Road Trip: Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota

Monday, August 11: I had such a great time on my last road trip that I decided to take another. My main destination for this adventure was North Dakota, a state that I’ve only ever traveled through as quickly as possible on my way to somewhere else (and the interstate speed limit is 80 mph).

I found several new points of interest heading out of Minnesota—the first was author Sinclair Lewis’ birthplace and boyhood home in Sauk Centre. When he was born in 1885, Sauk Centre was a tiny prairie town of only five or six blocks in length. Lewis began to write at age 15, graduated from Yale, and became the first American author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote popular novels such as Main Street, Babbitt, Arrowsmith and It Can’t Happen Here, his 1935 story about the election of a fascist U.S. president that is eerily prescient. Map link: Sauk Centre, MN

Next I visited Alexandria, MN, home of Big Ole, America’s largest viking statue and the Kensington Runestone. The runestone is a 200-pound stone slab found in a farm field in 1898 near Kensington, MN, and the translated carvings suggest a visit by Scandinavian explorers in 1362. The original stone is on display at the town’s Runestone Museum, and while most scholars believe that it is a hoax, the official community belief is that it’s authentic. A 16-foot, 18-ton replica of the runestone stands at one of the highway entrances to the city. Map link: Alexandria, MN

In Moorhead, MN, I saw the Hjemkomst, a 76-foot, 16-ton sailing ship built by Roger Asp, a local junior high guidance counselor, who had dreamed of building and sailing a viking ship. Sadly, he passed away from leukemia a few months after overseeing the vessel’s 1980 maiden voyage on Lake Superior. In the summer of 1982, a crew of 13 sailed the Hjemkomst (“homecoming” in Norwegian) 6,100 miles from Duluth, MN to Bergen, Norway. Map link: Moorehead, MN

Troll carvings

After crossing the Red River into Fargo, ND, I first stopped at the Roger Maris museum, dedicated to the baseball slugger who set a single-season home run record of 61 in 1961, breaking Babe Ruth’s mark that had stood for 34 years. Born in Hibbing, MN, the Maris family moved to Fargo when Roger was 10. He always considered Fargo to be his hometown and insisted that any museum honoring him had to be in a public place, accessible and free to all. Following his wishes, the museum is located in the West Acres Mall in the center of town.

My other stop in Fargo was at the I-94 visitors center, where the wood chipper from the movie Fargo is on display. The Coen brothers’ 1996 film won an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay, with the wood chipper scene at the climax becoming a cult classic. No part of the movie was actually filmed in Fargo and only the first scene was set here, with the rest of the plot unfolding in Minneapolis and Brainerd, MN. The Coen brothers chose the name Fargo because they thought it was catchy, memorable and invoked the entire frigid Midwestern region that they wanted to portray. 

Then it was north about 50 miles to see the KRDK-TV antenna, which at 2,060 feet is the tallest structure in North America and the fifth-tallest in the world. Map link: KRDK TV antenna

Bonus Question: What is the tallest man-made structure in the world? (answer at end of post). 

Finally, I arrived at my destination for the night, Lakeside Campground in Jamestown, ND, a locally run facility on the east side of the Jamestown Reservoir. I was able to snag one of their four rustic cabins and arrived with just enough time to unload my gear and make dinner before a round of thunderstorms hit.

Tuesday, August 12: I awoke at 5:45 AM, but eventually fall back asleep and got up at 8:00 AM. There was no rush, since the tourist spots that I wanted to visit in Jamestown didn’t open until 10:00 AM. First was Fort Seward, an 1870s outpost where U.S. troops were garrisoned to provide security for supply routes, telegraph lines and railroad workers. Next I visited the National Buffalo Museum, an informative display on our country’s national mammal, but a sad reminder of how these magnificent animals were hunted nearly to extinction. Outside there is an active herd pastured and inside are the remains of White Cloud, a rare albino buffalo that lived with the herd until her passing in 2016. The white buffalo is sacred to natives, and symbolizes hope, peace, unity and good fortune. Fun fact: Media entrepreneur Ted Turner manages more than 50,000 head of buffalo on 15 ranches in seven states and was inducted into the National Buffalo Foundation’s Hall of Fame. Next to the museum are Dakota Thunder, the world’s largest buffalo statue and Frontier Village, a replica of a 19th-century pioneer town. 

Next it was off to Bismarck to tour the North Dakota State Capitol, my seventh statehouse this summer. The second-most populous city in the state (after Fargo), the town was named in honor of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck by the Northern Pacific Railroad in 1873 in an attempt to attract German settlers and investors to the area. The art-deco style capitol was completed in 1934 and has an 18th-floor observation deck with beautiful views of Bismarck and Mandan, which lies directly across the Missouri River. On the riverfront, there are plenty of parks and trails, and a replica of Lewis and Clark’s 55-foot keelboat.

I picked up some provisions at Target, then crossed the Missouri into Mandan, headed for Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, the oldest state park in North Dakota (1907), where I had a reservation. The visitors center and hands-on exhibits throughout the park offer an excellent view into native and U.S. military history in the region. The On-a-Slant Village is an amazing recreation of Mandan earth lodges. There are multiple military outposts, barracks and a replica of the Commanding Officer’s Quarters inhabited by Lt. Col. George Custer. It was from here that he and the 7th Cavalry rode off to meet their demise against the Sioux at Little Bighorn. 

After touring the park by car, I pitched my truck tent at a lovely campsite at the confluence of the Missouri and Heart Rivers, then took a bike ride to explore more of this attractive park. It was a perfect evening, with clear skies, a light breeze, a comfortable temperature and low humidity. A large group of late-arriving youths briefly spoiled the peace and quiet, but they were respectful and quiet once they got their tents set up and settled in. 

