A few weeks ago in priesthood meeting, there was a discussion about the pioneers, and someone asked why the pioneers left so late in the year. Mormon Heretic did a post on the movie 17 Miracles, and it seems Brigham Young blamed the disaster on apostle Franklin D. Richards. While there was plenty of heroism to save the Willie and Martin Handcart companies, the whole disaster could have been avoided if the leaders had been more open to Levi Savage’s admonition that they should not leave, rather than Richard’s “promise” that God would protect them. Gratefully the saints learned from the disaster and no further lives were lost due to leaving too late in the season. It’s sad that so many perished.
My son is going on trek this year. I know that last year an Arkansas woman in Oklahoma died from heat stroke during a re-enactment of trek. In our fireside, a nurse indicated she and her husband would be there and admonished everyone to drink lots of water. Is this really a good idea? While I understand the desire to build faith, and I admire the pioneers, I wonder whether we are sending the wrong message to our youth. What do you think?
Wheat & Tares 
I don’t quite understand. What is the ‘wrong message’ you think is being sent?
I am mixed. I can see some good experiences for some of the kids.
But it takes a LOT of time for adults for the prep and attending.
I do feel we are getting close to worshiping the handcart pioneers when they were a small fraction of the pioneers.
https://news.byu.edu/news/death-trek-study-mormon-pioneer-mortality
“Yet just 5 percent of Mormon immigrants traveled by handcart. ”
Why go through all the expense and risk for reenactments?
But no reinacent of “burying babies along the trail”. Yes I know it happened, but that just feels like manipulating emotions, not drawing the spirit.
ReTx, the early saints tried to hide this disaster, and Brigham Young didn’t celebrate Franklin Richards bad decision making that led to 213 deaths, about 1/4 of the Martin handcart company. They certainly didn’t lionize it, and I think would be disturbed to see it re-enacted. These were preventable deaths (as was the woman from Arkansas.)
I think it’s downright bizarre that at this point, there have been more ‘fake’ handcart pioneers than there ever were ACTUAL handcart pioneers.
It is extremely sad that someone died on a Trek last year. Certainly, precautions should be (and will be) taken to prevent it from happening again.
Since I would be fine if the youth did some other kind of summer camp or activity that may also have its own risks, I don’t see this tragedy as a reason to stop Trek. On the other hand, I would rather see the time and effort that people spend on reenacting (and inadvertently distorting) the past spent on some other activity more relevant to the present.
When my kids participated in trek, I thought it was interesting to hear the differences when they compared notes with their cousins. For example, our kids were fed things like broth and oatmeal during the day, maybe chicken for supper. Their cousins enjoyed hearty meals–including pancakes, bacon and eggs etc. Living back east, our kids had to contend with the heat and humidity of those summer days, while their UT cousins had the dry heat which enabled the body’s cooling system to work better–perspiration actually evaporates and shade actually feels cooler.
Why do we feel that testing the limits of endurance is a good activity? I probably would’ve been one of those who died had this activity been around when I was growing up.
Speaking as someone who participated in trek the first time my stake did it, I can definitely tell you that the thing we teens really loved about trek was that it was our first (and only) ever church approved Co Ed overnighter. That’s the part we looked forward to.
But this being the LDS church, they had to make sure it wasn’t gender equal. Boys were allowed to wear any pants except sweats and any shirt with buttons. Suspenders and cowboy hats encouraged, but not required so as not to put any undue financial burden on their families. Girls? We had months and months of young women activities because we were required to sew our own skirts, bloomers, and bonnets. There was a lot of drama when some girls were told after all that work and expense that their fabric choices were too modern and would not be allowed “for historical accuracy.” Once we actually started trek, boys slept open air under the stars, while girls had to set up and take down tents each night. Girls were restricted from bringing any cosmetics including deodorant, but boys were encouraged to bring deodorant so as not to be ‘gross.’ The leaders even did a makeup check on the girls the first night. We all failed because they thought the dirt cashed on our eyelids we eyeshadow. There were no accommodations made for women and girls who happened to be on their periods, either.
All in all, we had a lot of fun as teens on trek, but adult me is baffled by the logistics and sexism. I think we could easily have had just as productive and fun an experience camping or doing a big service project.
Speaking of reenactments, this is also bizarre…
‘Road to Carthage Marathon’ to be run May 27.
But instead of ending with shootings and death, someone wins $5,000, like some twisted Mormon version of How It Should Have Ended.
My son has friends active in other churches who raise money and go on service projects building in Africa. Whilst I would be freaked out in all sorts of ways, I would much rather he was involved in something like that than this inward looking sanitisation of church history. Whilst not wanting to detract from their heroism, every person would have had compelling reasons for going, many of them less than heroic.
