“The men fetched water and gathered fuel, where firewood could be found; otherwise the women and children helped gather dried ‘Ko-kasser,’ as we call them in Danish, since on the great plains along the Platte River there were enough of that kind, from the abundant buffalo herds which existed there at that time.”1 (Ko-kasser was the Danish pioneers’ word for dried buffalo dung, commonly called “buffalo chips” by English-speaking pioneers.)

[1] C. C. A. Christensen, in Richard L. Jensen, translator, “By Handcart to Utah: The Account of C. C. A. Christensen,” Nebraska History 66 (1985), 341.

Mormon Handcart

Historic Sites

An Artist’s Record of Daily Life on the Trail

Points of Interest