In Rescue on the Oregon Trail, the natural elements of the landscape and the wildlife on it both threaten and providefor the pioneers. By showing how the vast wilderness that surrounded the Oregon Trail supported the pioneers while also putting them in danger, the book explores the pioneer’s complicated relationship to the land.

The cycles of nature and its wildlife pose many hazards to the pioneers, who are strangers to the landscapes they’re traveling through. Sam Abbott and his family are frightened by the stampeding buffalo because the stampede could kill them or destroy their wagons: “Turn, turn! He willed the buffalo to change course. If they didn’t, they’d stomp the wagons into splinters” (49). Likewise, the river crossings make the Abbott family vulnerable because they need to navigate the currents with their farm animals in tow. Ma Abbott calls the Snake River crossing “treacherous” because of its reputation as a place where pioneers and animals are overwhelmed by the currents. By describing how the river nearly claims Pa Abbott’s life, the book shows how nature routinely threatened the lives of the pioneers.

However, the land also offers valuable resources to the Abbott family, who forage and hunt from the land to supplement their provisions, which cannot last them from town to town.