The Woods Trail

The Pembina Oxcart Trails were a series of meandering, rough and rugged, well worked trade routes that traced down from the Metis settlement , located in Pembina, ND, to St. Paul, MN. These Trails, also known as the Red River Oxcart trails, were composed of three main routes; The Woods Trail, The West Plains Trail, and The East Plains Trail. The Trails were originally used primarily for bringing furs down from the settlement in exchange for goods to be used on the frontier.

Most of the trail has been destroyed by years of plowing and has nearly been forgotten, but many relics and reminders still remain and exist in new forms such as old minimum maintenance roads, ruts in the sod across preserved prairie, or rough double track that wind through the woods.

A couple years back, on a Tuesday night in late October, I hitched a ride to Pembina. I set out to learn more about these Trails by experiencing them first hand with a modern twist. I planned a solo bikepacking trip with the intent of retracing and finding what remained of these lost and forgotten Trails.

The Woods Trail bikepacking route