Between Sand and Snow — Chris Manfield

Between sand and snow, across the vast high-desert-scape of the North American continent lies the second longest highway in the United States. This east-west transcontinental freeway followed the same course westward passing through towns that were originally established to service the Oregon Trail, one of the two principal routes that moved people and commerce across the continent in the 19th century.

A widely held cultural belief that American settlers were destined to expand across the North American Continent was fueled by the belief of the supremacy of European institutions, agricultural systems, and the desire to redeem Eurocentric Old World through the potentialities of building a new one. Manifest Destiny has been remarked by contemporary historians as an ideology that was used as a propaganda to justify the genocide of Indigenous people that followed the expansion of European colonies across the continent.

Now abandoned like empty tombs, these synthetic structures stood along the outstretch of the black asphalt snake, manifesting rust. Today the Interstate 80 can be seen from outer space as a notable incision that cuts through the world’s largest granite slab — the Sierra Nevada.