It was also, crucially, a completed expedition: the Corps reached the Pacific and returned to the Missouri River settlements.

Sacagawea’s role was significant and has been well-documented precisely because the expedition produced extensive written records.

Marie Dorion traveled with a commercial fur-trade expedition that was not well-supplied by any standards, that lost its way repeatedly, that experienced catastrophic losses of men and equipment, and that produced documentary records that were fragmentary and often not published in accessible forms for many years after the events they described.

She then experienced the death of her husband in an attack that also killed most of the men around her, and survived a solo winter journey through terrain that had no analogous challenges in the Lewis and Clark record.