Book Review: Life Along the Applegate Trail

a book review by Cathy Fitzpatrick

Cathy Fitzpatrick

Everyone has experienced a good road trip. Planning for accommodations, meals and restroom breaks can be challenging but did you ever dream of how difficult the same trip would be in a covered wagon? Horsepower from actual horses! Author Linda Lochard did just that and wrote a book about it. 

Applegate Trail Book Cover

Her first novel, Life Along the Applegate Trail: A Tale of Grit and Determination, may have taken her twenty five years to write, but once you meet the men, women and children looking for a better life in the Oregon territory, you’ll find you’re in a race to finish it.

Linda and I discussed the trip, the book and family over lunch recently. 

Linda, who now lives in Medford, was the director of tourism at the Visitor and Convention Bureau in Grants Pass. In 1993, as part of a celebration of the 150th anniversary of the Oregon Trail, she rode a covered wagon into town, in a sort of parade. She fell in love instantly with the feel, the sounds and smells of being in and near the wagons and horses.  When she learned of a reenactment of The Applegate Trail scheduled for 1996, she signed on to participate. Three years of training and learning everything she could about wagon trains were worth the effort. She joined the train for 31 days of the 51 day trip. The Applegate Trail was an alternate route of the Oregon Trail that some pioneers used. Much of the Applegate trail is where you find Interstate highway 5 now. She wore period clothing, walked and rode 3 miles an hour during long days, ate from the chuck wagon, and slept in a tent. Although far less uncertain than the 1847-48 emigration, the reenactment held its own concerns over the animals, meals, cleanliness and safety. 

When she finished her trip, exhausted, she was determined to write a book about the experience. However, life got in the way and she kept getting distracted. In 2020, at the beginning of Covid, she was determined  to finish it. Readers now get to follow Questa and Chase, who meet on the trail, fall in love and plan a life in the territory. It’s a wonderful historical fiction romance novel set in the Old West. 

Life Along the Applegate Trail is available in the Rogue Valley Manor library. 

Applegate Trail