Knife River Indian Village, Ft. Mandan, Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center, State Capitol & ND Heritage CenterAug 5, 2010
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Knive River earthlodge the indians lived in.
Ft. Mandan is built with cottonwood trees in a V shape. Fort...
Lewis, Clark and Indian guide statues at Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center.
| Aug. 5 Hazen, Knife River, Washburn, Bismark, ND Knife River Indian Village NHS, Ft. Mandan, Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center, State Capitol & ND Heritage Center What a wonderful campground in Hazen. We called the Passport campground so we’d be near Knife River in the morning. Ken said just go in and make yourself at home. He’s gone and in WI, but he told me all the local places to see and even those along the next part of the trip. Hazen is on Rt. 200 in the middle of ranches. What a quiet, beautiful campground. It’s better than the last ones we just stayed at for double the money. We sure will tell other about it. Coming out of Hazen this morning, so many large double load trucks passed us going north. There are so many oil containment places in the fields and oil rigs working in the fields up here. We see the trucks pull in and fill up, but we don’t know where they are going. We passed 2 large refineries down south in Billings and Laurel, but we haven’t seen any near here yet. This morning we passed 3 of the coal burning electric plants that were on the map and 2 large coalmines. I asked Karl if he wanted to stay another day to take a tour, but he said no. At Knife River Indian Village there is proof that 3 Affiliated Indian Tribes lived here over 500 yrs.. They lived in earth lodges. Sakakawea and her 17 mth. old son came from here when Lewis and Clark met her and her chief and asked her to be their guide. We walked the trails and you can see the indentations of where the earth lodges were. They had over 58 in two different areas. The ranger spoke in a replica of one they created to show how one would be set up. There were areas for sleep, areas for cooking and preparing, areas for sacred ceremonies and areas for the horses (this is ND with 40 below in the winter), but the dogs slept outside as guards. The women had wonderful gardens, made the clothes and took care of the children while the men hunted. They traded corn and vegetables and hides for beads& flint. We walked along the Knife River not far from the indentions of the earthworks and saw buffalo bones sticking out of the banks. We asked the ranger and she says they see them all along there after rains. During the winter they would all move 10 miles further up river. They lived peacefully together. Ft. Mandan was very interesting. It’s only two miles past the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center so we went there first. They made a replica of the place Lewis and Clark spent their first winter at. The original fort was erected in only two months by the 40 men with Lewis and Clark. It was not intended to last. There were only cottonwood trees and they rot easily. It’s built in a V shape. There are 4 rooms with lofts on each side and 2 storerooms at the small end of the V. There were sleeping quarters for the men, but they had to eat in their rooms and one room for a blacksmith shop. The men ate over 400 lbs of meat a day, but they worked off the calories. The following year Lewis and Clark made it to the OR coast and wintered there so the place was never used again. There is a large statue at the park of Seaman, the Newfoundland dog that went with Lewis and Clark. The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center was beautiful. They had iron statues of Lewis, Clark& his guide and metal sculptures of buffalo along the sidewalk. The exhibits were very informative and explained all the places that Lewis and Clark went on their journey, where they went separately and met up with each other again. One of these trips we’ll have to follow their journey. We’ve hit a lot of the places this trip just because we’ve been near them, but it would be neat to follow their trip. We stopped in Bismark at the State Capitol. They gave us a wonderful tour. Part of the building was built skyscraper style in the 1930’s and the rest added on in the1980’s. The first capitol burned down and only the library building on site was saved. She said it was strange on a prairie to see a skyscraper. It’s one of the only capitol buildings that is 85% used. It’s only been the last few years that they have outgrown it and some govt. offices are off site. They have a wonderful Heritage Center on site with everything you ever wanted to know about the state. We looked at everything, but really rushed through so we wouldn’t miss our tour. A lot of the info is the same that we’ve been seeing in the small towns we have visited. They had sections on the buffalo and changes in the era, the first people, settlements, farming, children, birds, dinosaurs and fossils, etc. It was excellent. |
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