~ wander.essence ~

fort union trading post national historic site & grasshopper encounters

wanderessence1025 October 13, 2020

Every morning, when I got up early for breakfast during my Road Trip to Nowhere, I was surrounded by construction workers from out of town who were involved in some project or another. I seemed to be the lone traveler.

I was heading to Fort Union Trading Post today, and then onward to the north unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. After spending the afternoon at the park, I would go south to Medora, North Dakota from where I could access the south unit of the park.

By 8:00, I had left Watford City and was on the road. I had a lot of territory to cover. I passed by oil drills and rigs, containers and silos. I crossed the Yellowstone River, and then the Missouri River. By 9:33, I was at Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site.

Fort Union Trading Post was the most important fur trading post on the upper Missouri River for 39 years (1828 – 1867). It was a center of peaceful economic and social exchange between Plains Indian and white cultures. In 1966, Congress designated Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site to commemorate its rich history and significant role in the development of the American West, according to the National Park Service brochure for the site.

The fort here now is a full-scale reconstruction built on the exact locations of the original structures.

I watched the film and walked through the Visitor Center in the Bourgeois House. The Bourgeois House was the home of the bourgeois (field agent) and chief clerk. By 1851, a smaller building was enlarged into this two-story house with a porch.

Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site

Upper Missouri tribes had a traditional trade system in place for centuries. Plains tribes traveled throughout the area of the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone rivers in search of buffalo, elk, and other animals that provided them with subsistence. The area was traditionally Assiniboine, but other tribes made contact in the area too. The Assiniboine, Blackfeet, Crow, Cree, Ojibway, Hidatsa, and Mandan traded buffalo robes, meat, corn, beans, squash, and other materials. As Euro-Americans came into their area, trade for European goods attracted their interest. Fort Union Trading Post was established to meet this growing demand.

The Assiniboine people, one of about nine plains tribes who traded at Fort Union, considered this area their homeland. The Assiniboine presence here was a reminder that Fort Union had been built on their land.

In trade exchanges, each culture felt it was superior to the other. Traders were comfortable in their superior technology, while Indians thought whites valued robes and furs too highly. They believed they got the best of the exchange. The fur trade was a snapshot in time when there was a balance between two cultures.

The American Fur Company (AFC) was an international business established by John Jacob Astor in 1808. Astor aggressively sought access to the western fur trade based in St. Louis. By 1827, he merged with his two rivals, Bernard Pratte and Company and the Columbia Fur Company, to dominate the fur trade on the upper Missouri.

“King of the Upper Missouri” McKenzie, a former Canadian North West Fur Company trader, joined John Jacob Astor’s American Fur Company in 1827 to manage the newly established Upper Missouri Outfit. He directed construction of Fort Union in 1828.

Trading Empire of the American Fur Company

Fur Traders

Fur Traders

Furs

Flag Pole

Bourgeois House, Visitor Center

Dwelling range and ice house

furs

Bourgeois House

Bourgeois House

Interactions between white men and tribes was very ceremonial: sharing gifts, smoking traditional pipes, speeches — all done according to tribal custom. Buffalo robes, beaver pelts, and other furs were traded in exchange for guns, pots, beads, knives, blankets, cloth and other items of value to the tribes.

Goods the tribes received allowed them to dominate their environment more effectively. Traders were able to sell the robes and furs to a growing population back East and to European fur markets.

Clerk’s Office

Bourgeois House

Karl Bodmer’s watercolor of an Assiniboine encampment

praire around Fort Union Trading Post

Economic exchanges between the traders and tribes became social. Intermarriage, adoption, and participation in tribal ceremonies because an active part of the white traders’ lives. Traders married Indian women for companionship, to cement business transactions, and because no white women lived on the upper Missouri.

I walked outside the gates to see the Indian encampment.

Indian encampment

Indian encampment

Indian encampment

Southwest Bastion and Palisade Walls

Main and Inner Gates and Strong Room

Bourgeois House

The advance of pioneers starting in the 1860s marked the end of the Plains Indian buffalo hunting culture. White encroachment from Minnesota, coupled with the discovery of gold in Montana, brought Indian uprisings. The federal government sent army troops to subdue the Plains Indians. Finally, the expansion of transcontinental railroads brought more settlers to the upper Missouri country, eventually extinguishing the Plains Indian resistance.

I left the site and passed a WELCOME TO NORTH DAKOTA sign so I must have briefly been in Montana. I was in search of the Bodmer Overlook Trail and ended up at the Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center, where the nice lady there set me straight. A wedding was being set up there.

Confluence Interpretive Center

photo showing the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers

Yellowstone & Missouri Rivers

On the way back to the trail, I accidentally ran over a pheasant. 😦

The Bodmer Overlook Trail was 0.9 miles each way. In 1833, Karl Bodmer sketched images of Fort Union, Assiniboine Indians, and the confluence of the Missouri and Yellowstone Rivers. The trail passed the site of the former town of Mondak (named because it straddled the Montana and North Dakota border).

Bodmer Overlook Trail

At the Bodmer Overlook Trail, I walked through grassland, with grasshoppers hopping, crickets chirping and butterflies fluttering. The grasses shimmered in gold and green like an impressionist painting in progress.

I walked 1.73 miles in 41 minutes.

Bodmer Overlook Trail

Bodmer Overlook Trail

Bodmer Overlook Trail

At the Bodmer Overlook, I was moved by the sight of the rivers and Fort Union down below, and the thought that Karl Bodmer was was at this spot almost two centuries ago painting the active trading scene he saw below.

Bodmer Overlook Trail

Bodmer Overlook Trail

Bodmer Overlook Trail

I drove back out of the park, passing Welcome to North Dakota Legendary, then down the road to Fairview (Montana again), then back past Welcome to North Dakota Legendary. I drove 200 to 85S for 35 miles, while Guy Clark sang about stuff that works.

I passed the Tumbleweed Inn and Suites, Patriot Fuel and Patriot Lodging, while Big Thief sang about objects, and The XX sang “I dare you.”

Occident Flour

As I drove from Fort Union to the north unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park, I felt pricks on my skin, as if something was stinging me. With my hand, I felt something hard under my shirt, but it kept moving around, stinging me as it moved. I pulled off the road and whipped off my shirt. A grasshopper hopped out and after much hollering and shooing, I finally managed to show him out of the car. He hopped into the horizon as Kodaline sang “Follow Your Fire.”

Information about Fort Union Trading Post comes from a pamphlet distributed by the National Park Service.

Here is my cancellation stamp for Fort Union Trading Post.

Cancellation stamp for Fort Union Trading Post NHS

*Saturday, September 14, 2019*

mandan to the enchanted highway to watford city, north dakota

wanderessence1025 October 11, 2020

I left Bismarck and headed to Mandan, passing Burning Desires Fireplaces, horses, and cone-type hills. It was 50°F and raining.

On the way to Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, I was stopped in my tracks by a glowing scene of a creek running through a field with a rainbow overhead.

a rainbow near Fort Abraham Lincoln

At Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, I watched a film about the history of the Missouri River and all the people who lived along it. I looked around the museum at displays about the Indians who lived there and about George Armstrong Custer. The park is home to a number of historical sites including General Custer’s house and the On-A-Slant Mandan Indian Village.

The land here was dedicated to the state in 1907 by President Theodore Roosevelt. Park development started in 1934 by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), who built the visitor center, earthlodges, blockhouses, shelters and roads, and placed cornerstones to mark buildings at the infantry and cavalry posts.

Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park

George Armstrong Custer was the commanding officer of Fort Abraham Lincoln from the fall of 1873 until he perished in the Battle of the Little Big Horn in 1876.

Many events led up to the Battle of the Little Big Horn. The presence of the white men in the Black Hills, caused by the Black Hills Expedition, was one major factor. Also, Sioux Indians had been leaving their reservation to raid small settlements and farms. In 1875, the Interior Department ordered all Indians to report to reservations by January 31, 1876. By February 1, many Indians had not reported and the Interior Department turned the problem over to the military. On February 7, orders were given to commend military action against the hostile Sioux.

The Battle of the Little Bighorn, commonly referred to as Custer’s Last Stand, was an armed engagement between combined forces of the Lakota, Northern Cheyenne, and Arapaho tribes and the 7th Cavalry Regiment of the United States Army. The battle, which resulted in the defeat of U.S. forces, was the most significant action of the Great Sioux War of 1876. It took place on June 25–26, 1876, along the Little Bighorn River in the Crow Indian Reservation in southeastern Montana Territory.

Three-pronged movements in the Sioux campaign of 1876

For both officers and enlisted men, and their families, life on a frontier post was both demanding and full of hardships.

The Indian War soldiers were all volunteers. Few men were educated, and most were illiterate. Immigrants made up a large number of the recruits. Soldiers joined for a variety of reasons: to learn to speak English, to escape from the law or their wives, or to seek adventure.

The mainstays of the enlisted man’s menu were hash, stew, baked beans, hard tack, salt bacon, green coffee, coarse bread, beef, and sometimes brown sugar, salt, vinegar, or molasses. Scurvy was a common disease due to the lack of fresh fruits or vegetables.

An officer’s life was a little easier than an enlisted man’s life, but they both shared feelings of isolation and boredom. Much of an officer’s day was occupied by conducting drills, directing work details and construction projects, and day-to-day administrative work. Sometimes the men organized activities such as dances and plays put on by the soldiers themselves, or by attending musical performances put on by the post band. Much time was spent drinking and gambling, and the post trader’s store was a main source of recreation. Unfortunately, results of the boredom often led some soldiers to alcoholism and desertion.

During most of the Indian Wars, the basic enlisted man’s salary was $13.00 per month. This low rate of pay was one major cause of a high desertion rate.

During the summer months, favorite forms of recreation for the soldiers were baseball and horseback riding. Card games and billiards were also favorite pastimes.

statue for Civilian Conservation Corps

Major General George Armstrong Custer

Holster and Belt

The Frontier Soldier’s Free Time

soldiers at Fort Abraham Lincoln

Indian scouts were an important part of frontier military campaigns. The scout was enlisted for his knowledge of the territory and his ability to communicate with members of the other tribes. Military scouts were also helpful in training new recruits in frontier survival and in tactics and techniques for combat.

