Sakakawea Trail - Indian sites

The Fort Clark Trading Post Historic Site is a windy, empty prairie with a lot of stories to tell. It was the site of a Mandan Indian village of earth-covered lodges on the west bank of the Missouri River. In 1830-31 the American Fur Company established the Fort Clark Trading Post south of the village to enhance trade with the Mandans. It worked, until the traders introduced the smallpox outbreak that wiped out 90% of the Mandans.

In 1838 the empty village was taken over by the neighbouring Arikara Indians, 50% of whom had made it through the smallpox epidemic. In 1851 we gave them cholera, and in 1856 we tried smallpox again. The village was finally abandoned in 1862.

Now this is one of the most important archaeological sites in North Dakota. The remains of the large earth lodge village, cemetery, and two fur trade posts are protected at the site. They're not perfectly protected, alas. Although it is illegal to remove artifacts from this location, there is some evidence of recent tampering by tourists ... or possibly by extremely ambitious gophers.


As interesting as the story is, there's not much left here to see. This is the area thought to have been used by the Arikara Indians for corralling horses. I know it looks suspiciously like nothing at all, but chemical analysis of the soil has revealed unusually high concentrations of chemicals commonly associated with horse manure and urine. Archaeologists at this site apparently have to be part chemist and part Sherlock Holmes.

This patch of nothing was the site of Pierre Garreau's lodge. Pierre was an Arikara Indian who took his French stepfather's name. He was renowned for great physical strength and bravery and worked as an interpreter for the American Fur Company. Although Pierre Garreau was quite interesting, the grass where he once lived really wasn't.

This rectangular patch of nothing was the site of Fort Clark. It was one of the three major fur trading posts on the upper Missouri River. They traded iron tools, glass beads, liquor, metal kettles and sheet metal for furs, buffalo hides, meat, corn and horses. Its location on the river allowed shallow-bottomed steam boats to supply Fort Clark, which made possible rapid transportation of trade goods and supplies.

Having patiently examined nothing, nothing and nothing, I was now treated to the excitement of nothing with shallow depressions in it. These circular dips in the plain are the sites of the earth lodges. Making fun of all the "nothing" on this history walk is all very well until you remember that 90% of the people who lived in these holes died in them from smallpox.

I stood for a while in one of the depressions, trying to feel the past. After about a minute I only felt a bit stupid, which could well have been a genuine emotional reaction to the events that occurred here.

A little further down the road at the Knife River Indian Villages site I had a chance to see what the earth lodges would have looked like in the 1800s. They are made of 8 central poles (erected by the men), with timbers laid across them to build a frame, then branches, then twigs, then earth to build a large, solid mound (all of this work was done by the women). Construction took about ten days from start to finish. A Ranger cheerfully informed me that it had taken a work team 9 months to build the reproduction in the pics below.

There is a hole in the roof to let smoke from the fire escape and, when it rained, a bull boat (see last pic this post) was hoisted over the hole so that smoke continued to rise out of the lodge but the rain ran off the sides.

It's quite an imposing structure with a rather grand entranceway. The heavy fur door even has a rattle attached to the back of it as a kind of early burglar alarm. The ranger assured me that this is a fairly accurate representation of an average sized earth lodge, although this one does have a few modern additions.

Each earth lodge housed an extended family unit of 8 to 20+ people depending on the size of the lodge. It actually looks pretty cosy. I really wanted to try out one of the beds, but they were cordoned off.

Not only do you have to share the lodge with your snoring, breathing, talking extended family, but probably one or two of the best hunting horses as well. They had a mini corral inside the lodge so that if a neighbouring tribe raided the village during the night, the best horses would be safe.

The earth lodge dwelling Indians hunted bison and other game like the nomadic Indian tribes, but they were essentially a farming population. Gardens and earth lodges were owned by women and passed down through the female line. Corn, beans, squash and sunflowers were the major crops, with the size of the harvest determined by the size of the family and the number of women available to work in the garden.

They even installed a basement coolroom in their lodges. Vegetable food was stored inside the earth lodge in one of several deep holes dug in the floor for that purpose. The temperature was cooler and more stable in the holes and the food was protected from thieves or scavengers. The notched pole sticking out of the hole is actually the ladder.

The Visitor's Centre is extremely interesting and features a number of very cool artifacts. Two of my favourites are below.

This is a container for carrying water. It used to be a bison bladder. I don't think the bison needed it any more by this stage.

This is a bull boat, a type of water craft used by many Indian tribes in this part of the world. Basically, it is a light wooden frame with a raw, uncured buffalo hide stretched across it. The operator would jump into the frame and paddle the ungainly looking vessel towards its destination. I'm sure it was very effective. I'm also sure it was very smelly and unpleasant. Once a bull boat was retired from nautical service (for reasons that I don't know, but suspect are fairly unattractive) it was recycled as a flip top lid for keeping the rain out of lodges.