And whilst I’m at it, all missions should be health missions served in the developing world, probably assisting other agencies.
We’re a very navel gazing group.
I hated trek as a youth with a passion for many reasons, but mainly because I thought it was stupid to act out a tragedy. Do German kid act out the Holocaust to get a better appreciation of it? Of course not! That’s so ridiculous, but leaders in our church aren’t introspective enough to see the absurdity of these treks.
My parents were the top leaders the year I went. I was very vocal about hating it and not wanting to go, etc. The girls were forced to wear skirts and I refused to wear my down. I tied it up around my waste (I had bloomers on under) every day. I had many leaders threaten to send me home over it. Each time I would beg them to tell the leaders in charge to send me home. Of course, my parents were those leaders and they knew sending me home was a reward, not a punishment. So I stayed the whole time.
This was not almost 20 years ago and it still gets me hot under the collar thinking about it. My children will certainly never attend.
I think there’s some value to Trek, at least from the perspective of the church institution. The participants generally feel a stronger connection to the church’s history. The stronger that connection, the more they’ll self-identify as members of the church, making them less likely to leave it, at least in the near term.
There seem to be a variety of different types of “trek” with levels from grueling to dude-ranch, and the ones I’ve had anything to do with were relatively tame. Having 8 youth pulling one handcart for 6 hilly miles with plenty of water, a porta-potty traveling on a truck behind, and watermelon waiting for them at the end, just isn’t that bad, even if it is 100 degrees (dry heat). Yes, it could still kill someone (so a doctor walked with them and the porta-potty truck carried medical supplies), but for most healthy, somewhat-in-shape youth, it was well within their capabilities. Personally, I’m a fan of 50-mile hikes for YM (and YW, though I’ve never heard of YW doing it). I think there’s real value in having youth do moderately hard things like this with their friends. It creates a real camaraderie among them, and also helps them develop a certain resilience. You could certainly argue that there are better uses for the the resources Trek slurps up, but you can say that about any activity no matter what you come up with.
The argument against emotional manipulation doesn’t sway me much either — that’s what all those silly rom-coms and TV dramas do, and people love them. What’s crass and what’s evocative seems to just be a matter of taste.
Also, everybody likes the idea of raising money and building things in Africa (including me, actually), but generally speaking, Africa doesn’t need unskilled laborers. There’s actually some debate about whether this “service tourism” is really helpful at all. Obviously, anything that brings money to the poor is going to help at least briefly, but it’d usually be better to use the service tourists’ money to hire locals to work on the project, rather than spend it on airline tickets.
Both Trek and service tourism help develop sympathy/empathy for others. The big difference is that service tourists feel like they’re helping somebody, even if the help is marginal at best.
As a relative of a different person who died during a trek reenactment (and aware that there are others that didn’t make the news) … I can only tell you there is no way in xXxX my kids will be participating when their turn comes.
Why can we not create our own spiritual experiences, rather than try to recreate those of others?
One thing that could be done to make Trek more realistic would be to have someone in authority give them bad, potentially life threatening advice and see how many would go along without giving it a second thought.
I think they did that in Oklahoma GBSmith!
Just a few random thoughts, here.
I was just out of Young Women when Trek came along, and I’m actually glad I wasn’t placed in a position where I had to choose between wanting to wear pants and wanting to go on Trek. Because I really hated dresses back then. To-day, that rabid hate has faded to a merely moderate dislike. But I think I would ultimately have chosen staying home with my pants.
My second son went on a trek here in Germany a few years back. As far as I know, he had fun. But it doesn’t seem to have impacted his faith at all, as he no longer goes to church and claims he doesn’t believe in God anymore.
And, just to be sarcastic, I find I’m asking myself more and more why we don’t re-enact the exodus out of Egypt, with everybody dressing up like the ancient Egyptians and Hebrews. I mean, as Pete said, only about 5% of the pioneers travelled by handcart, yet a great majority of us are somehow related to somebody who came out of Egypt way back when. And come on, those costumes would be way more fun than those of the pioneers! Speaking of fun, what about re-enacting the golden calf, the parting of the Red Sea, the manna falling from heaven, and all that?
I suppose we should be grateful that we’re not re-enacting the 2000 Stripling Warriors, with women on the sidelines only allowed to give advice to their “sons” as they go off to a mock battle against the “Lamanites.”
Tobia,
2,000 ‘Stripling Warriors’ march down Main Street in Bountiful
Pete – please post links to any other bizarrely Mormon reenactments you know of. I’m dying laughing about the first two 😂
Elizabeth,
Here’s another one.
