109) Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site

Visited: Monday, July 18, 2016

This was a really fascinating site to end this particular tour with.  Once the site of an endless array of earth lodges - when Lewis & Clark were here in 1804, there were as many Native Americans living here as there were people living in Saint Louis - the site has the advantage of being both interesting because of the people who lived here and for the role in the Lewis & Clark expedition.  It was here that they recruited the husband and wife team of Toussaint Charbonneau and Sacagawea to the expedition, returning them on their way back to Saint Louis.  But the history of the Mandan and Hidatsa tribes here is perhaps even more interesting, as their amish-like raising of earth lodges (our ranger told us it took 9 months to build the replica that stands there today - but just two weeks for the tribe) to their advanced agriculture (as Westerners came in, they adapted many seed lines from these tribes) to the story of their interactions with Westerners, so different from the stories of other tribes.  Add in a great historical perspective - a historian met with an older Hidatsa woman in the early 20th century, and captured her story - and some other items of interest (Knife River flint was found as far away as Pennsylvania; it can be identified as Knife River flint because of the unique caramel coloring), and it's a site well worth visiting.