Context for "Survivor's Ball, or the Donner Party"

Obviously, we all associated the Donner Party of Link's story with the pop culture depiction we have of the cannabilistic Donners. Many people, though, know little else about what actually took place other than the fact that some people ... ate some other people.

The Donner party consisted of the Donner family - the core - and their hired hands, along with other people they picked up along the way. At it's peak, there were 87 people in the party. They set out to travel from Illinois to California in mid-April in 1846. In October, they became trapped by a snowstorm. The actual Donner family took off in one direction, leaving the other members to camp by a lake. As food supplies dwindled, they ate all of the oxen. Smaller groups broke off and went on their own. As the party became weaker and weaker, some died. The survivors, then, eventually succombed to cannibalism, living off of the dead in order to survive.

From Encyclopedia Americana:

The Donner Party (from the Encyclopedia Americana)Donner Party, a group of pioneers traveling to California by wagon train, led by George Donner. Their misfortune was the most spectacular catastrophe of the overland crossings.The party left Illinois in April 1846. On July 20, Donner led 20 wagons onto the untried Hastings Cutoff around the south side of Great Salt Lake. They encountered difficulties that delayed their desert crossing and arrived at Truckee (Donner) Lake in the eastern Sierras on October 31. Snow blocked the pass, and they were forced to encamp. One group built cabins at the lake, while the others, including the Donners, located at Alder Creek, 5 miles (8 km) distant.Faced with starvation, 17 members attempted to cross the Sierras on snowshoes in December. Seven survived. From January through April, four relief parties brought out the remaining survivors. Death by starvation had been averted by cannibalism. In all, 40 of the 87 emigrants survived their terrible agonies.

--H. Brett Melendy, San Jose State College

Seen here in Donner Pass, the area where the snow storm became impassable and the group set up camp.

In Link's story, the survivors that come down from the mountain are noted to have lost a few of their crew; we can assume, of course, that they were eaten. However, the story certainly ends with the implication that the actual party occuring in the hotel is about to feast on something fresher. There is an implication that they are actually going to slaughter the living for consumption, which is much more horrific than the actual events that occured in the historical Donner party of the West.

Here's a link to the PBS movie about the Donners.

-- information gathered from pbs.org and wikipedia.org