Tuesday, July 21, 2020

Western road trip, day 5: Bismarck & Minot

Today, we put in a full day of work at the hotel, so we didn't have much time, but we did get over to the North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum at lunchtime.

ND Heritage Center and State Museum
The museum has a few angles of North Dakota history. 

Some rooms preserve and celebrate cultural history, like quilting, recipes, and the reintroduction of the horse into North America by Spanish explorers and traders. I really liked the quilt designs and beaded clothing!

Some rooms celebrate Native American history with names of tribes and chiefs in the area, hunting and diet practices, and the sad history of the treaties. I was curious as to how the museum would represent the treatment of native people, and I thought it was fairly even-handed.

Other rooms showcase natural history, such as gems and rocks, taxidermied native species, and fossils. We had a lot of fun looking at the big fish, turtles, and mammals that inhabited this area when it was a swamp 60 million years ago.

Watch out!
I took some work calls in the afternoon and walked around the capitol building complex; not the most glorious capitol in the U.S., but they are kind of no frills up here.

North Dakota state capitol building
They also have a Sakakawea statue on the grounds; North Dakota sent a statue of her (not sure if it is a copy of this) that they sent to the U.S. Capitol statuary; she is the first Native American woman to appear in the statuary!

After finishing work, we headed up to the Minot area to have dinner with my uncle and cousins. Uncle Dave is my dad's younger brother, and they grew up together with lots of hijinx around small firearms and bows / arrows that their parents probably shouldn't have bought them. All their brothers are much older, so my dad and Dave were really like twins.

Uncle Dave served in the Air Force at the Minot, ND base and ended up staying there for life. He hunts, fishes, and sounds like he's from Canada. My dad remained a city slicker, and while he could fix any engine, he was always squeamish about cleaning fish we'd catch on family vacations in Minnesota. So, he did what any big brother would do - he made his little brother do it. 

It was good to see this branch of the family, as I hadn't seen my cousins since 2002 when we stayed in a log cabin together in northern Minnesota. Uncle Dave looks a lot like my dad, so it was both good and weird to see him again. The Sherman brothers have a particular look, but Dave and Dad really look alike.

Another family member had sent over some photos after one of our distant uncles died, so we went through them and Dave took some copies. 


Me and Dave in the middle with Dave's kids Chelsea and Miranda
It was a bit of a hike up to Minot from Bismarck, but it was such a beautiful drive that I didn't mind! Some areas of North Dakota are so cute that they remind me of Hobbiton from Lord of the Rings. That was something I didn't anticipate.

I definitely didn't get to spend enough time with either North Dakota or family on this trip, so I am eager to come back and spend more time with both, maybe in a couple of years.

Next up: Montana!

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