14/06/2025
Marie Dorion lived a life shaped by both hardship and quiet heroism. Born around 1786 to an Iowa (or Ioway) Native American mother and a French Canadian father, she grew up in a world where cultures met, clashed, and often tried to erase one another. As a Métis woman, she understood survival early on—not just in the natural sense, but socially, culturally, and spiritually.
When she joined the Pacific Fur Company expedition westward in 1811, it wasn’t as an observer. She was the only woman in a group of fur traders traveling into what’s now Oregon, bringing with her not only her young children but also her skills as a healer, guide, and interpreter. She was strong, sharp, and accustomed to the rhythms of wilderness life. But the journey was treacherous, and the story took a brutal turn.
After her husband and several other men in the party were murdered, Marie was left alone in the dead of winter with her two children. She was deep in unfamiliar territory, with little food, no weapons, and no guarantee of kindness from strangers. What followed is almost mythic in its endurance—she traveled over 200 miles across the snow-covered Blue Mountains on foot. She hunted, foraged, and protected her children against starvation and exposure. She made snowshoes from bark. She carried one child while pushing the other forward, teaching them how to survive in a world that seemed determined to see them vanish.
Both children died. One on the trail, one just after. Still, she kept going.
Eventually, she reached help. She survived.
And even after such unthinkable loss, Marie Dorion continued. She remarried, gave birth again, and lived in what is now Oregon. She raised children, healed others, and worked land with her hands. She was known for her strength, her silence, and her skill with medicinal plants. Some called her a mystic. Some called her fierce. History rarely called her anything at all.
