ND Lewis & Clark Interpretive Center

Sculpture by Tom Neary of  Washburn, North Dakota

This is a privately owned location and needs your support, so I do hope you find your way here at some point in time.  Down the road a piece they have a reconstruction of Lewis and Clark's winter fort - included in their $7 price - that I thought was even more interesting, but I'll get to it in a day or two...

On November 1st, 1804, as winter closed in on the Corps of Discovery, the Mandan chief Sheheke-shote told them that they were welcome to lodge in the neighborhood over the winter and, "If we eat, you shall eat, if we starve, you must starve also."  I believe that's like the Three Musketeers:  All for one, and one for all.  Sure, the Corps could hunt and provide its own meat, but life with the Mandans promised a share of their vegetables like corns, beans and squash.  That is something men on the move simply cannot acquire without the generosity of others willing to share.

Come Spring the men of the Corps would find themselves healthy and ready to challenge those mountain ranges.  However, throughout the winter months, Lewis and Clark not only socialized with the Mandan and Hidatsa, but they studied them as Thomas Jefferson had instructed them to do.

April 7, 1805 saw them on their way.

The folks on site told us this was a touchy feely kind of interpretive center, so feel free to touch and feel.

I'm busy studying all of the interpretive things, and I look over to find Granpa, well, being Granpa:

Not to be an ol' stick in the mud - which I am when it comes to doing things like this - (My momma must have busted my behind somewhere in my wicked, wicked childhood, for touching things, because I surely do get squeamish when I do...)  But there you have me, all furred out.

Notice the painting of Lewis in the background with a different big hat on.  Outside, the statue has the hat turned sideways, here it seems to be pointing front to back.  Hmmm.  No explanations that I can find.  Over at the Fort they have a hat like that.  IT IS GI-NORMOUS!!  With such limited space on the voyage, they had to have felt pomp and circumstance was of paramount importance.  Well, after all, they would be meeting with the heads of state of all the Indian nations along the way...