Map link: Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, Mandan, ND

Wednesday, August 13: I reluctantly left my campsite and headed north to the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Washburn, ND, dedicated to the Corps of Discovery and the local Mandan and Hidatsa natives whose hospitality was vital to the expedition’s success. Two miles away I visited Fort Mandan, a replica of the Corps’ winter quarters in 1804-05 along the Missouri River. Lewis and Clark arrived here looking for a place to spend the cold northern winter and were welcomed by the native people. For more than 300 years, the area was a major population center and a crossroads of culture and commerce. Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara, Shoshone, Lakota, Yanktonai, Assiniboine, Cheyenne, Metis, French, British and Americans all met here and it was a logical place for Lewis and Clark to set up camp. They constructed a small fort out of cottonwood, which included living quarters, storerooms and a smokehouse and maintained a strict military lifestyle. It was here that the Captains met Toussaint Charbonneau and his teenaged wife, Sacagawea, who were hired as guides and interpreters. Originally a Shoshone from Idaho, Sacagawea was captured in a Hidatsa raid when she was 11 or 12 years old and her Shoshone roots would prove invaluable when the expedition crossed the Rocky Mountains the following year. 

Fort Clark Trading Post displays the remains of native villages and two fur trading posts from the 1830s. Archaeologists also discovered a large cemetery here, a reminder of how smallpox and cholera outbreaks decimated native populations, who had no natural immunity to European diseases.

At Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site, an excellent museum and reconstructed, fully-furnished earth lodge and garden offered another look into the lives of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara peoples. A 1.3-mile trail winds past several sites where native earth lodge communities once stood, including where Sacagawea was believed to have lived before and after her journey with Lewis and Clark. Much debate surrounds the “correct” spelling of Sacagawea, which means “bird woman” in Hidatsa. The truth is that nobody really knows, mainly since Hidatsa—like most indigenous languages—were not traditionally written down. Even Lewis and Clark didn’t seem certain, as they used more than a dozen different spellings of her name in their journals. Most contemporary Hidatsa use Sacagawea, although the official North Dakota spelling is Sakakawea. I set up camp on a bluff overlooking Lake Sakakawea, an enormous 368,000-acre body of water that is the nation’s third-largest man-made reservoir. Lake Sakakawea State Park is the western terminus of the North Country Trail, which stretches 4,800 miles to the Appalachian Trail in Vermont. It was super windy day, and I opted not to set up my truck tent’s outer vestibule, after my experience in high winds last month on Lake Oahe in Pierre, SD with Amy. The wind was welcome however, since it kept me cool on the warm afternoon and evening and kept the mosquitos and biting flies at bay. I took a late afternoon hike along the lake, ate dinner and read until bedtime, when the wind settled down enough to get a good night’s sleep. Map link: Lake Sakakawea State Park, ND

Thursday, August 14: It was a hazy, overcast morning while I showered, ate and packed up. After a brief stop in New Salem, ND (see below), I visited Fort Yates on the Standing Rock Reservation to see the Sitting Bull Burial Site. Sitting Bull, a Lakota chief who became a prominent political leader and a vocal critic of government policies towards natives, was killed here in 1890 by Indian agency police supported by U.S. Marshals and soldiers attempting to arrest him. Sitting Bull had foreseen and was present at the 1876 victory over the 7th Cavalry at Little Bighorn and escaped with his band to Saskatchewan to avoid capture. He eventually returned to the Dakotas and starred in Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show before retiring to the Standing Rock Reservation until his death. In 1953, relatives secretly exhumed what they believed to be his remains and moved them to a site near Mobridge, SD, closer to his birthplace, although some question whether the remains were actually his. Map Link: Fort Yates, ND

In Mobridge, I visited the second Sitting Bull Burial Site, then went for a short bike ride on the beautiful new riverfront trail, parking near a curious statue called “Walleye Up,” depicting a cowboy riding the state fish. Mobridge got its name when the Milwaukee Railroad was building a bridge across the Missouri River in the early 1900s. Telegraph operators used the abbreviation for Missouri in their messages, referring to the “Mo. Bridge” and this became the town’s name. Map link: Mobridge, SD

I turned onto U.S. Highway 12, which runs from the Pacific Ocean to Detroit, MI, and passes   through the Twin Cities. When I got to Aberdeen, SD (fun coincidence—Hwy 12 ends in Aberdeen, WA) I decided that I’d done enough sightseeing for the week and was close enough to make it home at a reasonable hour. I opted to stay on the smaller, slower highway rather than take the interstate in order to see more of the area, traveling through many Minnesota communities that I’ve heard about for years but never visited. Willmar, Kandiyohi, Litchfield, Darwin, Dassel, Cokato, Waverly, Delano and Independence all came and went, as did a beautiful sunset in my rearview mirror, and I arrived home around 10:30 PM. 

Beautiful sunflower fields were a regular sight

Here’s a photo gallery of the “world’s largest things” that I saw this week:

Salem Sue, largest holstein, New Salem, ND

Dakota Thunder, largest buffalo, Jamestown, ND

Sandy, largest sandhill crane, Steele, ND

Otto, largest otter, Fergus Falls, MN

Largest prairie chicken, Rothsay, MN (unnamed)

Bonus Question Answer: At 2,722 feet, the Burj Khalifa building in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, is the tallest man-made structure in the world. Opened in 2010, it was designed by Skidmore, Owings and Merrill of Chicago, who also designed the Sears Tower, a previous record holder for world’s tallest building. 

Source: Wikipedia