3 September 2006 – Halliday, ND to Washburn, ND

Biking against the wind all day. I am wondering when (if?) the wind will ever shift in my favor. I was pushing pretty hard to make it to Washburn so that I could visit the Fort Mandan site before it closed. This is the area where Lewis and Clark spent their first winter after leaving St. Charles. They were in an area dominated by the Mandan and Hidatsa Indians and I passed a historical site where there are well-preserved earthen houses built by the Mandans. Interestingly, the Mandans built their villages on the bluffs above the river floodplain while Lewis and Clark built their fort in the floodplain. We have yet to learn the wisdom of building homes above the floodplain but the Mandans knew to do this long before European Americans came along.

I was running late because of wind and decided to call the visitor center. They told me that they don’t close until 7:00 PM. I was only about 5 miles away and it was 4:58 so I relaxed a little and powered up the hill from the Missouri River bottoms to the bluff on which the visitor center was built. This is a fairly nice visitor center but the reconstructed fort is about 2 miles away and back down in the bottoms. I headed out after talking to some people in the visitor center who were interested in my trip and visited the fort.

The fort was reconstructed on a site about 10 miles downstream of where the original forts was. The original had burned down during the time Lewis and Clark were in the Pacifica Northwest. Clark noted this in his journals. I was given a tour by a very personable high school student who is contemplating history as a field of study in college. This was a pretty nice site because they have the fort set up as it would have been when the L&C Expedition was there. They have stocked the room with bison hides, guns, barrels (of gunpowder and whiskey), etc. which makes the fort look like the occupants are all out hunting and will be coming back this evening. It must have been pretty rough to live a North Dakota winter in this structure. It supposedly got down to -40o F that winter. Most people slept in the lofts as warm air rises. Their first order of business while building the fort was trading with the local Native Americans for bison skin blankets as the blanket they brought with them were woefully inadequate. Lewis began the winter with guards on 2 hour shifts but ended up reducing that to 20 minute shifts because of the fear of his men freezing to death.

I slept in the public park down by the river and watched a beautiful sunset while I talked to Tac. It is free camping but no showering opportunity. Tomorrow I will be at a place called Prairie Nights (a casino/hotel) which is really the only place to stay between Bismark, ND and Mobridge, SD. I’ll be able to shower there and wash my clothes.