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(#7) She Walked 250 Miles In 53 Days Through Horrible Weather Conditions
Faced with a camp full of corpses, Marie and her children set out for civilization and refuge in the dead of winter. After almost ten days of traveling, their expedition was halted by the deep mountain snows. Marie built a shelter of wood and animal skins, but shortly thereafter, the family ran out of food. Marie was forced to kill their two horses, whose meat they subsisted upon for 53 days.
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(#6) She Left Her Camp On A Mission, And When She Returned, Everyone Was Dead
When Marie reached her destination three days later, she discovered that her husband's party had been ambushed and slaughtered. One of the men, Giles LeClerc, was still alive and wounded. So Marie strapped him to a horse and guided the animal back to the base camp, through three days of arctic winter tempests.
Despite Marie's best efforts, LeClerc perished en route. But what happened next was even more horrible. Upon arriving back at the base camp, Marie found that the inhabitants there had also been murdered, mutilated, and scalped.
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(#2) Her Husband Rode A Horse Through The Rugged Territory, But Marie Walked It Like A Pro
When the Astor expedition left, they departed with an inadequate number of horses. Though most of the steeds were used as pack animals, Pierre Dorion rode one of them, while his wife walked alongside him with their youngest child strapped to her back. When the party reached the Snake River (a tributary of the Columbia), they abandoned their animals and constructed canoes to navigate the waters.
The remaining water-borne miles turned out to be lethally difficult to navigate: one person drowned, and the bulk of the expedition's food supplies were swept into the current, as well. As for Marie, she walked along the banks, apparently keeping perfect pace (along with her two sons) with the rest of the struggling expedition.
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(#3) She Was Pregnant Throughout Her Ordeal - And Gave Birth Under Harrowing Circumstances
In addition to being responsible for her two existing children, Marie had an especially daunting trial to contend with during the expedition: she was eight months pregnant. As her time drew near, the members of her party finally came to their senses and gave her a horse to use, and in December of 1811, she gave birth to her third child.
After the birth, the group apparently considered killing and cooking Marie’s horse for dinner, as they were all starving. But under the circumstances, they ultimately (if perhaps grudgingly) voted not to.
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(#10) Her Story Rivals The Story Told In 'The Revenant'
If you thought Leonardo DiCaprio's character in The Revenant was tough stuff, you haven't met Marie Dorion. He may have killed bears and wrecked havoc with his own hands after a near-fatal experience, but Dorion did it all and then some, while toting children with her. As the adage goes, "Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, except backwards and in high heels."
Six years after Native American legendary badass Sacajawea fearlessly led white explorers west, Marie Dorion helped her husband lead fur trappers through the wintery wild west... and when all the men died, she and her children kept going.
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(#8) She And Her Children Successfully Navigated The Winter Wilderness
When spring came, they set out once again, this time on foot, but got caught in a surprise blizzard. The children's feet were bleeding and they were too debilitated to go on, so Marie chose to burrow a hole and line it with fur. She placed her sons inside and ventured out on her own to find help. She was found, dogged and partially snow-blind, by the Walla Walla tribe, who took her in and sent a party to rescue her sons. Finally, she was reunited with a Fort Astoria group who relocated her and her children to Fort Okanogan in present-day Washington.
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About This Tool
Almost all Americans know the story of Sacajawea, whose head is printed on the new one-dollar commemorative gold coin. She is a legendary Indian woman in the western pioneering period in American history. But few people know who Marie Dorion is, but after 6 years of the expedition in Sacagavia, the 21-year-old Indian woman accompanied the expedition to the Columbia River Estuary for a second expedition.
At that time, no one in the United States dared to cross this vast and unknown area. Marie Dorion was the only woman in a land expedition funded by John Jacob Astor to establish a fur trading post at the mouth of the Columbia River. The random tool introduced 11 untold stories about this great woman in American history.
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