Scattered Corn (1854-1940) was the first female Corn Priest of the Mandan tribe. At the age of 12, she learned the secrets and details in the art of building an earthlodge. By the age of 18, she built a total of four earthlodges for her own use. In 1934, with the assistance of the Civilian Conservation Corps, she designed and reconstructed five earthlodges at Abraham Lincoln State Park.

Scattered Corn

During the six years following the Battle of the Little Big Horn, the Fort continued its mission to protect transportation routes and railroad construction crews, as well as government property.

Upon completion of the railroad to the Montana line, Fort Abraham Lincoln fulfilled its purpose. Consequently, the fort gradually declined in importance.

In 1882, the 7th Cavalry headquarters were transferred to Fort Meade, now in South Dakota. The army abandoned Fort Abraham Lincoln in 1891.

******

The Mandan Indians, an agricultural Indian tribe, settled On-a-Slant Village from 1575-1781 with a population once as high as 15,000. It received its name because of the sloping ground upon which it was situated. The Indians farmed miles of Missouri River bottomland from 10-12 fortified cities here on the Slant River. The villages were empty and wiped out by smallpox by the time Lewis and Clark visited.

On-a-Slant Village

At the pinnacle of their wealth and power, the Mandans built cozy round earth lodges like the ones at Knife River. On-a-Slant Village shows traces of 75 lodges, including a large ceremonial lodge that is 84 feet in diameter.

Inside the walls of On-a-Slant Village, approximately 85 extended family earthlodges were constructed. It appears that each of them was round, with the exception of one large public building, the Tixopinic, or Medicine Lodge, which was a D-shaped lodge. Major religious and social events were held in the Tixopinic.

In the center of the central plaza was the Mini-midi-douxx, generally known as the Ark of the Lone Man. This shrine commemorated the protection Lone Man offered the Mandan during a Great Flood that covered the earth. The Mini-midi-douxx was the center of public religious events, like the O-kee-pa.

From earliest times, the Mandan protected their villages from attack by construction of defensive fortifications, usually wide ditches backed with palisade walls made of cottonwood and other timbers.

On-a-Slant Village

The Mandan were known as peaceful people who were brave when attacked. In other words, their reputation was that they didn’t look for trouble, but they knew what to do when trouble came. Almost every man over 15 was a warrior until he was too old to fight.

The village was alive with activity: women bringing produce from the garden, men watching the women work and maybe planning a fall buffalo hunt, children playing in the streets.

Indian dance

Mandan cities paid attention to public sanitation, and they were kept fairly clean. Garbage was organic and biodegradable. It was placed in midden piles which, when placed near the village walls, may have served a dual purpose as ramparts to raise defenders against any attackers.

The predominant makeup of the park is mixed grass prairie. The floodplain forest and upland woody draws and shrublands also make up the park.

In 1781, a smallpox epidemic spread to every Native nation in the heart of America. They all suffered greatly, but none so severely as the earthlodge people. Their population of 10,000 to 15,000 was reduced to a couple thousand people. Four of every five Mandan died in 1781. The survivors left their centuries-old villages like On-a-Slant and moved north, settling Mitutanka near the Hidatsa by the Knife River.

On-a-Slant Village

On-a-Slant Village

On-a-Slant Village

On-a-Slant Village

On-a-Slant Village

On-a-Slant Village

Every part of the Buffalo was used by Native Americans: bone, organs and hide.

Uses of the buffalo

On October 26, 1804, Sheheke-shote (born ~1766), Civil Chief of the Mandan, welcomed Meriwether Lewis to Mitutanka. Six days later, he told Lewis and William Clark that the Mandan (Nu’eta) would agree to make peace with the Arikara, and guaranteed that the Americans would have food throughout the coming winter. “If we eat, you shall eat, if we starve, you must starve also,” he said.

“If we eat, you shall eat.”

Through the winter of 1804-05, Sheheke helped his American neighbors, who called him Big White. He took them on their first buffalo hunt, brought them meat and corn, helped William Clark make a map of the Yellowstone River, entertained them in his village, and even marched Lewis and 20 soldiers in pursuit of more than 100 mounted Sioux warriors.

Lewis & Clark & Seaman

I walked by General George Armstrong Custer’s house at Fort McKeen.

There were also buildings of the cavalry and infantry posts. I saw the central barracks, the commissary store, and the blockhouses standing guard over the old fort. Prior to the time Custer led the army expeditions into the Black Hills and before he was killed at the Battle of Little Big Horn in Montana, he was a young Civil War hero stationed at Fort Lincoln in what was then the Dakota territory.

I stopped in the commissary and bought some stickers for my journal.

I didn’t take any of the trails because I was pressed for time and it was still quite wet and cold.

The Custer House

Barracks

The Custer House

The Custer House

Barracks

The Custer House

I left Mandan at 10:45 and it was still gloomy and raining. I was surprised by the hilly landscape. I stopped for a scenic view at Sweetbriar Lake. I saw a giant metal cow on a hillock. There was still a ceiling of clouds, but some blue peeked through here and there.

On my way, I ate a 6″ tuna sandwich from Subway. Then I drove through sunflower fields and rolling hills. It seemed the elevation of the land was increasing.

North Dakota landscape

As the sun came out, it streaked the fields with alleys of gold. More sunflowers were all around, with cone-shaped hills scattered through the land. Then there were blackened sunflowers near Glen Ullin and Beulah and John Hiatt sang that the “wind don’t have to hurry.”

I arrived in Gladstone at 12:30; this was the start of the Enchanted Highway. It would be a 33-mile drive to Regent, and then I’d have to backtrack that same stretch of highway.

Former teacher and school principal Gary Greff, with no welding or art training, was worried his town of Regent (population 200) would disappear off the map like so many other farm-dependent towns. When he saw people stopping to take pictures of a giant man made of hay bales, he decided to do mural sculptures. In 1991, he finished Tin Family, made from used farm equipment.

The first sculpture I saw was Geese in Flight, completed in June of 2001. It is in the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest scrap metal sculpture in the world. It was built of used oil well pipe and oil tanks. It weighs over 75 tons. The largest goose has a 30 foot wing span and is 19 feet long.

Geese in Flight

Deer Crossing/The Deer Family was completed in 2001, and erected in 2002. It was made of old oil well tanks cut apart and welded to form the shadow design.

Deer Crossing/The Deer Family

Grasshoppers in the Field was done in 1999 as a reminder of hardships farmers had to overcome. The 40-foot grasshoppers represent one of the Midwest’s most devastating plagues. The largest grasshopper is 50 feet long and 40 feet tall.

Grasshoppers in the Field

Fisherman’s Dream was completed in 2006. It is a three-dimensional sculpture that is made out of tin to form seven fish. The fish swimming under the water scene include a small mouth bass, walleye, catfish, northern salmon, and bluegill, which measure 30 feet long. Jumping out of the water is a 70 foot long rainbow trout.

Fisherman’s Dream

Pheasants on the Prairie, from 1996, was surrounded by sunflowers, corn and hay bales. It is made of wire mesh and took three years to complete. The rooster is 40 feet high and 70 feet long. There was hardly a cloud in the sky and hardly a soul on the road.

Pheasants on the Prairie

Pheasants on the Prairie

farmland around Pheasants on the Prairie

Teddy Rides Again is from 1993 and is a tribute to Theodore Roosevelt’s part in North Dakota’s history. The sculpture was built of used well pipe. Teddy and his favorite horse “Mulley” stand 51 feet tall and weigh over 9,000 pounds. It stands just south of Black Butte, which is 3,112 feet above sea level.

Teddy Rides Again

Tin Family, from 1991, was the first site erected on the Enchanted Highway. It was built of used farm equipment that took farmers hours of labor and welding to achieve.

Tin Family

Whirly Gigs was near the town of Regent.

Whirly Gigs

Enchanted Highway Gift Shop in Regent, ND

Regent, ND

After arriving in Regent, I went north again to Exit 72, and passed through sunflowers and more grasslands. It was a long drive down with all the stops and then I had to backtrack, so it took a good chunk of the day.

When I arrived in Dickinson, I realized there was no way I could make it to Fort Union by the time they closed, so I decided to go ahead and visit the Badlands Dinosaur Museum, an earth science museum that features dinosaur bones found in North Dakota, including a complete triceratops, which lived in the Badlands when it was a warm and swampy area, and a duck-billed edmontosaurus. There were ten other full-scale dinosaurs, a complete fossil rhino, and rocks and minerals.

Dakota Dinosaur Museum

Dakota Dinosaur Museum

Thescelosaurus

Edmontosaurus

Thescelosaurus & co.

dinosaurs hatching

dino skull

owls

Pteranodon sternbergi

Albertosaurus

Equisetum

bones

various skulls

another dinosaur skull

Coelophysis

Allosaurus

Stegosaurus

Albertosaurus

Triceratops

Deinonychus antirropus

Cephalopoda

Pelecypoda (Opalized Oyster)

Tiger Iron

Okenite

Agate

Gypsum (Selenite)

Halite (Pink)

Modern Coral

Thorny Oyster

Sea Urchin

Corals

Trilobita (Trilobite) – Morocco

glowing minerals

oviparity & viviparity

Eggs

Eggs and eggshells

Adjacent was the Joachim Regional Museum & Prairie Outpost Park. It showed how pioneers settled southwestern North Dakota.

Joachim Regional Museum & Prairie Outpost Park

Outdoors, I saw a Norwegian stabbur (storage house), a German-from-Russia homestead house, a one room schoolhouse, a railroad depot, a church and other buildings that reflected the area’s ethnic and immigrant past.

Shipley School

Ridgeway Luthern Church, built 1914-1915

Gorham Store & Post Office

South Heart Depot and rail car

windmill and garden

prairie house

Stabbur

Ceska Radnice Czech Town Hall

Memorial Pioneer Stone House erected by Germans from Russia

Veterans Memorial Chapel

It was a long drive north on 85 to get to Watford City. I drove past the north unit entry to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which was only about 15 miles south of Watford City. I’d be going there the next day after going to Fort Union.

I found panoramic views of the badlands — canyon walls with colorful and fantastic shapes. The ever-changing landscape has horizontal layers of multi-colored sandstone, clay and shale complimented by scattered beds of lignite coal and patches of pastel pink scoria. Scoria, or clinker, is created when the soft lignite burns, baking the surrounding clay to this bright color.

Other layers contain concentrations of petrified logs and stumps of redwood, cypress and cedar. The rock layers are easily eroded, thus the scene is constantly changing.

It was beautiful with with the green and gold foliage, so I looked forward to exploring more the next day.

