G-I-R-L-S-C-A-M-P is Girls' Camp.

Hello everyone and welcome to the Girls' Camp podcast. I'm your host, Haley Rawl.

Today's topic that we are covering is one that has haunted me deeply since I was a young

Mormon girl. We are talking about the Mormon handcart pioneers and more specifically the

Martin and Willie pioneer handcart companies. Anyone who grew up Mormon or intersected with

Mormonism at all has likely heard of the Martin and

Willie handcart companies. I remember learning about these stories of pioneers who needed to pull

hand carts, they didn't have wagons, they had to pull their own stuff with a handcart

across the plains to Utah. I remember hearing that they had very little food,

that they were very hungry, that they got stuck in a snowstorm, and a lot of them ended up

getting frostbite. A lot of people died. These are the details that haunted my young mind.

But I remember it always being presented to me as, yes, these really hard trials happened,

but ultimately God provided, they found their way to Zion, and it was all ultimately for the best.

I had a listener reach out to me and recommend the book Devil's Gate. It's actually

called, it's kind of hard to find, Devil's Gate, Brigham Young and the Great Mormon Handcart

Tragedy, written by David Roberts. It wasn't until reading this book. I was immediately intrigued

because I knew it was telling the story of these handcart companies. And reading this book really

shattered the simplified version that I had been taught growing up and all throughout my time as a

Mormon. And it was so fascinating, learning so much more context about the handcart pioneers,

why they were pulling hand carts, why they ended up

leaving so late in the season, the rescue efforts, what they actually experienced. It is just

much more complicated than I was initially led to believe and has caused me so much reflection

...