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• 1 media/julieshaferuntitleddivergingpaths2018.jpeg 2020-05-10T01:52:27+00:00 Follow Water 12 Denise Johnson Interviews Julie Shafer Pt. 3 plain 2020-05-18T18:32:05+00:00 Julie Shafer describes the challenging conditions of moving through and photographing sites along the trail.
  
  
  
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  Transcript:
  
  "Yeah, I mean it was really important to me that I try to get as best an understanding as I could of what it would have been like out there. And that’s like an impossible thing to do, but you know, I wanted to make that effort.  And so, when I was out at The Parting of the Ways it was in the middle of summer - it was July - and that’s about the time they would have been, you know sometime in early to mid July they would have been at Parting of the Ways. And, it was about 110 degrees out, and because of the flatness of these plains, the days are very long. Very, very long. Sun rises early, sets late, and there is no cover anywhere. And I don’t think that it was just unseasonably warm or anything. You know, I think that was the condition that they would have been in. Also, mosquitoes are everywhere. Like, the worst mosquito situation I’ve been in. So, at that point, it’s like hot, malnourished, most of the people traveling on there were sick just from like contaminated water, or other sort of like diseases you know going through these wagon trains. So, like cholera, malaria, very common. So they’re also just weak from disease, weak from walking on foot a thousand miles, and hot and there’s just no relief in sight. And so, at that moment, where you have to decide between the two, I can just imagine wanting the trip to end, so that cutting off several days, or you know like practically a week from the journey, would be  very appealing. But I can’t imagine that thought lasting very long because the thought of not having water in those conditions just seemed unmanageable. You know like the animals would collapse and die, they would collapse and you know just be so dehydrated. And so, I believe most people chose the longer path. And you know like water was their life line, so like anywhere you could follow it, they would." Julie Shafer May 5, 2020