Badlands just outside of Theodore Roosevelt National Park

Badlands just outside of Theodore Roosevelt National Park

I checked in to the Little Missouri Inn and Suites, which was quite nice, and expensive.

I tried to go to Outlaw’s Bar and Grill but it was too crowded. Then I went to the Tokyo Japanese Steakhouse, where only two servers were working. When I asked when I’d get service, the rude guy told me if I wanted to wait, I could stay, otherwise, I should go ahead and leave. I said I would go ahead and leave. I said, “No wonder they say on Yelp that this place has bad service.” He said, “No one cares about that.” I said, “Obviously, they do or it wouldn’t be so empty.”

I then tried to go to Hardee’s but the menu was unrecognizable to me.

So I ended up eating Subway again, this time a meatball marinara 6″. This was the first unpleasant evening I’d had on my trip so far.

Information from the various sites is taken from signs at the sites.

Below are a few of my journal pages from today’s trip.

journal pages: Mandan to Watford City

*Drove 267.6 miles; Steps 9,903, or 4.2 miles*

*Friday, September 13, 2019*

charleston: the charles pinckney national historic site

wanderessence1025 October 8, 2020

My daughter informed me this morning that she wanted to go on a run and just have a leisurely morning; she didn’t want to accompany me to Charles Pinckney National Historic Site, Sullivan’s Island, or Fort Moultrie. I felt like there was still some residual anger and tension in the air over our arguments about TV shows and dining out from the night before. I wasn’t about to let her disrupt my travel goals, so I went out determined to enjoy my time.

However, I didn’t enjoy the time, not at all. It was gloomy and threatening rain, which often affects my moods. Also, I had been having dreams of escape lately, especially with all the stuff going on with our youngest son. I had dreamed of finding a job in Richmond and getting an apartment there where I could at least hang out periodically with Sarah. This morning, it was clear to me that moving to Richmond wouldn’t solve my problems, as my daughter didn’t seem to enjoy my company either. I felt anxious, more sure than ever that I was not made for motherhood, in fact, that I was a huge failure at it. I wished a huge sum of money would drop down from the sky, so I could move back to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, or to a Greek island. I knew in my head that it wouldn’t solve my problems, but my heart was telling me otherwise.

So. I was in a dark mood as I drove under gloomy skies to the Charles Pinckney National Historic Site on Sullivan’s Island.

Charles Pinckney National Historic Site commemorates Charles Pinckney’s life of public service and contributions to the United States Constitution, and preserves a remnant of his 715-acre coastal plantation, Snee Farm.

Snee Farm

Charles Pinckney was a long-time advocate of a strong central government with clear separation of powers. He advocated for protecting property interests and helped to shape the U.S. Constitution.

Charles Pinckney National Historic Site

Charles Pinckney National Historic Site

Charles was born into a prominent Charleston family on October 26, 1757. His father, a wealthy planter and attorney, was commanding officer of the local militia, member of the General Assembly, and president of the state’s Provincial Congress.

Charles received his basic schooling from a South Carolina scholar who emphasized history, the classics, political science, and languages. Growing political unrest with Great Britain disrupted Charles’ plan to attend school in England. He ended up staying home and studying law with his father.

Charles Pinckney

In 1779, during the Revolutionary War, Pinckney represented Christ Church Parish in the State Assembly. As a lieutenant in his father’s militia regiment, he helped to retake Savannah from the British. The next year, after the British captured Charleston, he and his father were imprisoned along with other American officers. The older Pinckney was freed after swearing allegiance to the British Crown, which saved the Pinckney estate. Charles wasn’t released until June 1781.

In 1784, Pinckney became a delegate to Congress. In May, 1787, he and others represented the state at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia. On May 23, 1788, South Carolina ratified the new Constitution.

In April of 1788, Charles married Eleanor Laurens and they eventually had three children. Over the next ten years, he held a variety of political offices, including Governor of South Carolina and U.S. Senator.

During his grand tour of the southern states in 1791, President George Washington breakfasted at Charles Pinckney’s Snee Farm.

In 1795, Charles Pinckney joined with Thomas Jefferson’s Democratic Republicans, championing the interests of rural Americans over those of the coastal aristocracy.

In the 1800 Presidential campaign, Pinckney was Jefferson’s South Carolina campaign manager. Jefferson rewarded Pinckney with the ambassadorship to Spain. Pinckney helped facilitate the acquisition of Louisiana from France and tried unsuccessfully to to get Spain to cede Florida to the U.S.

From 1806-1808, he served his 4th and final term as governor of South Carolina and he retired from the U.S. Congress in 1821. He died in Charleston on October 29, 1824 at age 67. He spent 42 years devoted to serving the community, the state and the nation.

Today’s Constitution includes some 30 provisions from the “Pinckney Draft”: a two-part legislature; a single chief executive; an annual State of the Union address; the emoluments clause (restricting government officials from receiving gifts or titles of nobility from foreign states); and protection of individual citizens’ rights.

Today’s Snee Farm, which is one of Charles Pinckney’s properties, consists of only 28 acres of the original property of 715 acres. Charles inherited it from his father. The present house was built in 1828 on the site of Pinckney Plantation House. It included a typical tidewater cottage once common throughout southern coastal areas. The ponds and fields were used for growing indigo, rice and cotton.

I watched the film, walked through the museum, and then walked on the trail.

Coiled basketry is one of the oldest West African crafts in America. Made from native sweetgrass and pine needles sewn with strips of palmetto leaf, this cultural craft appeared in South Carolina in the late 1700s. Originally designed as a tool of rice production and processing, the baskets were an authentic cultural connection for slaves to their native Africa. The craft has since been handed down through generations of the Gullah Geechee. Today, sweetgrass baskets are sold along roadside stands and markets throughout the lowcountry and are considered art for display as much as they are tools for use.

sweetgrass baskets

sweetgrass baskets

Utensils in slave quarters consisted of a large iron pot and a few hollowed out dried gourds.

implements

inside the Charles Pinckney house

fireplace in the house

African American slave

porch on Pinckney House

Pinckney House

I strolled past native red cedars, remains of slave quarters, tidal wetlands, towering magnolias and live oaks, wax myrtle, yaupon holly, Spanish moss, palmettos, Sabal palmetto (Cabbage palm), Sabal minor (dwarf palmetto), and early imported plants that have naturalized, such as popcorn trees (Chinese tallow), wisteria and privet (ligustrum), native sea lavender and black needlerush.

Snee Farm

During Pinckney’s ownership, his property included 40-60 enslaved Americans, valued at £2,230 pounds in 1787. In 2000 U.S. dollars, this translates to $231,256.36. They tended the indigo and rice fields, and many were skilled wheelwrights, coopers, sawyers, carpenters, and gardeners.

“Carolina Gold” rice, along with indigo and cotton, fueled the economy of Charleston and the young nation as a whole. Farmers depended on slave labor to harvest crops. Enslaved Africans here evolved a common culture and language, known today as Gullah or Geechee.

Pinckney was a slaveholder and defender of the institution of slavery. He adamantly refused to allow even the mention of slavery into the U.S. Constitution, threatening to withdraw South Carolina support if the issue was addressed. Slavery formed the basis of the South’s economy. Many Southern representatives held the same view.

Archeological excavations uncovered evidence of three buildings used to house slaves.

Snee Farm

Snee Farm

Snee Farm

Snee Farm

Snee Farm

Snee Farm

Snee Farm

Snee Farm

I walked onto the boardwalk over a tiny branch of Wampacheone Creek, a tidal estuary, which joins the Wando River that empties into the Cooper boat landing on a larger creek. Rice and other table crops were floated by barge to markets in Charleston.

The marsh grass here is black needlerush, a coarse rigid grass with sharp tips.

boardwalk over tiny branch of Wampacheone Creek

branch of Wampacheone Creek

Snee Farm

Spanish moss

Snee Farm

I saw a model rice trunk, a device of West African origin, installed in embankments to control the flow of water to rice fields. During high tide, the gates on the river side would be raised to flood the field, and lowered to retain the water during tide shifts. When fields needed to be drained for weeding and harvesting, gates would then be raised during low tide and water would be released into the river.

Rice was the main cash crop of South Carolina until it was overtaken by cotton just before the Civil War.

Rice Trunk

drawing of rice trunk in the museum

Historically, indigo dye was extracted from three different plants of the same indigo genus. Eliza Lucas Pinckney, great-aunt of Charles Pinckney, and her enslaved workers were the first people in the colonies to successfully cultivate indigo in 1739. Pinckney shared her seeds with other planters, who learned how to efficiently grow large quantities of indigo. These improved growing methods made indigo dye a dominant export from Charleston in the early 1800s.

Indigo

Below is my cancellation stamp for Fort Sumter, the Charles Pinckney National Historic Site, and Fort Moultrie.

cancellation stamp for Charles Pinckney National Historic Site

I left the Charles Pinckney site and Mount Pleasant and drove next through Isle of Palms and then to Sullivan’s Island.

Information about Charles Pinckney and the Historic Site is taken from signs at the site and from pamphlets published by the National Park Service.

*Thursday, November 14, 2019*

bismarck art alley

wanderessence1025 October 7, 2020

After seeing the prehistoric exhibit at the North Dakota Heritage Center, I went to Bismarck Art Alley. Alley 5.5, located in downtown Bismarck, runs the full length of the alley between Fifth and Sixth Streets, and features murals by local and regional artists depicting the culture and heritage of North Dakota.

The Bismarck Art Alley Program is a public art project partnership between the Dakota West Arts Council, a 2016 Leadership Bismarck Mandan Project Team, and the community of Bismarck. The purpose is to foster ongoing efforts to create public art in the city and to create a sense of place and build a stronger, more connected community.

Going into the downtown area to see the murals, I discovered the roads around that area had been closed off the previous night because they had been setting up for a craft festival. This morning, crafters were busily setting up their booths. I was sad I’d missed dinner at the Pirogue Cafe, but my sushi had been delicious.

I took some pictures of Bismarck Art Alley. Sadly, a bunch of garbage cans in the alley not only blocked the colorful artwork, but emitted unpleasant odors as well.

