Western history is ripe with stories of women who exceeded all expectations and capabilities. But perhaps no other can compare with Marie Dorion.
A native woman of the Iowa people, Dorion set out from Saint Louis, Missouri, in March 1811 on an expedition to the west coast with her husband Pierre and the Pacific Fur Company.
As if that weren’t enough of a challenge, she brought along her two sons, ages two and four. Across plains and mountains, she rode with, walked with, and carried them through terrain that tested the hardiest trappers and explorers.
And there was another child in the offing—Dorion was pregnant.
The brigade made its way west and through the Wind River Canyon, then followed the river into the mountains to cross Union Pass. Setting up camp in the Green River Valley not far from the Hoback Rim, the company paused for a buffalo hunt, assembling packs holding two tons of jerky of their own make and another ton from trade with Indians.
Most of the supply ended up cached, however, when the leaders, upon reaching the Snake River, decided to abandon the horses, cache most of the supplies, and attempt a river passage—which proved unsuccessful and resulted in severe hunger and hardship. (Some accounts claim this happened on the other branch of the Snake River, Henry’s Fork.)
The brigade divided into three smaller groups and set out again for Astoria. The party Dorion traveled with obtained a few horses from Shoshone bands who sometimes offered aid and shelter as they traveled.
Along the way, near the end of December, the Dorion family paused as she gave birth to her third child. It is said the baby—its sex is unknown—was perhaps the first with white blood born in the far West. She mounted a horse the next day and rode some 20 miles to catch up to the party. The baby lived only a few days.
Nearly a year after setting out, they reached Astoria on the west coast in February of 1812.
More than a year later, in July 1813, Dorion accompanied her husband, Pierre, and other trappers to the Snake River at the mouth of the Boise River to trap and obtain horses.
Dorion tended camp, cooked meals, and dressed hides. In January, one of the trappers came into camp bloody and beaten, telling Dorion that Bannock Indians had attacked and killed all the trappers, including her husband.
She loaded the wounded man onto one of the two horses available, mounted herself, her two children, and the few supplies she could carry on the other, and left for Astoria—hundreds of winter miles away—dodging Indian attacks as they went. The trapper soon succumbed to his injuries.
Reaching the Blue Mountains, exhausted and hungry—she denied herself adequate rations in order to feed her children — Dorion found an isolated ravine and built a shelter covered with the few hides she carried, adding to them the skins of her two horses, killed for food.
Fifty-three days later, in March 1814, Dorion again hit the trail for Astoria with only the scant remnants of the dried horsemeat and her children. Through snow and storms she trudged on, crossing the Blue Mountains and reaching the Walla Walla River. She followed the stream for 15 more days to its confluence with the Columbia.
Hungry, cold, and exhausted, Dorion saw smoke in the distance. Barely able to go on, she hollowed out a snow cave and hid the boys—wrapped in a buffalo robe and hides—then staggered on toward the smoke. The campfires, as it happened, burned at a friendly village of Walla Walla Indians. Dorion was discovered wandering, snow blind, by villagers who gave her shelter and brought in the boys.
An eastbound brigade out of Astoria found Dorion at the village in April and took her and the boys to Fort Okanogan, a fur-trapping outpost in present-day Washington. Dorion stayed there for several years, married a French-Canadian trapper, and gave birth to a daughter. That husband, too, was killed in a skirmish with Indians.
Seeming to have an affinity for French-Canadians, Dorion married yet another, this one an interpreter, and added another son and daughter to the family. In 1841 they relocated to Oregon and were among the first settlers in the Willamette Valley. Marie Dorion died in Saint Louis, Oregon, on September 5, 1850.
Despite a life of adventure, hardship, and bravery, Marie Dorion does not receive the recognition in history she earned and deserves. Other than a scattering of cursory historical markers commemorating her accomplishments there are few reminders of the woman who may well have been the toughest in the Old West.
Utah Historian R. B. Miller can be reached at writerRodMiller@gmail.com
