Snowfall, northern Sierras, 1847

The ill-fated journey of the Donner-Reed party, a group of American pioneers who journeyed from Springfield, Illinois to California in 1847-48, is well known in the United States as the most disastrous overland migration endeavor. Instead of following the known California trail, the group took a less-explored shortcut, got trapped by a snowstorm in Sierra Nevada and, desperate and starving, resorted to cannibalism. The story is significant beyond its historical value; in American folklore, it has become a tale of American exceptionalism, of ignorance and arrogance.