What I loved about Art Alley was how it magnified the character of North Dakota using motifs of farming, canning of produce, Native Americans and Native symbols, honeybees, bison, windmills, rodeos, and Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

Bismarck Art Alley

*Friday, September 13, 2019*

the north dakota heritage center in bismarck: adaptation gallery

wanderessence1025 October 6, 2020

During breakfast at the Ramada Wyndham, I got irritated that the hotel was playing Fox News, Trump’s propaganda network, on TV. I decided I would make a negative comment about that on Booking.com.

I returned to the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum by 8:15. This time, I went to the Adaptation Gallery: Geologic Time, which was fabulous. I learned about prehistoric times and the Ice Age, including dinosaurs.

The museum’s website explained the gallery thus:

From the monstrous sea creatures living in primordial oceans to the rise and extinction of dinosaurs, from tropical swamplands with crocodiles and palm trees to the appearance of elephant-like mammals during the ice age, this is the fascinating story of geology and life in North Dakota. This gallery introduces you to North Dakota as it was at different times in the geologic past, from 600 million years ago to the appearance of humans about 13,000 years ago.

Underwater World

Some 80 million years ago, North Dakota was completely underwater. A much warmer climate meant no polar ice caps and higher sea levels. The warm shallow oceans were part of the Western Interior Seaway that periodically connected the Arctic Ocean with the Gulf of Mexico, splitting the North American continent in two.

Xiphactinus was a 16-foot-long tarpon-like fish.

Xiphactinus

Archelon (“Ruler Turtle”) is a sea turtle fossil, which is rare in North Dakota. Some of the Cretaceous sea turtles grew as long as 15 feet. These turtles laid their eggs on land, where they were vulnerable to attacks by predators.

Archelon (“Ruler Turtle”)

Around 65 million years ago (during the Mesozoic Cretaceous Period 68 – 65,000,000 years ago), North Dakota was as warm as south Florida. Instead of plains, valleys and badlands, western North Dakota was covered with woodlands, ponds and swamps. Many exotic plants and animals lived here, including dinosaurs. Unusual animals such as mosasaurs (40-foot-long sea marine lizards), also lived in the ocean that still covered eastern North Dakota.

Tyrannosaurus rex (“tyrant lizard king”) was one of the largest carnivorous dinosaurs. It was bigger than Triceratops, growing to 40 feet long and weighing about eight tons. A keen sense of smell and the ability to travel at high speeds for short distances made them fearsome hunters. While no complete skeletons of T. rex have been found in North Dakota, its teeth and bones have been recovered from several fossil sites in the state.

Tyrannosaurus rex

Tyrannosaurus rex

Triceratops (“three-horned face”) was one of the largest and heaviest of the herbivorous, or plant-eating, horned dinosaurs. Growing to 30 feet long and weighing as much as 5 tons, this dinosaur would be larger than the biggest African elephants today.

Triceratops

Dromaeosaurus (“Swift running lizard”) was part of the family of small, ferocious predators often called raptors. A large claw on each hind food was used to slash through flesh. It had a large brain and may have hunted in packs like wolves.

Dromaeosaurus

About 65 million years ago, half of all living things, including three-quarters of marine life, died out. This mass extinction is one of the greatest biological catastrophes ever recorded. Its cause is still debated by scientists today, but most evidence points to a devastating asteroid impact.

Once the dinosaurs died out, in the Cenozoic Tertiary period (65-55,000,000 years ago), other species flourished in North Dakota’s forested swamplands. Across the globe, climates were warm and humid, creating a welcoming environment for plants and animals to recover. New predators gained dominance, and other species evolved. In this new era, crocodiles, alligators and champsosaurs (crocodile-like reptiles) became top predators, preying on all types of fish, birds and even mammals. Mammals started to become the dominant life forms during this time.

crocodile

By the end of the Oligocene Epoch, the number and diversity of mammal species in North Dakota had increased dramatically. Cooler temperatures and open scrublands and grasslands were perfect habitats for large groups of grazing mammals, while small woodlands around lakes and rivers supported smaller animals like rodents.

Fossil evidence shows that North Dakota was once the home of huge rhinoceros and giant pig-like animals, as well as saber-toothed, cat-like mammals called nimravids. Although these species became extinct, many of the ancient mammals were members of groups that still exist today, including ancestral dogs, camels, deer and mice.

mammals

other creatures

prehistoric creatures

Nearly all large mammals during this time, including mammoths and mastodons, became extinct in North America between 11,000 and 9,000 years ago. Only the medium-sized (bison, deer, pronghorns) and smaller mammals survived.

The large and agile creatures known as Bison antiquus were the ancestors of modern bison. Larger than bison we know today, Bison antiquus lived in herds and fed on the grasses and low-growing shrubs of the North Dakota landscape. They became extinct about 10,000 years ago.

Bison antiquus

The possible causes of the extinction of the large mammals has been debated for decades. One of the most controversial theories, termed the “overkill hypothesis,” suggests that mammals were hunted to extinction by humans. Others argue that the large mammals became extinct because they could not adapt to rapid climate warming and habitat changes. Possibly these and other factors all played a role in the extinction of 32 species of mammals.

backside of prehistoric creature

more prehistoric creatures

Mastodons were large mammals that looked and acted much like today’s elephants. Thick, long hair covered their bodies. They were browsing animals like today’s moose. They lived in coniferous forests and ate tree twigs, leaves, and marsh vegetation. Mastodons lived in North America at the end of the last Ice Age, about 10,000 to 20,000 years ago. They lived millions of years after dinosaurs had become extinct. People followed herds of large animals, such as mastodons, across vast distances. The animals were hunted for their meat, hides and bones.

In 1890, workmen excavated this mastodon skeleton near Highgate, Ontario, Canada. For the next eight years, the bones were on tour in Canada, North Dakota, and Minnesota.

The owner donated the bones to the University of North Dakota in 1902. The university donated the skeleton to the State Historical Society of North Dakota in 1947.

Mastodon

prehistoric creatures

I left this fabulous museum and went directly to Bismarck’s Art Alley.

leaving the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum

All information about the Geologic Time Gallery are from signs at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum.

*Friday, September 13, 2019*

on returning home from italy in 2019

wanderessence1025 October 5, 2020

We took a shuttle to the Fiumicino airport at 6:30 to get there by 6:45 a.m. The United gates didn’t open until 7:00, so we got there early for no good reason. Check-in went quickly, as did security and passport control. We enjoyed coffee and croissants in the airport and then waited until our 9:45 departure, with a 1:35 p.m. arrival time at Dulles International Airport near our home in Northern Virginia. Before boarding, I finished the book I’d been reading in Morocco and Rome, The Forgiven.

During the flight, I watched Crazy Rich Asians, On the Basis of Sex (about Ruth Bader Ginsburg), and I started the TV show My Brilliant Friend, but I didn’t have time to finish it.

We had a lunch of spinach and ricotta manicotti and bread. I took a Valium after lunch and managed to sleep for a couple of hours, but it was so freezing on the plane, it was hard to get comfortable. I had on my black knit flowy pants, a t-shirt, my gray knit zipper jacket and my jean jacket all buttoned up, plus a very thin blanket provided by the airline, but I was freezing the entire flight.

Lots of seats on the flight were empty. We paid for Economy Plus, so we had a little more leg room than others. Mike had the window seat and I had the aisle, 23K and L.

It was 12:01 p.m. Washington time (and 6:02 p.m. Italy time), and we were to arrive at 1:35. I could see were were flying toward Boston on the flight path screen. We were over the Atlantic most of the flight, soon after flying over Ireland and Great Britain.

I hoped we’d get one more snack, but none seemed to be coming. I couldn’t wait to get off the plane and to get warm in our cozy home. By that time, we’d traveled 4,728 miles and we were at 34,009 feet in altitude. The outside temperature was -50°C, or -58°F.

Everyone had the window shades closed through the entire flight, so it had been dark in the cabin. It seemed it would warm up if they opened the “blinds” and let the light in.

Neither of us was excited about having our youngest son move back home as life had always been stressful with him in our house. He had agreed to the conditions we had laid out our last night in Rome, but neither of us were convinced he would actually meet them. He had agreed to get therapy, go to AA, work on his drinking, and gain a skill. I didn’t think he would make much money as a massage therapist, so I didn’t see that as a long-term solution, but it was a step in at least some direction. We would be seeing him back in our house soon after we arrived home. I was decidedly not looking forward to our homecoming.

My older son had already arranged to come home that week upon our return, as he would be the best man in his friend’s wedding. As my older and younger sons had several months earlier had a huge falling out over their shared living situation in Colorado, this would create additional stress. When we informed my older son that the younger would be home when he came home, he was very upset, as we figured he would be. I could perfectly understand his feelings.

We came home to a very stressful situation, although it was wonderful to see my older son and to have a tenuous glimmer of hope, once again, that our youngest son might actually follow through on his commitments.

Once we settled back in at home, we watched a couple of movies set in Italy that we hadn’t had time to watch before our trip: Three Coins in the Fountain and To Rome with Love. We also began the fabulous TV series, My Brilliant Friend, which we are still watching.

Eventually, I wrote a number of posts about our travels in Italy:

view from our Airbnb at Castello di Fulignano

Monteriggioni

il Campo

View of Siena from the Panorama del Facciatone

Duomo di Siena

Castellina in Chianti

wisteria arbo

Giardino delle Rose

the Duomo’s famous dome

Ponte Vecchio – again

Florence’s Duomo

Venus of Urbino – Titian, 1538

We enjoyed our travels in Italy. We especially loved most of the Cinque Terre (despite the crowds) and Portovenere, Florence, Lucca, San Gimignano and Volterra, the Tuscan countryside, Assisi and Orvieto. The major drawback was the weather, which, once we got to Tuscany and Umbria, was fickle: rainy, cold, windy, with bouts of sunshine too few and far between.

*April 23 to May 10, 2019*

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“ON RETURNING HOME” INVITATION: I invite you to write a post on your own blog about returning home from one particular destination or, alternately, from a long journey encompassing many stops. How do you linger over your wanderings and create something from them? How have you changed? Did the place live up to its hype, or was it disappointing? Feel free to address any aspect of your journey and how it influences you upon your return. If you don’t have a blog, I invite you to write in the comments.

For some ideas on this, you can check out the original post about this subject: on returning home.

Include the link in the comments below by Sunday, November 1 at 1:00 p.m. EST. When I write my post in response to this challenge on Monday, November 2, I’ll include your links in that post.

