Handcarts, Ho!!

Here is Katie dressed in her pioneer clothes ready to head out for the next four day on a Pioneer Trek with 300+ youth and adults from our stake. They will walk and pull handcarts for about 25 miles over the plains of Wyoming like the group pictured here. Jared and Keith had a similar experience in 1997 on the same trail Katie will trek. I will include more pictures and her report at the end of the week.

Just a little history of the Handcart Pioneers which this experience honors…. The Mormon handcart pioneers were participants in the migration of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Salt Lake City, Utah. Between 1856 and 1860, nearly 3,000 pioneers used handcarts to transport their belonging from Iowa or Nebraska to Utah. The trek was disastrous for two of the ten handcart companies which started their journey dangerously late and were caught by heavy snow and severe temperatures in central Wyoming. Despite a dramatic rescue effort, more than 210 of the 980 pioneers in these two companies died along the way. John Chislett, a survivor, wrote, "Many a father pulled his cart, with his little children on it, until the day preceding his death.” The handcart pioneers have become an important symbol in LDS culture, representing the faithfulness and sacrifice of the pioneer generation.