After a beautiful sunset from beneath the clouds, we had a terrific thunderstorm in the night. Once the rain eased, we had one of the worst wind storms I have seen or rather heard. Sitting high on a bluff, there was little protection from the wind. It was difficult sleeping but when we finally woke up, the lake was flat calm and has remained so.
Our first stop of the day was the other end of the dam for a couple of pictures and then on to Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site. Sixteen hundred miles up the Missouri River, Lewis and Clark spent their first winter across the river from this site. We went into the visitors' center and the ranger there was very enthusiastic, talking our ears off. I think it hasn't been busy and she was just so happy to have someone to talk to. We watched the short film which was in the words of one of the female Mandan Indians who had lived into the early twentieth century and could recall what life was like in the villages and would have been like when Lewis and Clark were there in the winter of 1804-05.
After looking through the interpretive material in the center we went out to look at the replica of an earthlodge, the type of home the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians lived in. With an inside structure of logs, the frame was covered with dirt. Each earthlodge was thirty to sixty feet in diameter and housed up to twenty people. We were able to go into the lodge whose doorway was covered with a buffalo skin. The inside was set up as it would have been with the fire pit in the center and beds around the perimeter. They were an agrarian society and there were dried vegetables hanging from the wooden supports overhead.
The villages were set up with these lodges close together with only enough space for their drying racks and a path to walk between. When the lodges disintegrated over time, the dirt slid down and left raised circles where they had once been. We took the mile and a half walk out into the field to see the circles and depressions where two of the villages had been. An artist had painted the village about thirty years after Lewis and Clark went through and stated that there were fifty-two lodges in the village that Sakakawea lived. Due to river erosion and the shifting of the river channel, there are only thirty one depressions in the earth left. Since we were at ground level, it was very difficult to get photos that showed all these adjacent circles in the earth.
Now for Sakakawea or Sacagawea or Sacajawea as most of the world knows her. She had been stolen from a Shoshone tribe at age twelve and lived in the second Mandan village that we walked to. She was called Bird Woman and was probably given this name by the Mandans. The Mandans have no "j" sound in their language and their "k" was more like a hard "g" so it is believed by the people in this area that her name was probably Sakakawea. In Lewis and Clark's journals, they spelled her name eight different ways. By the time their journals were translated three years later, Lewis had already passed away and Clark said he didn't know which spelling was correct so that left it to the interpreter to choose a spelling. The North Dakotans vow he chose incorrectly.
For more earthlodge photos go to: https://picasaweb.google.com/115859097710257188914/May272014KnifeRiverVillagesND?authkey=Gv1sRgCMrnsOez3bGohAE#
We drove to the Fort Clark State Historic Site but found only a field with more circle depressions so didn't walk the loop. Fort Clark was one of three major fur-trading posts of the American Fur Company as well as a former site of a Mandan Village. Lunch was at a family restaurant in Washburn. Ted has Fleischkuchle, a German dish consisting of spicy fried ground meat encased in a flaky pastry served with french fries. He said it was really good but neither of us could pronounce it and I had to note it on my phone to remember how to spell it.
From lunch a short way up the road, we went to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center. This museum is run by a non-profit business and was one of the best, if not the best displays of Lewis and Clark memorabilia that we have seen. Besides the Lewis and Clark section, there were sections on Prince Maximillian of Weid and the artist Bodmer who retraced much of Lewis and Clark's path about thirty years after, the agrarian history of North Dakota, Fort Clark, and an art gallery with prints from George Catlin, another artist of the early 1800s. Throughout the museum were exquisite bronzes of indians whose name I should have written down. From the back porch of the museum we could look out at the Missouri River.
A few miles up the river was the replica of Fort Mandan where the Corps of Discovery had wintered across from the Mandan and Hidatsa villages. Before visiting the fort, we walked to the river where there was a statue of a really big dog. A little known fact, at least to us, was that Lewis had taken his Newfoundland, Seaman, along on the trip. This little park area and statue was a memorial to Seaman.
This area of North Dakota is known for its coal mining and coal fired power plants. The by-product of burning coal is called fly ash. The company called Headwaters Resources is Americas largest manager and marketer of coal combustion products and produce building products such as FlexCrete, MagnaWall stucco and Eldorado stone. The visitors' center at Fort Mandan, called Headwaters, is a totally "green" building made from these products. The rocks on the outside of the building look totally real. There wasn't much to see in the visitor's center so we walked out to the fort.
Though a replica, the fort was set up as it would have been in the early 1800s. Each room had a purpose and different equipment or supplies which was explained by an interpretive guide who was very informative and very enthusiastic about his subject. Again, he was probably glad just to have the company as it is still really early in the season. By the time we were done listening to him, we were done. Thirty miles or so back to the motor home and a glass of wine while looking out at the still flat lake. Ahh.....
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