This will be an ongoing invitation on the first Monday of each month. Feel free to jump in at any time.

the north dakota heritage center {the horse, native peoples & north dakota history}

wanderessence1025 October 4, 2020

I left Washburn and Fort Mandan at 3:20, crossed Painted Woods Creek, and hightailed it 38 miles to Bismarck, the state capital of North Dakota and the second largest city in North Dakota with only 67,034 people. The town was named for the German chancellor Otto von Bismarck in hopes of encouraging the chancellor’s investment in the railroad.

I finally arrived at 4:00 at the North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum, with only an hour to spare before closing. Here, I found exhibits in four museum galleries which traced North Dakota history from 600 millions years ago to current events.

North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum

The Horse in North Dakota

I first saw an exhibit about “The Horse in North Dakota.”

The Horse in North Dakota

Millions of years ago, many species of horses – some as small as a dog – roamed the Great Plains of North America. About 55 million years ago, global temperatures abruptly rose, turning North America into an environment similar to the Amazon rain forest. The first members of the horse family, the dog-sized Hyracotherium, lived in these forests. For more than half their history, most horses remained small, multi-toed forest browsers, thriving on leaves, bark, and green plant stems.

Then about 35 million years ago, global temperatures dropped, creating a climate similar to today’s. Dry grasslands replaced much of the North American forest, leading to rapid evolution among horses. Horses became larger, their toes reduced from three to one, and they adopted a grazing diet. By about nine million years ago, most forest browsers had disappeared, leaving primarily the grazers alive today.

artistic horse

About three million years ago, the first species of Equus, the ancestor of living horses, spread to several continents including South America.

Then about 10,000 years ago, horses became extinct in North America and South America. The prime causes of their extinction were changes in the environment, disease, and overhunting by humans.

Equids survived only in Eurasia and Africa; they thrived in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Prehistoric people in Eurasia valued ancient horses as a food source, which is likely the reason they first domesticated them, around 5,000 to 6,000 years ago.

By about 1500 BC, people had harnessed the power of horses, using them for transportation and as beasts of burden.

The Spanish reintroduced horses to the Americas over 500 years ago. Recognizing that horses were an advantage in war, the Spanish tried to keep horses out of Native American hands. Gradually, however, Native peoples created their own herds from horses captured in raids and collected as strays.

The horse changed the nature of hunting to allow large groups of hunters to harvest more animals, especially bison. Hunting from horses increased a group’s hunting range and made hunting more efficient.

In 1680, when the Pueblos rebelled against colonial rulers in Santa Fe (now in New Mexico), the hundreds of horses left behind passed into Native American hands and became the ancestors of many tribal herds. Horses were then dispersed across North America via established trade routes. By 1740, nearly every tribal group on the Great Plains possessed horses.

Long before horses were domesticated, people tried to capture their wild beauty and majestic strength through images, poetry and song. Art records and celebrates the role the horse had played in human history – from the mundane plowing of crops or a glorious charge into battle to bravely carrying us to new destinations or offering quiet companionship.

Greet the Dawn, 2012 by S.D. Nelson, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Member (Lakota)

The horse family today is quite small. All domesticated horse breeds, from tiny ponies and plow horses to thoroughbred racehorses, belong to a single species, Equus ferus caballus. Domestic horses are thought to have been bred from the European wild horse, or tarpan (Equus ferus ferus), which went extinct in 1909.

Wild Horses, 1936, was one of a six-panel series painted by American artist Frank Mechau (1904-1946).

Wild Horses, by Frank Mechau

Tribes came to value horses and guns for how they improved their ability to hunt, defend their resources, and expand their territories. Power gradually began to shift from the settled agricultural tribes to nomadic equestrian tribes such as the Lakota and Crow. A good horse could make a great hunter or warrior, and possessing many horses could make a family wealthy. Horse adornment was one way to show a family’s wealth.

Before the arrival of horses, Native peoples traveled by waterways or on foot. With horses, people could travel farther and faster. Greater hauling power meant tribes could acquire more food (primarily bison) and transport it, which supported larger populations.

A horse’s speed, agility and power gave tribes with horses an advantage during warfare. Tribes with horses could expand their hunting territories, putting them in conflict with other groups over resources. Horses also enabled Native peoples to better defend their lands against encroaching Euro-American settlers and U.S. soldiers.

Native people had to learn to care for the horses, especially during harsh northern winters. Among the Mandan and Hidatsa, prized horses had a place in the earthlodge during the winter, and were fed the tender bark and branches of cottonwood trees. Native plants such as cow parsnip, curlycup gumweed, and pineapple weed were given to horses for medical ailments. The Hidatsa regularly fed hunting horses small amounts of corn to make them swift runners.

Settlers pushing west sought land for their crops and livestock, but it was the same land Native Americans called home. Responding to the sometimes violent culture clashes, the US Army moved soldiers and ammunition westward in horse-drawn wagons. Draft horses hauled settlers’ wagons and pulled plows that broke sod for crops. Cowboys drove cattle through the grasslands of western North Dakota on well-trained quarter horses. Later, horses became integral parts of firefighting teams.

The cowboys of North America favored the American quarter horse, bred to run short-distance races. The men led grueling lives, toiling in the sun and spending most of their days on the back of a horse. In today’s remote and often rugged grazing lands of North Dakota, horses remain integral to ranching operations.

Rodeos had their roots in a time when cowhands would gather to compete for fun after cattle roundups. Events tested cowhands in accurate roping, and fast and agile riding. Bronc riding, where a bucking bronco tries to throw the rider off, is based on an old method of taming horses.

Horses are herd animals without fixed territories. They naturally form groups for safety, develop social bonds with other herd members, and look to a leader. People utilize this instinct when training horses by taking on the authority of a herd leader. The horse instinctively submits to a more dominant individual. Humans also provide companionship that horses seek.

horse skulls

horse accouterments

Tipi bags, circa 1890

Doll with horses, Lakota, circa 1895

Horsetooth necklace, circa 1890

Dox Quixote, 1964

fancy dress and horse adornment, circa 1915

Horse-drawn fire engine, circa 1914

Grain binder model and horses

horse and buggies

saddles

horse toys

cowboy/girl clothing

I saw a small exhibit about birds of the wetlands, including grebes and whooping cranes, and birds of the prairie, including horned larks.

birds of the wetlands

Inspiration Gallery: Yesterday and Today

Inspiration Gallery: Yesterday and Today had an exhibit about North Dakota history from the mid 1800s to contemporary times. It covered farming, pioneer days, and technology.

According to the website, the gallery tells the story of North Dakota and its people through six themes that continue to shape the state’s history:

Agricultural Innovation
Industry and Energy
Newcomers and Settlement
Conflict and War
Our Lives, Our Communities
Cultural Expressions

According to the exhibit, one hundred years ago, North Dakota was one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse states in the country. More than three-quarters of its people were immigrants or the children of immigrants. They lived alongside Native Americans of many different nations. In the state can be found Norwegian Lutheran churches, lutefisk suppers, Knoephla soup, Ukrainian pysanky eggs, or Lakota beadwork.

As different groups settled in North Dakota, they brought the traditional dress, designs and techniques from their homelands. Immigrants from across Europe brought tools like spinning wheels and the knowledge and skills to knit, weave, and stitch intricately patterned pieces.

Musical traditions from many cultures melded in the state.

Musical traditions

Those who grew up in North Dakota in the 1950s and 1960s saw a world in transition. The end of World War II brought an era of prosperity and change. North Dakota’s economy was thriving. More women entered the workforce. North Dakotans became connected thanks to rural telephone systems, interstate highways, and eventually, television. For the first time, young people enjoyed new freedoms that came with cars, spending money, and leisure time. The rise of television and the portable transistor radio helped popularize rock and roll. Soda shops became popular hangout spots of young North Dakotans.

Soda shop

soda shop

Louis and Cyril Keller from Minnesota designed a maneuverable, self-propelled loader for poultry farmers. The design was refined and renamed “Bobcat” in 1962.

Melroe M200 Self-Propelled Loader

This oil rig model was built at 1/48 scale and reflects what an oil drilling rig would have looked like in the 1990s.

Oil rig model

Superior Storage bin

harvester?

Oscar H. Will is the best known North Dakota commercial seed developer. His success was tied to the horticultural knowledge he gained from the Mandans, Hidatsas, and Arikaras. After establishing the first North Dakota plant nursery in Bismarck, Will began experimenting with native corn varieties. From a bag of beans given to him by a Hidatsa man, he developed the Great Northern Bean, which is still grown today.

Oscar H. Will & Company continued to grow and prosper. The mail-order seed catalog, first published in 1884, had international circulation and offered a wide range of seeds, vegetables, flowers, trees and more, all adapted to flourish in northern climates. The company closed in 1959.

Will’s Pioneer Brand

Oscar H. Will & Company

radish seed packet

phlox seed packet

Plants grown in North Dakota include flax, hard red spring wheat, sunflowers, honey, barley, lentils and peas.

farm equipment

Water is crucial to raising crops and livestock. Beginning in the 1850s, windmills were used to pump water from deep underground. Once electricity arrived, other sources of power were used to pump water. Today, windmills are still used to pump water for livestock in remote areas.

windmill used to pump water

Innovation Gallery: Early Peoples

The Innovation Gallery: Early Peoples was devoted to the Native peoples of North Dakota. It includes artifacts from prehistoric cultures, the international story of the fur trade, oral histories, and collections from prehistoric tribal life to the 1860s.

The story of the Early Peoples begins more than 13,000 years ago when people first began to migrate into North Dakota, beginning with the Paleoindians, the first hunters.

I saw exhibits about Native Peoples, bison, tipis, lodgings, clothing and artifacts.

A single bison drive by Native Americans could easily kill hundreds of animals, which created the immediate problem of how to process this large quantity of meat without waste and spoilage. Most members of the tribe participated, using guns as well as bows and arrows. After removing the hide, women quickly sliced meat into strips and hung them on racks to dry.

At one time tens of millions of bison roamed across North America. By 1900, fewer than 100 wild bison were living on the Great Plains. Professional hunters armed with large-caliber guns killed hundreds of bison a day in the late 19th century for their hides and tongues. The completion of the railroad made shipping hides cheaper and more profitable for bison hunters. Settlers and their cattle moved west, competing with the bison for grasslands and contributing to the animals’ decline. It was not until 1894 that the first federal legislation protecting these animals was enacted.

