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Sierra Nevada has lot of animals. Even today, people go into national forests there to hunt deer, bear, birds, fish, etc. Why couldn't the Donner Party hunt animals to survive the winter? Animals don't just disappear in winter, do they?
They could have fished. They were camped next to a lake. People ice fish when a lake freezes. I can't believe that it never occurred to them. They were so ill prepared that they might have not possessed any fishing gear, but one would think that they could have improvised. The lake drains into the Truckee River. I think I recall the McGlashan 1880 history of the Donner Party touching on that possibility and mystery.
They had Native guides with them. If anyone knows how to survive out in the middle of "nowhere", it's Native people. But they snuck off in the wee hours of the morning, after some of the members of the party started looking at them hungrily, desperately.
The Donner Party did not have "Native guides." There were Natives living in the area who tried to help them, but those in the Donner party didn't trust them. If they had, they would have made it through.
Until now the Native American perspective has been left out of the telling of the Donner tragedy, not because the wel mel ti did not remember the pioneers, but because they were never asked, or perhaps were not ready to share. Their oral tradition recalls the starving strangers who camped in an area that was unsuitable for that time of year. Taking pity on the pioneers, the northern Washoe attempted to feed them, leaving rabbit meat and wild potatoes near the camps. Another account states that they tried to bring the Donner Party a deer carcass, but were shot at as they approached. Later, some wel mel ti observed the migrants eating human remains. Fearing for their lives, the area's native inhabitants continued to watch the strangers but avoided further contact. These stories, and the archaeological evidence that appears to support them, certainly complicated my interpretation of the Donner Party event.
At the camp by Donner Lake, the snowpack that winter was in excess of 15 feet. There was no significant game, as it had all retreated to lower elevations. And since the party were not equipped to winter in the Sierra Nevada at 6000', they had no effective means of travel across the snow. Anyway, shotgun shells aren't going to last long using them to harvest squirrels and chickadees, nor would there be all that much left to survive the blasts. Of course they tried fishing. Seriously, I cannot fathom why anyone would assume they did not. Their attempts failed.
Anyway, these people were not Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. While some members were lower class and had led hardscrabble lives from which they gleaned a measure of self-sufficiency, the majority were successful and were used to higher living, with servants. Their eastern and midwestern experiences were mostly useless in the winter wilderness of the high western mountains.
The Donner Party did not have "Native guides." There were Natives living in the area who tried to help them, but those in the Donner party didn't trust them. If they had, they would have made it through.
At the camp by Donner Lake, the snowpack that winter was in excess of 15 feet. There was no significant game, as it had all retreated to lower elevations. And since the party were not equipped to winter in the Sierra Nevada at 6000', they had no effective means of travel across the snow. Anyway, shotgun shells aren't going to last long using them to harvest squirrels and chickadees, nor would there be all that much left to survive the blasts. Of course they tried fishing. Seriously, I cannot fathom why anyone would assume they did not. Their attempts failed.
Anyway, these people were not Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie. While some members were lower class and had led hardscrabble lives from which they gleaned a measure of self-sufficiency, the majority were successful and were used to higher living, with servants. Their eastern and midwestern experiences were mostly useless in the winter wilderness of the high western mountains.
I was thinking what Flavius said here. They probably could barely move because of the heavy snow in the mountains, let alone hunt and catch wild animals. Not to mention most animals were either hibernating or had moved onto warmer climates.
......... Animals don't just disappear in winter, do they?
Yes, actually, they do. Bears and the squirrels hibernate and the deer and elk move to lower elevations where there is much less snow. There isn't going to be much moving around at high elevations with deep snow.
There has to be some sort of equipment needed before one can ice fish and ice fishing is a skill that a person must know how to do.
You talk about going up into the National Forests to hunt and fish, that isn't done in the dead of winter. Hunting season is in the fall and hunters move off the mountain before the snows get deep. In fact, there is a thing called a "hunting trailer". That is a small cheap RV that is so cheap that it can be abandoned if the hunter get caught in a snow storm. They will abandon their camp and probably not be able to go back to see if any of their gear survived until late spring.
Also, pointing out that a few city folks die in the mountains and snow every year, even today with all of our modern vehicles and technology. There are skills needed to survive winter in the wilderness and if you don't have the skills, you probably won't survive.
Last edited by oregonwoodsmoke; 09-19-2022 at 09:19 AM..
There has to be some sort of equipment needed before one can ice fish and ice fishing is a skill that a person must know how to do.
Just to expand on this one question regarding why the Donner Party didn't fish for food...because it would have been nigh near impossible.
My family has had property on a small mid-western lake for 80 years. The lake always has ice fishermen during the winter. While I never had the patience for it, I have observed that the fishermen always congregate at that point in the lake where it's deepest. Fish go deep in the winter, as that's where it's warmest during the winter, due to seasonal lake inversion.
Going back to the winter of 1846-1847 at Truckee Lake, the settlers would have to dig down through the several feet of snow, chop a hole through ice that's probably a foot thick, come up with some sort of line, hook and bait, and then try to get the bait down to the deepest part of the lake. Truckee Lake (now Donner Lake) is nearly three miles long, half a mile wide, and more than 200 feet deep.
To put it succinctly, ice fishing wasn't going to be successful for a group of people who never ice fished before and lacked the necessary basic tools for it.
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