When you think “North Dakota,”what comes to mind? For me it was space. A flat expanse covered by prairie grass, corn, and as of recently, oil fields. Something I didn’t think of was rivers. But North Dakota has them. In fact they have two National Park Sites along rivers.
I started my North and South Dakota adventure in Minneapolis, Minnesota. I was staying with some childhood friends about an hour northwest of the city and when I climbed into my Jeep after church on Sunday, I entered “Knife River Indian Villages”into my GPS. A couple miles and few quick turns later, I was on Interstate 90 and my GPS bellowed, “Continue 398 Miles.”I was about to drive over halfway across the state of North Dakota on the same road.
Turns out I was right about a few things. North Dakota is flat. And spacious. It also has many fields of sunflowers. I’m not talking about small yellow wildflowers people often call sunflowers nor am I saying there are a few large sunflowers planted throughout the state. No. Entire fields full of sunflowers as tall as I am.
Knife River Indian Villages
After seven hours of sunflowers, corn, and zero turns I arrived to Knife River Indian Villages. The Visitor Center closed about an hour before I arrived. Don’t worry, I knew that would most likely be the case. Thankfully, the grounds stay open until dark, so I was able to walk around.
Immediately behind the Visitor Center is a reconstructed earthlodge. These dwellings are what made up the Hidatsa Villages for centuries.
All that is left of them today are visible mounds where the homes collapsed and nature slowly took over.
A path skirts along the edge of the village and wanders down to the confluence of the Knife and Missouri Rivers. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark sailed the Missouri on their expedition. It took them 4 months to travel from St. Louis to this spot in 1804. I had a connection in St. Louis and it took me about a day to reach these villages. I love to travel, but I’m glad I get to do it now in an age of airplanes and automobiles instead of in the days of small boats and covered wagons.
Lewis and Clark arrived in this village not knowing what was around the next bend. They decided it would be a good idea to take someone along with them who knew this section of the country so they brought along a French-Canadian fur trader Toussaint Charbonneau as an interpreter and his wife, Sacagawea.
Fort Union Trading Post
The next day, I had to drive into Montana to visit my second park in North Dakota. You read that right. I was in North Dakota. I wanted to visit a park in North Dakota. I had to go to Montana to do it.
Fort Union Trading Post is located near the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. I found Fort Union Trading Post just off a little country road that turned to dirt a yard or so from the turn off into the parking lot. I hadn’t even realized I had entered Montana until I saw a sign in the parking lot that said “Entering North Dakota.” I glanced in my rearview mirror and saw a similar sign facing the other way that said, “Entering Montana.” In this part of the country, this was more than just a state line it was also a timezone line. I had some fun with that:
Fort Union was a trading post established by John Jacob Astor as part of his American Fur Company to do business with the Northern Plains Tribes. On average, they sold more than $100,000 of merchandise and collected 25,000 bison furs each year. One rifle cost 9 bison robes.
Now that I’d explored a couple of the river regions of the state, it was time to follow the Missouri River south and explore the most unique geological features of the state, the Badlands of Theodore Roosevelt National Park.
Stay Tuned…
What comes to mind when you picture North Dakota? What is your favorite river to visit?
Go. Live.
