Donner Party

Searching for Tamsen Donner Gabrielle Burton University of Nebraska Press: 328 pp., $26.95 -- It's little wonder that some people remain obsessed by the story of the Donner Party. We all know the basic outline: An emigrant wagon train of 90 people headed for California starts west out of Illinois and Missouri in the spring of 1846. By the time the wagons and the walkers hit the eastern edge of the Sierra months later, they've already been cursed by bad luck, bad leadership and bad advice.

Nudging the history books, archeologists studying one of two campsites used by the ill-fated Donner Party during a snowbound Sierra winter 160 years ago announced Thursday that a study had unearthed no physical evidence of cannibalism. The stranded emigrants settled into two camps during the harsh winter of 1846 and '47, and previous scientific studies confirmed cannibalism at the principal encampment, on the east shore of what is now Donner Lake.

DECLARING THAT there may be a shortage of evidence for cannibalism in the Donner Party is like announcing that the Titanic may still be afloat -- the most notable chapter of a legendary story is thrown into doubt. The tale of the ill-fated pioneers of 1846 has transfixed Americans for a century and a half at least in part because of one universally known fact: snowbound and starving in the Sierra Nevada, members of the company were forced, out of dire necessity, to eat the dead.

Archeologists will soon launch a major dig at the main Sierra campsite of the tragic Donner Party. The project is expected to begin by mid-June at the site selected for a new $6-million museum in Donner Lake Memorial State Park. A team of state parks archeologists will search for artifacts near the present museum on the east side of Donner Lake.

The clues are covered by snow now, 158 winters removed from events that haunt these hills and the history books. Back before railroads and interstates and ski towns, the families of George and Jacob Donner hunkered down here during the terrible winter of 1846-47, snowbound in a pine-ringed meadow a couple miles north of the old pioneer trail now flanked by vacation homes. We all know the Donner Party story -- or at least think we do. A wagon train of 81 emigrants is trapped in the Sierra.

Archeologists have unearthed a cooking hearth at a site in the Sierra where they believe the Donner Party gathered for meager meals in the months before starvation led to the country's most infamous tale of cannibalism. Government and university researchers said Wednesday that bone fragments they located appeared to be large enough to allow for DNA testing to determine whether they were human.

Archeologists have found what may be a human bone scarred by the marks of a butcher's ax, possibly the first physical evidence that the 1846 Donner Party -- trapped in the Sierra Nevada by early blizzards -- resorted to cannibalism. If the bone is confirmed to be human, "that would really be the smoking gun," proving that the travelers ultimately were forced to eat some of their companions to survive the harsh winter, said archeology team leader Julie Schablitsky.

Environmentalists and a property owner are clashing over a proposed commercial water facility near a popular Sierra Nevada park that pays homage to the Donner Party. At issue is Walter M. Harvey's plan to collect water from a well on 26 acres he owns in Coldstream Canyon near Donner Memorial State Park. The Truckee-based Mountain Area Preservation Foundation and the California Department of Parks and Recreation plan to appeal the Placer County Planning Commission's Aug.

The writer James D. Houston had been living in Santa Cruz for 20 years when he found out that a member of the infamous Donner Party had died in his very own bedroom--a fact that set off a physical sensation in Houston. "There is a tingling across my scalp that I refer to as the literary buzz," says Houston, "a little signal from the top of my head that there is some mystery here, or some unrevealed linkage that will have to be explored. There is a story-size buzz. There is also a book-size buzz."

Grades K-4 "America's Special Days." Wednesday, 9-11:30 a.m. This 10-part series, shown in its entirety, helps children appreciate why we celebrate certain days as "holidays." Social studies lessons use language arts, reading, science, math and fine arts. Tip for parents: Ask your child to imagine a new holiday the nation should celebrate. Grades 4-6 "Team Science: Earth Processes." Tuesday, 9-9:45 a.m., continuing same time Thursday and Jan. 27 and 29.