Pierre Jr. had a Sioux mother, spoke multiple Indigenous languages in addition to French and English, and had spent his life in the borderland cultures of the upper Missouri River country.

He was exactly the kind of interpreter that Wilson Price Hunt needed for an expedition that would move through the territories of many different Indigenous nations, requiring constant negotiation and communication.

Hunt’s initial resistance to bringing Marie and the children was real.

He understood the practical arguments against it: additional mouths to feed, potential slowing of progress, responsibility for dependents who could not contribute full adult labor to the expedition.

These were not frivolous concerns.