I recently watched a movie called The Way Back. It’s the harrowing story of how a small group of prisoners in a Russian gulag escape and walk 4,000 miles to India and freedom. It’s a compelling film and it touches on a topic that is far too neglected: the horrors that the Soviets perpetrated on the world.
But that is not why I’m writing about it now. I am writing about it now because it made me think of the Mormon pioneers. What do Russian gulag escapees and Mormon pioneers have in common? Walking a long way.
I couldn’t help but compare this film to Legacy, the Mormon church’s first attempt at a full-length feature film. The movie has it’s virtues, and I remember liking it when I first saw it as a child, but a more recent viewing of it made me realize that it portrayed the trek to the Salt Lake Valley as a fairly pleasant stroll across the plains, except for a few annoying episodes. The film’s shots of beautiful vistas and brilliant sunsets outshine the pioneers’ struggles with a dying ox or a wagon stuck in the mud.
The Way Back, on the other hand, conveys real suffering. While watching it, I felt for these people it portrayed and I thanked my lucky stars that I was safe and warm and comfortable and hydrated and fed. And seeing that kind of suffering on screen made me realize one important thing: I will never fully comprehend it because I will never experience anything comparable.
In the church, we like to send youths on Pioneer treks. While I’m not arguing that these outings don’t have any benefits, or that we should discontinue doing them, I will say that if their intent is to get youths to understand what the pioneers went through, they fall way short of that mark, and they run the risk of doing just the opposite. Hiking for a few days in bonnets and cowboy hats isn’t enough to fully realize what the pioneers suffered over the months of their trek. And if someone does think that they understand that kind of suffering after such an outing, they are shortchanging what the pioneers went through. There is no way for any of us to comprehend that because you can’t organize that kind of suffering, the kind from which there is no escape, and no one would volunteer to go through with it even if you could.
I don’t fully understand the suffering that the pioneers went through. And not understanding it, I am in awe of it. Could I have done it if I lived during that time? I’d like to think so. But I am overwhelmingly grateful that I don’t have to find out.