Traveling the Oregon Trail by covered wagon, 170 years later

Rinker Buck crossed the Oregon Trail — and he did it the old-fashioned way.

The author and his brother packed up a covered wagon, wrangled a team of mules and set out on a 2,000-mile journey across the American West.

In his book, "Oregon Trail," he mixes historical insights with the real-life hassles of fixing a broken wagon axle. He writes:

I had known long before I rode a covered wagon to Oregon that naiveté was the mother of adventure. I just didn't understand how much of that I really had. Nicholas and I realized before we left Missouri with the mules that we would be the first wagon travelers in more than a century to make an authentic crossing of the Oregon Trail. But that was never the point for us. We pushed mules almost two thousand miles to learn some more important. Even more beautiful than the land that we passed, or the months spent camping on the plains, was learning to live with uncertainty.

Buck joined MPR News host Kerri Miller to talk about his improbable journey and what the Oregon Trail meant to the formation of the American psyche.

"In the peak migration years, years like 1852 and 1849, there were approximately 25,000 Americans that crossed every summer," Buck said. The deep ruts carved into the sand by iron wagon wheels still remain in some places — visual records of the difficult journey, 170 years later.

The trail, Buck said, "unified the country. It gathered us into conceiving that we were one big transcontinental mass, not these little warring former colonies trying to figure out their relationship to each other."

For the full conversation with Rinker Buck on "The Oregon Trail," use the audio player above.