One Ioway woman, Marie Dorion (or Dorion Woman), became, like the Shoshone woman Sacajawea of the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804—06, a renowned guide, interpreter, and peacemaker with western tribes. She was 20 years old and living along the Red River in present-day Arkansas when she met and married Pierre Dorion, Jr., a French Canadian—Sioux trader, working between St. Louis and the MANDAN villages. While on a trip to St. Louis, Pierre Dorion was hired to join the expedition to the Pacific Northwest backed by John Jacob Astor and headed by Wilson Price Hunt. It was agreed that his wife and two sons could go along. The expedition set out from St. Louis in March 1811 and reached Astoria at the mouth of the Columbia in present-day Oregon in February 1812. The presence of Marie Dorion, who translated for Hunt, helped convince tribes of the Astorians’ peaceful intentions. In December, Marie Dorion gave birth to a third boy, who died within eight days.
Because of the War of 1812, Astoria was sold to the North West Company out of Canada. The members of the Astor Expedition set out on the return trip in 1813. Another group including the Dorions departed for the Snake River country of what now is Idaho to find an earlier trapping party, collect pelts, then meet up with the Astorians returning to St. Louis. But all were killed in this group—most in attacks by local Indians—except Dorion Woman and her boys. In 1814, she managed to cross the
Snake River but could not pass through the Blue Mountains in winter. She killed her horses, drying their meat for food and using the hides for a tent. In the spring, she led her boys safely through the wilderness to WALLA WALLA country in eastern Washington. Her trip to safety was about 250 miles. Dorion Woman met up here with the other Astorians and reported the fate of her party. She did not return with them to St. Louis, however, staying in the Pacific Northwest and remarrying. Her oldest son, Baptiste Dorion, became an interpreter attached to the Hudson’s Bay Company on the Columbia River.
World History
