Crossing re-enactment reconsidered

GLENNS FERRY, Idaho — Organizers are going ahead with the annual ceremony commemorating pioneers crossing the Snake River in the 1840s, but the actual re-enactment of the crossing is in doubt after two horses were killed in a rehearsal last weekend.

A review of the Sunday afternoon incident was under way, Three Island Crossing State Park Manager John Frank said, and Three Island Crossing Committee events coordinator Peggy Bybee said a decision would be made today.

One advocate of the event was adamant on Tuesday about carrying on the tradition that he says has meant so much to people.

“Every crossing I’ve been in, it’s a pretty big show,” said Perry Pleyte of Bliss, who has been in five crossings. “We have 3,000 people down there watching, and they come up afterward with tears in their eyes because it reminds them of grandfathers or great-grandfathers and what they went through.

“It’s a pretty good idea to look backward as well as forward,” Pleyte said.

During Sunday’s rehearsal for the Aug. 14 event, two Belgian draft horses pulling a wagon into the river got tangled in the rigging and were pulled downstream into a hole in the riverbed and drowned.

It was the third time that has happened in the 18-year history of the event.

A mule that had never crossed deep water before was drowned during a rehearsal last year, and a riding horse that was improperly harnessed drowned several years ago. While dozens of re-enacters, including U.S. Sen. Michael Crapo in 1998, have been dumped from wagons or horses over the years, none has drowned.

Pleyte said the 2,000-pound horses began turning in a circle after the wagon driver and others could not release the wagon.

As a result, he said the horses kept getting pushed downriver by the current off the crossing track and into the hole. The accident, he said, will probably lead to improved release mechanisms to separate wagons from teams.

“That crossing is always a tough crossing. That’s what the pioneers faced,” Pleyte said. “There are a lot of precautions taken. The horses are near and dear to us.”

“There’s a real pall cast over this thing now,” he said.

“But freak accidents happen no matter what, and this was just a freak accident. I’d hate to see this thing go by the wayside because people freak out about it.”