325: Literally Redoing the Oregon Trail: An Eccentric Environmental History—w/ Rinker Buck, author and adventurer

If you're going to write about the Oregon Trail or the Mississippi flatboat era, why not go gonzo? Does it make for better history or just better bar stories? What can you really learn about change by recreating epic journeys in contemporary times, and what can that teach us about how we live upon this planet?

Today, adventurer and author Rinker Buck is on the show to discuss his odysseys. In particular, his flatboat ride from Pittsburgh to New Orleans, and his mulecart passage of the entire Oregon Trail. If you're gasping reading that last sentence, you need to read his books.

Obviously, these landscapes have massively changed over the centuries, and their environmental history reflects human wants and desires, some good and others less so. How are they shadows of their former selves, which could you not tell which century you're currently in, and which are making beautiful comebacks? What does it teach us about the country so many of our listeners call home? How does the American experience prepare or fail to prepare us for a climate-changed world?

Rinker discusses his particular approach to participatory history, why he doesn't like reenactment as a paradigm, and why he bothers with the Heraclean effort for which some might deem him a "conquistador of the useless."

Tune in and learn from Rinker's hard-earned experience and observations!

Resources

Rinker's website

The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey

Life on the Mississippi: An Epic American Adventure

Flight of Passage: A Memoir

1883

Women's Diaries of the Westward Journey by Lillian Schlissel

Frederick Turner's Frontier Thesis

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