Today, more than 500,000 bison live in North America under both public and private ownership. Many Plains tribes have established their own herds in order to maintain a spiritual relationship with them. In North Dakota, hundreds of bison are protected in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Bison

One way Plains Indians recorded details about the past was by drawing symbolic pictures, or pictographs, on hide or cloth, called a winter count. Keepers of winter counts added one event to the count each year, the time between one winter and the next.

Indian symbols to record and remember the past

People on the Northern Great Plains have used tipis for thousands of years. A tipi is a moveable dwelling made of long wooden poles covered with a material. Stones, earth or wooden pegs held the covers down. People controlled air and vented smoke from cooking and heating fires by moving flaps located at the top. Tipis could weigh up to 450 pounds.

Tipi

The remains of the earliest house found to date in North Dakota were discovered on land along the James River. It was occupied during the autumn and winter and was destroyed by fire between 550 and 410 BC. It was made of wooden posts covered in bark or hide. This house is a reproduction of that house.

This painting was in Sitting Bull’s home when he was killed. One of the Indian policemen ripped the hole in it with his carbine. Colonel Mathew F. Steele stopped the officer from destroying the painting.

Painting of Sitting Bull by Catherine Weldon, 1890

North Dakota’s earliest villages were spread out and relatively small, with each housing about 300 individuals. By the 1400s some village populations grew to an estimated 1,000 people. These settlements were fortified and well-planned cities.

Around the 1500s, the Mandans started building circular earthlodges. The fortification system consisted of a dry moat and a wall of wooden posts that formed a palisade around the village. The Mandan people occupied some of these bustling trade centers for nearly 300 years, from 1490 to 1785.

One of the largest of these villages was located on the east side of the Missouri River. Known to the Mandans as Yellow Earth, today it is called Double Ditch State Historic Site.

Double Ditch, AD 1550

My visit was entirely too rushed! I decided I would go back the next morning as the museum opened at 8:00 a.m.

I drove by the North Dakota State Capitol building, also known as the “Skyscraper on the Prairie.” It is a monument to North Dakota’s development.

North Dakota State Capitol

I then checked into my hotel, the Ramada Wyndham.

I tried to go to the recommended Pirouge Cafe for corn and bison soup, but the police had all roads around the cafe closed off. I didn’t know if it was a crime scene or what, so I sought out another place instead.

I had dinner at Shogun: a Sapporo beer and a Super Girl Roll: Tempura shrimp avocado and jalapeño with chili sauce on top. It was delicious! 🙂

Shogun

Buddha at Shogun

Super Girl Roll at Shogun

Here was my journal page for today, Thursday, ,September 12, from Bottineau to Bismarck, North Dakota:

journal pages from Bottineau to Bismarck, North Dakota, Thursday, September 12, 2019

All information is from signs at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum.

*Drove 240.6 miles; Steps: 10,049, or 4.26 miles*

*Thursday, September 12, 2019*

poetic journeys: kentucky victims

wanderessence1025 October 2, 2020

Kentucky victims

Kentucky Victims

This poem was taken from headlines from the Herald-Leader of Lexington, Kentucky on March 2, 2019 and March 6, 2019.

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“POETRY” Invitation: I invite you to write a poem of any poetic form on your own blog about a particular travel destination. Or you can write about travel in general. Concentrate on any intention you set for your poetry.

One of my intentions for my trip to Kentucky in 2019 was as follows:

Write two Headline Poems. Write two poems taken from headlines of the city papers in Louisville and Lexington.
- To write a Headline Poem, cut out 50+ words and phrases from a city newspaper. The words should most often be individual words cut from larger headlines.
- Spread the words on a large table or the floor and move them around; play with them.
- Read aloud the word combinations you make.
- Glue them to a piece of paper when you decide what form your poem should take. Give it a title.
- At the bottom of the poem, put where the words came from and the date. (from Getting the Knack: 20 Poetry Writing Exercises)

I already composed one Headline poem each for Illinois and Louisville, which I also visited on my Midwestern Triangle Road Trip:

You can either set your own poetic intentions, or use one of the prompts I’ve listed on this page: writing prompts: poetry. (This page is a work in process). You can also include photos, of course.

Include the link in the comments below by Thursday, November 5 at 1:00 p.m. EST. When I write my post in response to this challenge on Friday, November 6, I’ll include your links in that post.

This will be an ongoing invitation, on the first Friday of each month. Feel free to jump in at any time. 🙂

I hope you’ll join in our community. I look forward to reading your posts!

washburn, north dakota: the lewis & clark interpretive center and fort mandan

wanderessence1025 October 1, 2020

In Washburn, I paid a visit to the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center. It was a fabulous museum, but I was feeling rushed because I was determined to see Fort Mandan and get to Bismarck to visit the North Dakota Heritage Center before it closed.

In 1804, a team of young men led by Captains Lewis and Clark set off from the Missouri area on a voyage into the unknown. Their journey west – up the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean – made them the first Americans to document overland travel to the Pacific. They provided a first-hand account of their personal challenges, doubts, and triumphs.

The Lewis and Clark Expedition was a military operation from start to finish. President Thomas Jefferson purposefully chose the army, knowing that only soldiers possessed the teamwork, discipline, and training appropriate for this challenging mission.

As part of a military expedition, the soldiers of the Corps of Discovery for North Western Exploration were expected to wear military uniforms.

Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, Washburn, North Dakota

With their Hidatsa neighbors, the Mandan lay at the center of trade along the Upper Missouri River, in modern central North Dakota. At the time of Lewis and Clark’s arrival, they lived in two villages, Mitutanka and Ruptáre. The village was the center of political, economic and ceremonial activity in Mandan culture. The tribe grew crops of corn, beans, squash, sunflower, and tobacco in fields surrounding the villages.

When autumn arrived, numerous Indian tribes and Europeans descended on Mandan villages with the intention to trade.

Hidatsa villages were similar to the Mandan villages. Unlike the Mandan, the Hidatsa regularly sent war parties westward against the Shoshone and Blackfeet. They did this not only for wealth, protection, and revenge, but for ritual reasons as well. The Hidatsa provided the Corps with key information about the route ahead. They also indirectly introduced Lewis and Clark to the French trader Toussaint Charbonneau and his wife Sacagawea.

Mandan culture

The Lewis & Clark Expedition, the Corps of Discovery, began making its way up the Missouri River aboard a 55-foot-long keelboat and two smaller pirogues on May 21, 1804. Clark spent most of his time on the keelboat, charting the course and making maps. Lewis was often ashore, studying rock formations, animals and plants.

By July’s end, they had traveled more than 600 miles upriver, never once meeting an American Indian (May 21 – July 31, 1804).

The start of the journey

The expedition wintered in a small fort, Fort Mandan, they built near the five Mandan and Hidatsa villages at the mouth of the Knife River (Winter of 1804-1805). These villages had a population of over 5,000 people and were the hub of a well-known trade network.

After departing Fort Mandan, the Corps had to make its way further up the Missouri River until they had to cross the mountains overland. If this part of the journey was covered here, I missed it completely. 🙂

On departing Fort Mandan

Lewis and Clark made camp south of the Columbia River near the Pacific Ocean from December 8-30, 1805. On a slight rise along the bank of the small river, they cleared the site and built Fort Clatsop, named after the local Clatsop Indians. It rained constantly and their time at the fort was monotonous, spent making moccasins and buckskin clothing, hunting, producing salt for preserving food, and working on journals and maps. Even Christmas Day was gloomy; the men’s dinner consisted of elk meat and roots.

Winter on the Pacific

The members of the expedition were ready to return home. The timing of the return journey was critical to avoid snow or an iced-over Missouri River. By the third week in March, the expedition was ready to retrace its steps (December 31-March 22, 1806).

On March 23, the Corps of Discovery left Fort Clatsop and began to travel up the Columbia River. During this leg of the journey, Chinookan Indians were a source of stress; their repeated attempts to steal supplies nearly provoked open hostilities.

Getting around the falls proved a great challenge. Less than a month after leaving Fort Clatsop, the expedition abandoned its canoes, striking out overland with horses acquired from the Walla Walla tribe (March 23 – April 28, 1806).

The expedition arrived back in Nez Perce territory almost out of food. They had to wait until the weather improved before trying to cross the snow-covered Bitterroots.

During the wait with the Nez Perce, Lewis studied the American Indians and nature, while Clark treated sick tribe members. By early June, the expedition was ready to continue east, against the wisdom of the Nez Perce, who believed they should wait until July to cross the Bitterroots. Lewis and Clark left Camp Choppunish and set out for the mountains in June (April 29 – June 9, 1806).

Five days after leaving the Nez Perce, the expedition started up into the mountains. Though it was spring on the Plains, it was still winter in the Bitterroots. The men got lost in the deep snow and returned to the Nez Perce for help.

On June 30, they reached Traveler’s Rest in present-day Montana. Lewis and Clark decided that Lewis and nine men would explore the Marías River, while Clark and the others would head for the Yellowstone River (June 10 – July 2, 1806).

Soon the expedition was back at the Mandan villages, where they bade farewell to some of their members, including Sacagawea. On August 17, the expedition departed.

On August 30th, nearly a hundred armed and mounted Sioux warriors lined the banks of the Missouri. The Corps kept to the middle of the river, however, and the encounter was one of threats and taunts only (August 13 – September 9, 1806).

Now on the home stretch of the journey, the expedition was traveling up to 800 miles per day. Lewis and Clark began to meet traders who informed them they had been given up for dead (September 10-23, 1806).

The challenges faced by the expedition on the route home were serious. They reached St. Louis on September 23, 1806 – two years, four months, and ten days after they had left. Many people had given up hope of seeing them again, and they greeted the Corps with gunfire salutes and enthusiastic welcomes.

Thomas Jefferson charged the expedition with numerous goals, and these goals were carried out faithfully. Lewis and Clark were certain they carried out the number one objective of the expedition – to find the most direct route across the continent. They brought back a great deal of scientific information. They introduced new approaches to exploration and established a model of systematically recording data.

President Jefferson did not order anyone other than the captains to keep journals, but seven of the sergeants also kept journals. Writing was one of the principal tasks of the captains, one that they generally fulfilled. Historian and editor Donald Jackson once observed that Lewis and Clark were “the writingest explorers of their time. They wrote constantly and abundantly, afloat and ashore, legibly and illegibly, and always with an urgent sense of purpose.”

journals of Lewis & Clark

a map of journal entries

The documents and objects sent to President Jefferson are now known as the Fort Mandan Miscellany. The Miscellany is an important expression of the Enlightenment purposes of the Lewis & Clark Expedition.

mineral artifacts and biological specimens from Lewis & Clark

I loved seeing the famous watercolors from Swiss painter Karl Bodmer and Maximilian of Wied’s expedition from 1832-1834.