LDS Stakes Build Life-Sized Ark of the Covenant & Tabernacle, Give Tours to Other Faiths
. As for the safety on these treks, a modern doctor ain’t any good without his tools which are at the hospital! Just because you have a doctor or a nurse along doesn’t mean much, because even if they can better tell (diagnose) what is happening, what can they do more than common sense indicates? Treatment of heat stroke is fluids, drinking liquids if mild, IV fluids if severe. Putting needles into an arm while camping without water to waste washing is probably going to result in infections worse than dehydration. Also needed in severe cases are tests for electrolyte abnormalities in a hospital chemistry lab and IV solutions. Maybe an ice bath but the temperature of that had better be closely controlled or that could back fire.
We are both Mormons and so I hope this qualifies as a bizarre reenactment of some event in church history. We went on our own father and son (then 21 yr old) annual trek 2 summers ago.. He is a beast, looks like his Viking ancestors, and can carry probably about 150- 200 pounds in a backpack for several miles and runs a half marathon around 90 minutes. He has such a kind, gentle, amusing personality. We usually go into the Uintahs but the snow was too deep the time we were able to get out there so we switched to the Canyonlands. The temperature was supposed to be no higher than the 80’s F but when we got there it was 100-110 F. The water sources had already dried up to only small pot holes in stream beds about the size of a bath tub and very alkaline.
You know how it is with your kids, you’d do almost anything for them and he had planned this for quite a while and we have had such a great time on previous expeditions. And how many sons that age will take their dad’s camping and carry most of the weight including a Dutch oven?
We both drank around 7 nalgenes of water (32 oz each) the first day and seemed fine. We ran across a couple of college age girls who were in trouble that evening. They had only been there 2 days and had become too weak to carry their backpacks. Fortunately there was a route out not involving any cliffs. We set up camp, I fed them while my son packed up their cargo. Then he carried both of their packs and all three hiked out that night. At that point they were willing to run the risk of getting raped in order to get out of the desert. They all made it back to their car before sunrise. He trail ran about 10 miles back to our camp and was there about the time I had breakfast ready. (Yes, over 30 miles for him that first 24 hours).
But the next day I began to wilt. I drank 13 nalgenes the second day and was getting a little worse. We backpacked over 15 miles and camped that afternoon, rested and then hiked a few miles to see Druid arch and barely got back to our tent before dark. I could not eat. I was sweating one minute and shivering the next. Urine was clear and straw colored but I was thirsty and nauseated. I drank some more and thought the cool night would revive me. I developed severe muscle cramps and vomiting in the night. At ~5:00 am we had a discussion and decided to abort the rest of the trip. We were hiking a loop and were about 12 miles from our car. I thought he should run out and get help. He put everything in his massive pack and filled all 8 nalgenes. He said he could carry me and be out quicker than getting help and returning. One lesson we learned in a previous less-desperate circumstances is that psychologically it is far better to stick together if possible. It was getting light as we left and climbing down the small cliffs was not too dangerous.
I stumbled along at a steady slow pace until around 11:00 am when the temperature was getting hot. He slung my arm around his neck and half dragged me the last few hours. He wasn’t mean but he wasn’t gentle either. Extremely determined would be about right.
We had left fresh water in the car and turned the air conditioning on to about 60 F. I soon began to feel much better, not exactly well by the time we made it to Moab. and we didn’t stop at the hospital. I licked the salt off a small pack of french fries and sipped a large coke for the 200 miles to our relatives house. He wolfed down 2 cheeseburgers and a chocolate milkshake. I could see him eyeing the mountains with that longing look but he didn’t say anything negative . It was a great trip, we did our collective best and no harm done.
It took me two days to feel normal again. My cardiologist who has put 4 stents into my coronaries was not amused when I told him about this a few months later. He called it a “damned stupid stunt” and said I was lucky to be alive.
How much danger one might expect from an unfamiliar hostile environment is extremely individual and dependent on several factors which may not all be known. I didn’t see anyone in the desert older than half my age, most with only day packs and tons of water and close to naked and well-tanned. I didn’t see anyone else except us and the college girls with tents and overnight camping equipment. I theorize that my more than half century old kidneys couldn’t handle that much alkaline in the water. I seriously couldn’t drink enough to keep up. Maybe if I had lived there all my life it would have been a different story.
I think we accomplished the usual goal of the trek and certainly such circumstances inspire one to continuous heartfelt prayers and brings one closer to heaven (or hell). Just writing about this makes me thirsty.
If anyone wishes to repeat our experiences, good luck.