[A Saturday Feature of the First Road Blog]
If
much is missed by staying on the Interstates in our travels, even more is
missed by not exploring the stories of the places we visit – especially if we visit those places often. So far, in two-month increments, Judy and I have
spent close to eight months in the Red River valley of North Dakota. Each time
we immerse ourselves a little deeper in the region’s past. At the same time I have found
that well researched historic fiction serves my purposes better than
encyclopedic articles. One such book is J. A. Arnold’s Ox
Cart Angel.
Of
the several people groups who left their imprint on the Red River Valley of the
North, Mr. Arnold focuses on the Métis group (part Indian, part French). As an added supplement to the book, he also devotes a blog
to this culture.
Ox Cart Angel, is Mr. Arnold's effort to describe the long forgotten caravans which carried goods and
people from what became the Canadian border to St. Paul, Minnesota. It is one
of several historic realities of the region which is overshadowed by the all
consuming Civil War of those years. In the story he focuses on a girl whose widowed father
sells all he has to make the journey to the better life; and, in the process tears her away from
the difficult but familiar life of her childhood. Through the eyes of the girl, he describes their arduous effort to catch
up with a caravan which passed through a day earlier. As he does so, the author gives us the
sights, smells, and back-breaking agonies of such a trek.
I
had the privilege of attending a lecture by Mr. Arnold at Fort Abercrombie in
North Dakota. He is very well informed about the atmosphere and activities of
the era through which he weaves his tale. Ox Cart Angel is available both in a Kindle
edition and in books without batteries.
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