Winter Village of the Minatarres by Karl Bodmer

Aquatints by Karl Bodmer

Aquatints by Karl Bodmer

Encampment of the Travelers by Karl Bodmer

Another section of the museum had portraits of Native Americans by Karl Bodmer. I showed them in the post: native american portraits.

There was also a special exhibit at the museum, “Creating Sacagawea,” with paintings or depictions of Sacagawea.

Sacagawea was an American Indian mother who accompanied Lewis and Clark from Fort Mandan to the Pacific Ocean, and back to the Knife River villages. She was one of Toussaint Charbonneau’s two wives. She was industrious, courageous, and endured much to travel with the Corps carrying baby “Pomp” on her back. There are many legends about her from speculative sources. She was not a guide, but an interpreter. Though she provided secondary assurances about the peaceful nature of the expedition to Indians they encountered, she did so only after the Nez Perce softened the blow of the sudden arrival of the white strangers. Finally, though Sacagawea and William Clark were fond of each other, there was no evidence of a romantic relationship.

Hidatsa women were expert farmers who owned the fields they worked. After being kidnapped at a young age from her Shoshone people, Sacagawea would have adapted to her new Hidatsa way of life. Women brought their infant children while they worked in the field; Pomp is seen resting in his cradleboard.

Sacagawea (2001) by Michael Haynes

Haynes depicts Sacagawea as she and her son Jean Baptiste may have looked shortly after the Expedition. Although no one knows exactly what she looked like, images from artists George Catlin and Karl Bodmer’s paintings of Hidatsa women in the 1830s provide insight into the style and clothing of the day.

Starting the Fire (2001) by Michael Haynes

On February 11, 1805, Sacagawea gave birth to Jean Baptiste Charbonneau after a painful and arduous labor. Many paintings depict her with her child, highlighting her motherhood.

Birth of Jean Baptiste Charbonneau (1999) by Vern Erickson

Sacagawea’s death is a mystery. Two stories emerge: she made it back to her Shoshone people and died an old woman, or she died around age 24 from a putrid fever in 1812. The latter, and more likely scenario, is depicted here showing Sacagawea shrouded and placed on a scaffold.

Death of Sakakawea (Sacagawea) (2000) by Vern Erickson

This is a smaller version of 21-foot-tall heroic group Bob Scriver made for Fort Benton, Montana in 1976. It’s a classic 20th century depiction of the expedition. The figures wear fringed leather clothing and Lewis wears a tricorn hat. Importantly, the figures are gazing at the trail ahead.

Captain Lewis, Captain Clark and Sacajawea (1974) by Bob Scriver

Here, Sacagawea is depicted wearing a fringed dress, baby in tow, looking off into the distance.

Square Buttes on the Missouri (1950) by Henry Lorentzen

Walter Piehl shows Sacagawea on horseback like a mounted warrior and she and Jean Baptiste have halos like a Madonna portrait.

Mother and Child (2004) by Walter Piehl

Standing stoically in the foreground, Sacagawea’s gaze follows the outstretched hand pointing to the distance, perhaps watching the bison and pronghorn antelope, or maybe gazing at the miles still to travel.

Sakakawea (Sacagawea) (2003) by Vern Erickson

One of the women bringing gifts to the Expedition may have been Sacagawea. Some gifts were tangible, like the food or beaded belt she gave to help Lewis purchase a sea otter pelt. Others were intangible, like her friendship, her knowledge of the land, her connections to its people, her fluency in Shoshone, and the uplifting presence of her baby, Jean Baptiste.

Sacagawea’s First Gift (2001) by Michael Haynes

In 1972, Vern Erickson was commissioned to paint this mural for the new North Dakota Department of Transportation building.

Big White (Sheheke) Greets the Corps of Discovery (1972) by Vern Erickson

I went quickly to Fort Mandan, where I ran out and looked briefly at the fort and the soldiers’ quarters behind heavy log doors.

Five months into the journey, in the winter of 1804, the Lewis & Clark Expedition broke for winter near this spot. They built Fort Mandan, named after the local Mandan Indians. In the company of the Mandan and Hidatsa, the men rested, socialized, and studied their Indian hosts.

The fully-furnished quarters bring to life what it was like for the brave men in the Corps of Discovery during that North Dakota winter over 200 years ago.

By the time Lewis and Clark passed through on their return journey in 1806, Fort Mandan had burned down. Since then, the exact location of the fort has been lost. The replica here today was completed by the McLean County Historical Society in 1972, using the same dimensions and primary materials as the original.

Fort Mandan

The Mandan supplied the Americans with food throughout the winter at their newly constructed home, Fort Mandan. In exchange, they received a steady stream of trade goods.

Fort Mandan

Fort Mandan

The swivel gun in the courtyard could be loaded with a dozen or more musket balls (called grapeshot) and fired as a last defense in case of attack. Fortunately, they never had to fire it.

Fort Mandan

soldiers’ quarters at Fort Mandan

soldiers’quarters at Fort Mandan

quarters at Fort Mandan

dining at Fort Mandan

quarters at Fort Mandan

dining table at the Fort Mandan Visitors Center

tent, Keelboat and Seaman at the Fort Mandan Visitors Center

Fort Mandan Visitors Center

I left Washburn at 3:20 and hightailed it 38 miles to Bismarck, crossing Painted Woods Creek. I finally arrived at 4:00 at the North Dakota Heritage Center, with only an hour to spare before closing.

All information is from plaques and brochures from the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.

*Thursday, September 12, 2019*

north dakota: the scandinavian heritage center & the knife river indian villages

wanderessence1025 September 27, 2020

I had a dream last night in Bottineau, North Dakota. I dreamed that my friend Ed, who I used to work for in the State Department, hired me for some job. I was excited and was acting like I would be a great benefit to him. I was acting like I would make myself indispensable. I had some license (maybe Real Estate?) that I gave Ed cause to believe was still valid, although I suspected it might have expired. I remember organizing spiral notebooks quite matter-of-factly.

I wonder if I got this matter-of-fact attitude of being indispensable from Mary Adare in The Beet Queen (by Louise Erdrich) which I was reading before I went to sleep. 🙂

I left Bottineau at 8:20. The drive to Minot, North Dakota was an hour and 20 minutes. It was a gloomy 49°F, but no rain yet. Cornfields surrounded me, as they did through much of the Dakotas.

I wrote down questions in my notebook, looking up the answers later online:

What kinds of trees are used in windbreaks? (Eastern red cedar, Northern white cedar, Lombardy poplar, red pine, many other pine trees including including eastern white pine, ponderosa pine, and loblolly pine).
What are all those golden crops I see in North Dakota? (spring wheat, canola, barley, soybeans, dry beans, corn, as well as durum wheat, lentils, oats, and flaxseed)
What was the golden stubble that showed a crop already harvested? (spring wheat: 52% of the crop was harvested by Sept. 2 according to AgWeek)

The land was flat in all directions. I passed the Mouse River, and wetlands. This was a land of horizontals; the only verticals were telephone poles, the tree windbreaks, and silos.

As I drove, the temperature dropped, and I rolled along 83S for 37 miles. Moby sang “In this darkness, light my way” as heavy clouds hunched overhead. The roads in North Dakota were straight and flat, and a pretty red barn and white farmhouse nestled in a copse of trees. Blackened hay bales hunkered down against the coming rain in a green field.

I finally arrived in Minot, pronounced My’-not, and drove by the Minot Air Force base, a Boot Barn, and the Minot Gun Club. A sign said DNT TXT N DRV. By this time, the clouds had unleashed and were dumping a deluge over the town.

My first stop of the day was the Scandinavian Heritage Center in Minot. It is the world’s only outdoor living museum dedicated to preserving the ethnic heritage of all five Scandinavian countries. The buildings include a visitor center; a stabbur (storage house) from Telemark, Norway; a Finnish sauna; a Danish windmill; a Dala horse; a Stave Church Museum; an eternal flame brought to North Dakota from Norway; and a 230-year-old house from Sigdal, Norway.

A bit of trivia: Norwegians accounted for a large number or immigrants who came to North Dakota. As 75% of the soil in their homeland was unsuitable for agriculture, they sought the fertile farmland here. Only Ireland lost as great a percentage of its people to America.

According to a flyer put out by the State Historical Society of North Dakota:

For North Dakota, Scandinavians mean Norwegians, Swedes, Danes, Icelanders, and Finns, descending in percentage of population. In the Old World, they fought each other for economic and political power for over 600 years. They share common language roots and the Lutheran religion. With six years of compulsory education and literacy requirements in their countries, most of the immigrants from Scandinavia were literate before their migration to North Dakota.

By 1914, roughly 20% of all farmland in North Dakota was owned by Norwegians. They farmed extensively in the eastern quarter, northwestern quarter, and north-central region of the state. Some came to North Dakota “fresh off the boat,” but the vast majority had lived in Minnesota, Wisconsin, or Iowa before moving west.

By the time I arrived, a drenching rain had engulfed the land; it was blustery and cold. Friendly folks greeted me in the Edward T. and Leona B Larson Visitors Center, especially one welcoming woman and Thorvold the troll.

Thorvold the troll and me

Trolls have been popularized in Nordic mythology and Scandinavian folklore. Norse trolls dwell in mountains, caves, and under the occasional bridge and are rarely helpful to human beings. Thorvold, who was very friendly, and his bench were hand carved and lived on the main floor of the Visitors Center.

I sloshed around the park, soaking my shoes and socks despite clenching an umbrella overhead.

The Hans Christian Andersen statue celebrates the author famous for his fairy tales, even though he wrote novels, plays, and travel articles. One of the things his works taught was that beauty comes from within.

Hans Christian Andersen

Hans Christian Andersen statue

In 1928, the Danish windmill was built by Carl Olson in Powers Lake, North Dakota and was used to supply water and grind wheat for the family. It was donated to Roosevelt Park in the 1960s by Olson’s family.

Danish windmill

The 7’4″ bronze statue of Leif Eiríkssen was dedicated in honor of the Icelandic ancestors who came to America. According to the Vinlanda Saga of Iceland, “Leif the Lucky” was the first man of European stock to step ashore in America in about the year 1000.

