North Dakota frontier trails: tourist attractions in the Bismarck/Mandan area focus on Lewis & Clark and native peoples

Travel America, July-August, 2004 by Roberta Sotonoff

THE WATER IS SO CALM IT MIRRORS THE clouds, the blue sky, and the trees along the shoreline. It's a perfect day to spend paddling on the Missouri River. Our canoe, a replica of one used by legendary explorers Lewis & Clark, glides alongside our partner boat.

"Salute them," says Jim Kaiser, our costumed French river-man guide.

We take three strokes, paddle tap across the boat two times, lift our paddles, shout "Hoy!" and then giggle wildly. With ensuing laughter, the other canoeists return the salute.

"We want to give people the same type of experience they would have had 200 years ago," says Kaiser, a guide with BirdWoman Missouri River Adventures.

A Lewis & Clark river experience? Well, sort of. Those guys paddled up the Missouri River and spent a winter in what is now Bismarck/Mandan, North Dakota (population. 94,719).

In 1803, President Jefferson had sent the Corps of Discovery, headed by Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, on a mission to explore the new Louisiana Territory, find a Northwest water passage, and bond with the Native Americans. Their two-year expedition, which reached to the Pacific Ocean, changed the course of the nation. They spent more time in North Dakota than in any other state.

If Lewis & Clark returned for a visit to the Bismarck/Mandan area today, they would be quite surprised at the mark they have left. Clad in their buckskin togs, which they accessorized with shoulder purses, the famous explorers would indulge in a little deja vu at the Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center in Washburn, north of Bismarck/Mandan. At the entrance, the Donald Jackson quote summing up the expedition--"Every man's daydream of ordinary men doing extraordinary, improbable things"--might embarrass these humble men.

The museum spotlights not only Lewis & Clark's expedition but the native peoples as well, with a huge display of Northern Plains Indian artifacts. Showcased are beaded shoes, baskets, buffalo robes, and a cradleboard just like the one that the lady on the dollar coin, Sakakawea, used for her infant son, Pomp, on the journey. There is also an 11-ton cottonwood tree that is fashioned into a canoe like one of the six that Lewis & Clark built at Fort Mandan. (One admission ticket gets you into the L & C Center and the replica fort, two miles northwest.)

Today, Lewis & Clark would have difficulty finding the replica of their 1804-05 winter quarters, located a few miles downstream from the actual site. The reconstructed fort has a blacksmith shop, storehouse, reconnaissance room, sleeping quarters, and captain's quarters. A costumed French trader is usually there to answer questions.

We know that our intrepid travelers befriended the local Hidatsas and Mandan Indians. About 3,000 to 5,000 of them lived in the Knife River area, another noteworthy stop along their route. It is here that Sakakawea and her husband, French trapper Toussant Charbonneau, lived and joined the Corps of Discovery.

Buffalo berries and goldenrod still grow with reckless abandon at Knife River Indian Villages, a national historic site. In the park are trails, the remains of a simple travois (load-carrying vehicles used by Plains Indians), and recreated earth lodges, the dirt-domed, grass-covered dwellings used by Native Americans. Inside the huts are buffalo robes, ceremonial pipes, furniture, a sweat lodge (kind of a ceremonial Native American sauna), artwork, atukas (backrests used as seats of honor), and tools made of stone, wood, and leather. Though the Mandan were traders and hunters, they were also serious gardeners. The crude rake fashioned from a deer antler was a vital tool.

Dakota Goodhouse, a Standing Rock Sioux tribe member, does not believe these earth lodges are authentic. They should be grassless and face the center of the village, he said.

Goodhouse gives his version of Mandan life at On-A-Slant Indian Village at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, just south of Mandan. Its bluff served as protection for On-A-Slant. The Mandan people also built their villages by ravines, which served as moats. Council meetings were held in the medicine lodge. Atop this most important village structure are four poles, each representing a stage of life--infancy, adolescence, adulthood, and old age. L & C saw this during their journey.

Between 1875 and 1891, Fort Abraham Lincoln was the regimental headquarters of the Seventh Calvary and in 1875 the home of General George Custer. Guides like Sergeant-Major Mark Keeneweg make the tour into a re-enactment. Visitors are treated like soldiers.

Custer's house contains many original belongings. His trophy heads and desk still occupy the study. The cellar was the home of Custer's pet wildcat, which often scared the wits out of his wife. Upstairs is Custer's very short bed. It was believed that sleeping sitting up was the way to avoid contracting consumption, a deadly disease.

When L & C happened by, North Dakota was not even a state. What a shocker it would be to them, then, to see Bismack's 18-story State Capitol, an Art Deco gem. The building's entranceway has a favorite sons Hall of Fame that includes names like Lawrence Welk, Roger Maris, Peggy Lee, and Eric Severeid. The lights in the lobby represent wheat.