It's a generally accepted fact that most people slow down to look at a traffic accident. It's human nature. We're drawn to the unknown and the gruesome, whether it's flipping to the photographs in a true crime paperback or opening the refrigerator container from three months ago. We're scab pickers.
That same attraction, no doubt, is what draws visitors to what used to be named the Donner Party Museum in Donner Memorial State Park. It's just a tiny place in Truckee with a small $2 entry fee, but the (newly named) Emigrant Trail Museum in Truckee is a draw because one unspoken word hangs in the air: cannibalism. It's the sort of horror that makes people so uncomfortable that they have to make jokes about it. How many times have visitors to this place referenced Soylent Green? How many photographs have been taken of the ironic sign for the Donner Memorial Picnic Area?
The museum has some sort of transforming power, though. Maybe it's all that "pioneer spirit" hanging around that all of the literature in the place keeps talking about. Whatever it is, even the most jaded visitor will leave with significantly less of a smirk on his face.
When the Donner Party headed west in 1846, a strapping group of 89 men, women and children, they had no idea that they would face the harshest winter in a century and become trapped in it. Completely immobilized, they starved. They froze to death. The half that survived did so by eating the flesh of those who fell, but, as the museum is quick to point out, they weren't by definition cannibals. They didn't kill; they died.
The victims and the survivors were real people, and you'll meet them here through their artifacts and writings. A movie will make sure you understand how harsh their ordeal was. You'll see children's playthings and men's spectacles, objects that show you this wasn't a horror movie. It was someone's life. When you leave, visit the monument as well. All of the party's names are written here, and though some were survivors, they are all gone now.
After your visit, you might be silent for awhile. You'll reflect on your ancestors and their travails. Someone in your group will eventually suggest, grinning, that they'd prefer a vegetarian restaurant afterwards. By the time you get home, you'll show off the funny pictures. The wisecracks will start rolling, and before you know it it's a full-on laugh riot. It's not that we're bad people; it's human nature. Making comedy of tragedy is how we cope. When a tragedy was this terrible, the jokes just have to be proportionally huge.
This guide to the museums and state parks of Lake Tahoe was brought to you by Elizabeth Kelly
We know that you are expecting some sort of snarky comment about how you should be chomping at the bit to book a luxurious Tahoe vacation home, or how our holiday condos are so amazing you'll want to come back for seconds. Or how the incredible vacation villas feature gourmet kitchens for whatever you are cooking up on your vacation. But we are better than that. For shame.