Leif Eiríkssen is a fitting symbol for all North Americans whose heritage lies in Nordic countries. According to Saga tradition, his father, Erik the Red, was Norwegian. Leif was born in Eiriksstadir, Iceland, lived and farmed at Brattahlid, Greenland, and served one winter under the Norwegian king in Trondheim.

Leif Eiríkssen statue

Scandinavian Heritage Center

The hillside waterfall and the surrounding area of the park commemorate the heritage of the mountains, streams, islands and lakes of Scandinavian homelands. About 600 gallons per minute of water flow over the waterfall in summer. It was dedicated in 2000.

waterfall and ponds

The Stave Church Museum is a full-size, authentic replica of one of the finest-designed stave churches constructed in Norway. It was dedicated in 2000, and the inaugural service was held on October 9, 2001. It serves as a memorial to the pioneer immigrants who uprooted themselves from Scandinavia to make new homes in North America.

The Gol (Hallingdal) Norway Stavkirke was originally built in the mid-1200s and in 1882, by order of King Oscar II. This old and venerable “house of God,” which had risen over the Gol community for 700 years was dismantled and shipped to Oslo. In 1884, King Oscar II laid the cornerstone for the reconstructed church at Bygdøy Park in Oslo where today it forms part of the Norwegian Folk Museum.

Gol Stave Church Museum

Gol Stave Church Museum

Gol Stave Church Museum

Gol Stave Church Museum

A large 30-foot-tall Dala horse, which is the most recognized Swedish symbol in the world, was dedicated by the Swedish Heritage Association on October 10, 2000.

These brightly colored horses have been carved in various sizes by Swedish craftsmen since the early 1800s. The first Dala horses were plain wood, created as toys for children. A hundred years later, they took on their familiar bright colors and kurbit (flower-patterned) saddle and harness designs.

Dala horse

Dala horse

The Sigdal House is the oldest in North Dakota. Built about 1771, from the Vatnãs area of Sigdal, Norway, it was selected to be representative of a typical house from old-time Norway. It was restored according to museum standards, then dismantled and shipped to Minot. It was dedicated in October of 1991.

Sigdal House

The Stabbur is a storehouse used in Scandinavian countries to provide safe, dry storage for food and other commodities. The one in Minot is a replica of the “Torvtjønnlofter” built about 1775 in Rauland in Telemark, Norway. Ottar Romtveit of Rauland built the stabbur, disassembled it for shipping to Minot, and then came over with his crew to construct it. It was dedicated during the Norsk Høstfest on October 9, 1990.

Stabbur

According to a brochure distributed by the Scandinavian Heritage Park, “immigrants from Scandinavia were unable to bring much with them to this land, however, they had an inherited strength of character and perseverance that enabled them to complete the difficult tasks of life in the New World.

“While these new citizens loved their adopted land, they still remembered with great fondness the friends, relatives, and familiar places they left behind in the “old country.” They often longed to see the majestic fjords and walk through the meadow beside a cool, clear stream that rippled down from the old stave church on the hill.”

Information about the Center comes from “Your Personal Guidebook for Visiting the Scandinavian Heritage Center, Minot, ND, USA”

•••••••••

When I left Minot at 10:35, it was still pouring rain and my feet were soaked through. I drove a 4-lane highway from Minot south, through wetlands and a wind farm with turbines twirling in the rain. The temperature had dropped to 47°F. A wall of grain elevators loomed on the horizon. I noted that Case Farm equipment seemed to be red, while John Deere was green and gold. I recognized the old dinosaur symbol on a Sinclair station and crossed Lake Sakakawea, which was like an ocean.

On 200W, I drove 21 miles on the Lewis & Clark Trail, part of which crossed the Garrison Dam. I saw a white-tailed deer, or maybe an antelope. On Road 37, I drove 10 miles, some through fields of sunflowers, used for seeds and oil.

Just after noon, I arrived at the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site. A fourth grade school group from Bismarck, North Dakota was there and I kept having to reroute to avoid them. It was still blustery and pouring rain.

The Knife River region has been home to people for perhaps 11,000 years. Early written records and cultural materials document that the Hidatsa and Mandan had lived on these river terraces for 500 years when they first made contact with Europeans.

French-Canadian trader Pierre de la Verendrye was the first European to record contact with the Mandan of the upper Missouri in 1738. When explorer David Thompson reached the area in 1797, Hidatsa culture was still healthy. After Lewis & Clark’s visit in 1804, the pace of change quickened. An influx of fur traders undermined the tribes’ key role as middlemen in the economy.

Village people grew dependent on European horses, weapons, cloth, and iron pots. Disease and overhunting of the bison weakened an evolving culture.

Explorer Prince Maximilian of Wied and artists Karl Bodmer and George Catlin portrayed a society in transition. The federal government removed the tribes to reservations, gave members allotted lands, and forced them to grow wheat. It banned Hidatsa societies and rituals. The changes eroded ancient relationships with the land and ended a way of life within one generation.

I first ducked into the earthlodge to get out of the rain. Native American tribes living in the Upper Missouri River Valley, which included the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara people, developed the unique earth and wooden home to fit their sedentary agricultural lifestyle.

In the Hidatsa society, women owned and maintained the earthlodge or “awahte.” The women cut four cottonwood posts and beams and, with the help of the men, erected a central support structure. The women then erected an outer circle of posts and cross beams, leaned split logs to form a wall, and lifted the rafters into place. On top of this framework, the women laid bunches of willow branches, dried prairie grass, and thick sod. It took them about 7-10 days to complete the lodge, which would be between 30-60 feet in diameter and 10-15 feet high; they were rebuilt every ten years or so.

earthlodge at Knife River Indian Villages

An earthlodge housed between ten and twenty people, usually sisters and their families. Beds were situated around the perimeter. Personal items were kept under the beds while general use items were kept on raised platforms similar to bed frames. A typical earthlodge also contained a corral for prized war and hunting ponies on one side of the door.

The main focus in the earthlodge was the central fire pit with smoke escaping through a hole in the roof. In the event of heavy rain or snow, an old bullboat could be turned over the hole and propped up to allow smoke to escape. Earthlodge occupants sat around the central fire on reed mats including the atuka, a high-sided seat reserved for the oldest man of the household. The atuka was also offered to visitors as a sign of respect.

beds around the perimeter

fire pit

artifacts

buffalo skin

bed

the earthlodge

The transitional time between summer and winter was used to store food. The cache pit was a large bell-shaped hole in the floor lined with willow and dry grass and filled with dried corn, beans, squash, and sunflower. The women built several cache pits both inside and outside the earthlodge and covered them over to hide their location. Parfleches were rawhide containers hung from the ceiling used to store a variety of items such as clothes, dried foods, trade items, craft materials, and hides.

cache pit

I tried to walk to the Awatixa Village, also known as Sakakawea Village; it was a one mile round trip, but I never made it. I only saw Awatixa Xi’e Village, also known as the Lower Hidatsa Village, because it was so windy and wet that I was getting soaked even under my umbrella; this village was established as early as 1525 CE and continuously occupied until about 1780-1785.

Before coming into the visitor center, I’d put on my Tevas because my tennis shoes were soaked; while I walked, my feet were freezing and the hood of my jacket kept getting blown off my head. My pants were soaked. I walked about halfway and turned around.

I came upon a Hidatsa Garden. In mid-spring, women planted sunflowers using simple tools. In late May or early June, they planted corn. Squash and beans were planted between every 8-10 rows of corn. Annual flooding of the river terraces brought fresh soil to the gardens. Gardening the terraces was necessary because the prairie sod was almost impossible to break with a bison scapula (shoulder blade) hoe.

Hidatsa Garden

path to Awatixa Village

I stood at the edge of a large village of earthlodges, Awatixa Xi’e Village. When the dwellings collapsed, they left circular mounds of earth around hardened, saucer-like floors. From that pattern, one can envision the extent of the village and guess the number of inhabitants.

The bowl-shaped earthlodge depressions are surprisingly close together, leaving barely enough room for corn-drying scaffolds between dwellings. This suggests a close-knit social structure and the need for protection against marauding tribes. From the air, 51 earthlodge depressions are visible. According to archeological evidence, people occupied the site for centuries before the Awatixa built this village. They abandoned it after the smallpox epidemic in 1780, but later returned and built a new village at the river’s edge.

Awatixa Xi’e Village

Awatixa Xi’e Village

Awatixa Xi’e Village

Molehill-like mounds two to four feet high near the village edge are middens or garbage heaps packed with broken pottery, bone tools and flaked stone. Shattered buffalo bones are the most frequently unearthed objects found here.

Awatixa Xi’e Village

Back in the warmth of the Visitor Center, I looked at some of the displays.

decorated buffalo hide

Mandan Village (1830s) by George Catlin

The permanent Knife River villages became centers of trade between widespread Indian people of the Plains. The peak trade period from mid- to late-summer brought goods to these villages from every coast.

Knife River flint, from quarries 60 miles to the west, was the region’s first known trade item. With the flint, they made points, blades, knives, and tools with many uses. Surplus food was also used for trade. They also traded goods that other tribes brought into the villages – obsidian from Wyoming, copper from the Great Lakes, and dentalium shell from the West Coast. These experienced traders were ready to deal in European goods, such as glass beads, guns, horses and metal items, when they arrived.

Trade with the Hidatsa & Mandan

Summer was a time of intense gardening. A Green Corn Ceremony celebrated summer’s first green corn. Berries roots and fish supplemented their diet. Upland hunting yielded bison, deer, and small game for meat, hides, bones, and sinew.

Green Corn Dance of the Hidatsa, by George Catlin

Skill on horseback became crucial to hunting the buffalo. In early summer, hunters left the village to follow buffalo on the plains. Women sometimes accompanied their husbands to help butcher meat and dress hides. Meat would be smoked or dried in the hunting camp.

Winter Village of the Minatarres, by Karl Bodmer

The explorer Maximillian described women playing with a game ball in 1833. “They toss it on the foot and then keep it in the air by kicking it.”

Porcupine quills were used for decoration in early times. Much work was needed in removing spines, dyeing, sorting, softening, flattening, and sewing them into place on clothing and other personal items.

Winter was a time of storytelling, game-playing, and the passing on of traditional knowledge. Buckskin dolls kept children company during the long winter months.