The Oxcart Trail by Herbert Krause (1954; Brevet Press (Originally, Bobbs-Merrill Co.) ISBN 088-4-980-472)
Most of you have no idea that little Friberg Township in Otter Tail County, Minnesota produced two great men in the first decade of the 20th century. The first, born in 1908, was novelist and long-time Augustana College (Sioux Falls, S.D.) faculty member, Herbert Krause. The second was State Rep. Willard Munger (my uncle and Minnesota’s foremost environmentalist) born in 1911. You can read about Willard in my biography, Mr. Environment: The Willard Munger Story. To learn about and understand Herbert Krause, you need to read his novels.
Krause and Munger were both raised in Friberg Township in German Missouri Synod Lutheran families. Both came from farming stock; strong and stout hearted men ruled their families and tilled the often difficult soil of the place Krause called “Pockerbrush”. In the 1930s and 1940s, Krause, then teaching at Augustana, wrote two nationally acclaimed novels depicting the harsh life of his upbringing; Wind Without Rain and The Thresher. Both books are highly recommended as fine pieces of literature and compelling stories. Krause’s last novel, The Oxcart Trail, which was originally released by his publisher, Bobbs-Merrill in 1954 (the year I was born), unfortunately does not measure up to the author’s previous work.
Much different in setting and tone, The Oxcart Trail is, in some ways, a prequel to Krause’s more successful fiction. Set in the early 1850s in St. Paul, the tale chronicles the journey of Shawnie Dark, a young twenty-something from the East on the run from his past. Dark seeks refuge with an uncle in the burgeoning frontier town that will, with some spit, polish, and money, become Minnesota’s state capital city. But while the book’s narrative accurately portrays the life and times of the setting, that’s where the similarities between Oxcart and Krause’s seminal works of fiction diverge. The plot, Dark’s journey from St. Paul to Otter Tail County, while clear and precise in the little details of life on the oxcart trail, lacks any real urgency, feeling, or angst. The love story between Black and a young school teacher-missionary, seems celluloid. Indeed, the entirety of the book seems caught between dime novel and 1930s cinema depictions of settling the Old West.
A fine book to read if you want to know everything possible about St. Paul, Minnesota in the 1850s or if you are from Pockerbrush, since many landscape icons (lakes, trails, rivers) present in the story remain today. But beyond that, as compared to Krause’s earlier work, The Oxcart Trail is a real disappointment.In fairness to Krause, he was pushed hard by Bobbs-Merrill to make his last book (last by his own choice since he lived a long life after its publication but did not write another novel) less dark and onerous than Wind or The Thresher. That’s too bad because, in the hands of the man who gave us those wonderful bits of Minnesota prose, The Oxcart Trail could have rivaled their literary flair and story.
2 1/2 stars out of 5
