Book Review: The Snow Fell Three Graves Deep: Voices from the Donner Party by Allan Wolf

The Donner Party left a bloody footnote in United States history and this book is a novelization about their journey and hardships.

Can you imagine walking across the United States? Can you imagine what it was like to be a part of the Great Western Expansion when hundreds of people walked, rode horses, traveled by wagon across the United States? Did you know that these wagon trains traveled on average at about 3 miles per hour? We drive across this country now and pick up a bite to eat or visit a bathroom at a rest stop. It still feels like a gargantuan endeavor, but early settlers faced difficult challenges - bad weather, illness, few resources… BUT the Donner Party faced unfathomable difficulties and even harder choices when they chose to travel a relatively new path AND the weather turned bad much earlier than expected. I mean really bad. Seriously folks, 15-20 FEET OF SNOW. That makes even the worst of our New Hampshire winters seem tame.

Read this historical fiction pieced together by author Allan Wolf from documents and stories shared by both survivors and those who perished (through letters and journals.) And yes, there is cannibalism involved - so if you are squeamish - don’t pick up this book. But if you are brave enough to crack open these pages - put yourself in their shoes and think about how you might survive. Think about how each person carries within themselves the possibility of heroic and villainous acts - often times both.

Finally, note that there are extensive notes at the end of this novel. Please check them out before you start reading - you will find a list of characters (put a bookmark on this page because it is hard to keep everyone straight), a timeline, short biographies of the characters in this story, some glossaries and more. Some you might want to read before you get started, and some you might want to leave until the end. But know they are there.