The Snow Was Already Deep When She Left

The warning came in January 1814, in the country along the Boise River in what is now southwestern Idaho.

Marie Dorion was at the base camp.

Her two young sons were with her.

Somewhere upstream, her husband Pierre was trapping beaver with a small group of men.

A Shoshone came to warn her.

The Bannock were going to attack the camps.

Marie did not wait to gather more information.

She loaded her children onto a horse, took whatever supplies she could carry, and rode toward Pierre’s camp through the winter landscape.

It took her three days.

Three days of moving through mountain snow in January, with two small children, toward a camp she had been told was already in danger.

The temperature was well below freezing.

The terrain was steep and broken.

There was no trail in the modern sense of the word.

She was navigating by her knowledge of the country and her understanding of where Pierre had gone.

When she arrived, Pierre Dorion was dead.

So was the rest of the party.

Marie gathered what she could carry.