The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of the Donner Party

by Daniel James Brown

This was an ancient landscape, shaped only by tectonic forces and by wind and rain and thundering herds of buffalo. It was virtually untouched by the hand of man, except for the pony trails and occasional villages of Native Americans, and it had endured thus for tens of thousands of years. Sarah’s generation was among the first European Americans to behold it and would also be among the last to see it in all its pristine glory, so rapid were the transformations that were coming.

The climb had taken much out of all of them, but the men in particular were fatigued and dispirited. Since leaving the Camp of Death, the women had more and more often found themselves having to take the initiative, setting the course, sometimes leading the men by the hands, gathering the wood, making the fires at night, bringing them food. A Donner Party survivor later told J. Quinn Thornton, author of one account of the snowshoe expedition, that the men had been ready to give up well before the women.

Survival psychologists have since discovered that the people who are most likely to live through extreme, life-and-death challenges are those who open their eyes to the wonders of the world around them, even as their own lives hang in the balance. To appreciate beauty is to experience humility—to recognize that something larger and more powerful than oneself is at work in the environment. And humility, it turns out, is key to recognizing that in order to survive, you must adapt yourself to the environment, that it won’t adapt to your needs.