Across the Kansas Prairie

Funded by the National Park Service, this video follows a modern-day wagon train across the Kansas portion of the Oregon Trail.

Although the re-enactors eat catered meals and use porta-potties, where possible they travel alongside the route forged by the Bidwell-Bartleson party in 1841. And like those 19th-century emigrants, the re-enactors also endure freezing temperatures and overturned wagons. This 25-minute video will give you a small taste of what our pioneer ancestors endured in “settling” America’s West.