible part of the infrastructure, history, and mythology of the American West, but it would come at a terrible price. McConnell joins Alta Live to retrace the Applegates’ steps, detail their many struggles, and explain just how vital their journey was to the region as we know it today. History buffs, adventure fans, and anyone who’s ever played the classic ’70s video game inspired by the Oregon Trail won’t want to miss this event.
About the guest:
Ruby McConnell is a writer, geologist, environmental activist, and explorer whose work centers on outdoor advocacy, place, and the examination of the relationships between landscape and the human experience. Her award-winning work has appeared in scientific journals and outlets including Huffington Post, Mother Earth News, Oregon Humanities, Grain magazine, and Literary Hub and was awarded an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship in 2016. She is the author of the critically acclaimed outdoor engagement series A Woman’s Guide to the Wild, A Girl’s Guide to the Wild, My Nature Journal and Activity Book, and Ground Truth: A Geological Survey of a Life, a collection of environmental essays that was a finalist for the 2021 Oregon Book Awards and was listed as one of Ms. magazine’s Best Books of the Year. Look for her new book, Wilderness and the American Spirit, in the spring of 2024. You can almost always find her in the woods.•
