If your family has a pioneer spirit and won't mind sitting on wooden benches riding over bumpy prairie land, then a covered wagon ride is the perfect adventure for you.
Wagon rides let your family reenact the original journeys that our ancestors made into the West more than 100 years ago. These historical trips are a great chance to relive history--you may even be asked to wear period dress, help with KP duties and eat from a chuck wagon to preserve the authenticity of the wagon train.
FORT SEWARD WAGON TRAIN
JAMESTOWN, NORTH DAKOTA
Since 1969, the Fort Seward wagon train company has been giving families a taste of the Old West, in its most primative and basic form. Held once each year in June, tours usually begin at Jamestown and roll across the Prairie Rose Trail.
You'll be expected to dress in period costume (long dresses and bonnets for the ladies and vests and suspenders for the gentlemen), for your journey over the rolling North Dakota prairie. Authentic canvas-topped box wagons pulled by draft horses and mules will give you a feel for what life was like for the pioneers. Your pioneer family experience will include KP duties, stops at historical sites and evening campsite activities such as period games, singing, skits and nature lore.
Fees, including meals, are $425 for adults, $325 for teens ages 13 to 18 and $275 for kids age 12 and under. Groups of three or more are given a 10 percent discount. These trips tend to fill up fast, so make your reservations early. Call 701-252-6844 or visit their Web site for more details.
Katherine Eastman, a former travel editor at FAMILYFUN, lives and writes in New York City.
Please keep in mind that phone numbers, addresses, and prices are subject to change. Updated July 2005.
