Train Dreams

Frontier life in the Northwest United States in the early 1900s marked a collision between industrialization and wilderness. The Spokane International Railway, which operated from 1906-1958, figures prominently in Robert Grainier’s life in Train Dreams—not only is he a laborer who helps construct parts of the railroad, but he also frequently rides it, dreams of it, and hears it in the distance. Running for about 150 miles, the railway covered the expanse from British Columbia down through Spokane and into the Idaho Panhandle (Burns, Adam. “Spokane International Railroad: May, History, Photos.” American Rails, 13 Aug. 2024). The logging industry also encroached upon the landscape, becoming one of the predominant industries in the Pacific Northwest, one that Grainier contributes to in multiple ways. Despite his role in industrialization, Grainer also pushes back against it, resisting change by using horses and a wagon and by living remotely in the woods.

Socially, at that time, there was tension among different groups of people. When Idaho became a state in 1890, it was already home to several Indigenous peoples, including the Shoshoni, Kootenai, and Nez Perce. In Train Dreams, although the Kootenai interact with the residents of the frontier towns, the white settlers still harbor prejudice against them. This is evident in Johnson’s diction, in which he adopts the settlers’ voice, sometimes referring to the Kootenai as “mad” or “un-Christian.” Additionally, white settlers also distrusted the large population of Chinese laborers in the region. This anti-Chinese sentiment is reflected in the narrative’s opening scene, in which Grainier joins the effort to kill a Chinese laborer for supposed theft. Grainier’s actions reflect the nation’s attitude, at the US Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 barred immigrants from China, and “in Idaho, white residents held an anti-Chinese convention in Boise in 1886, and throughout the next two decades, towns like Moscow and Clark Fork forcibly expelled their Chinese residents” (Cartan-Hansen, Joan, et. al. “Forgotten Neighbors: Idaho’s Chinese Immigrants: Idaho Experience.” PBS LearningMedia, 2018). In fact, Grainier recounts that his earliest memory was when he and his uncle “observ[ed] the mass deportation of a hundred or more Chinese families from the town” (27). As a result, Train Dreams depicts not only the harsh landscape of the American frontier, but its societal prejudice as well, grounding the narrative in real-world historical context.