When I first started with the State Historical Society of North Dakota, one of the tasks given to me was connecting the Chateau de Mores to North Dakota Studies, an online resource for students, teachers, and lifelong learners that explores our state’s people, places, events and fascinating history. It was an assignment that never made much sense to me. Good interpretive programs highlight a resource, whether it is a tree, a historic house, artifact, or just the site itself. My assignment was making North Dakota Studies the resource when it should be the Chateau. It was emphasizing the wrong thing. So what was the fix? It seems simple; we needed to make the sites a resource for North Dakota Studies. It needed to be something that helped teachers and connected to themes found within the North Dakota Studies curriculum. While this task has many obstacles, the solution has us excited.

Currently, our sites serve teachers as a field trip destination. Unfortunately, history does not always happen in convenient locations. Some sites are remote, and while we can serve students who live close to the site, what about those who don’t?

Photo of Fort Totten Site Supervisor Kyle Nelson teaching a session on archery as part of the Whitestone Hill Education Day.

In a past blog, I mentioned that we were developing virtual field trips at sites. It is a good idea. How else will we get students from Abercrombie to experience a site like Fort Buford on the opposite side of the state? Plus, without the travel requirement, students can participate in several of these programs with different sites across the state. But there are problems to be solved. The biggest holdup is the limited internet at sites. It is not much of a field trip if all you can see is the office area. You want to be able to go into the underground capsule at Oscar-Zero Missile Alert Facility at the Ronald Reagan Minuteman Missile State Historic Site. Plus, not all the buildings are heated. I once did a Facebook Live video from inside the Chateau in the middle of winter. I was shivering by the end.

Missouri-Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center Site Supervisor Joseph Garcia leads a group of students through a hands-on activity focusing on how biologists learn about bird habitats from catching birds. This program was part of the Project WET education day held at the site.

With the problems identified, what is the solution? While we still want to host virtual field trips eventually, right now we could look at a different kind of virtual offering. Currently, sites are working on a program that we call Ask-an-Expert. We are fortunate to have staff that is passionate about their site. They read books and articles and use downtime to conduct research. Some have even translated books from other languages to learn more about an aspect of their site. Allowing students to ask these experts questions could be a powerful interaction for the classroom. There is a genuine cool factor in getting to speak to an expert, and it always seems to carry more weight. Sure, I could teach a class about space, but it would mean so much more coming from an astronaut.

Here is how it would ideally work. Our sites have produced a list of themes related to their sites that tie into the North Dakota Studies curriculum. Teachers can use this list to select a site that fits what they are covering in class. After making a reservation with our site staff, the teacher will introduce the topic to the class. The students craft their questions, and the teacher sends them in advance to the site staff. Having the questions will allow the site staff to pull together resources such as photos, videos, and artifacts that they can use to answer these questions. It also guarantees that students will have questions to ask. On the day of the meeting, students get to ask their questions to the site staff who answer them using their knowledge, historical accounts, and the resources gathered.

Screenshot from one of the Chateau de Mores Facebook Live videos, but a great example of how an Ask-an-Expert program would look to students.

We are excited by the potential of this program. We have done a few test runs so far, and the results were fantastic. One of the most impressive things was that in the first wave of questions, we would often see basic things asked, but while they were getting those answers, the teacher was writing down questions that were coming up during the responses. This second wave of questions, when asked, often showed some historical analysis that was happening in the minds of the students. They were thinking critically about what they are hearing. A program like this encourages students to think about causality (Why did we need to spread out the launch control facilities in the missile field?) and conflicting accounts (Did the Marquis de Morès kill Riley Luffsey?). We want sites to inspire critical thinking, and this program helps achieve that goal.

We originally planned to do a beta test of this program this past spring, but COVID-19 changed that. We are looking to try a beta test this fall and roll it out in full this winter. We hope to work out any issues and get feedback from teachers. While there may be a fee for this program in the future, participating in the beta will be free of charge. If you teach North Dakota Studies and are willing to give this program a try, please feel free to reach out to me, and I will help connect you to our experts.

The volunteers and I are back in the archaeology lab, and we continue to work on rehousing artifacts from On-A-Slant Village (32MO26) at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park near Mandan (for more about On-A-Slant Village, see http://blog.statemuseum.nd.gov/blog/adventures-archaeology-collections-…). There are many boxes of ceramics from this site. We are enjoying the variety of quality, sizes, and designs. Traditionally, Mandan potters were women. Here are just a few examples of the pottery that they made. The pottery is found in a variety of sizes. There are a few small decorated vessels like these.

Incised lines and finger or tool impressions are visible on these small pots from On-A-Slant Village (83.442.6.2, 451; photo by David Nix)

There are also large pots like this.

Incised lines and finger or tool impressions are visible on these small pots from On-A-Slant Village (83.442.6.2, 451; photo by David Nix)

This example is undecorated, but we know it was shaped using a paddle because you can see marks (called simple-stamping) on the body of the pot. There are many examples of simple-stamped sherds from On-A-Slant—here is a close-up of another simple-stamped sherd.

A simple-stamped body sherd from On-A-Slant Village (83.442.2.59; photo by David Nix)

The paddles used to shape the pots had grooves like these examples from our educational collection.

Replica pottery anvil stone and two replica simple-stamp paddles (SHSND AHP educational collection)

To shape the pot, the potter held a smooth stone (called an anvil) on the inside of the pot while she used the paddle on the outside of the pot.

A replica pot and paddle tool (replica pot by Wade Haakenson, paddle from the SHSND AHP educational collection)

Much of the decorated pottery from On-A-Slant Village is decorated with cord impressions that come in a variety of patterns and designs.

Cord impressed rim sherds from On-A-Slant Village (83.442.4.707, 1321, 807)

The potter used cords similar to these to decorate the pottery.

Replica cords – the one on the left is made from sinew, the one on the right is made from plant fiber (SHSND AHP educational collection)

There are also many sherds with incised or trailed designs.

Incised sherds from On-A-Slant Village (83.442.2.123, 132, 133, 134; photos by David Nix)

A stick could be used as a tool, or it could be carved to create different kinds of lines in the clay.

Stick tools (SHSND AHP educational collection)

Similar tools could be used to make impressions in the clay as well. My favorite kind of decorations are impressions made by cord-wrapped stick tools. These interesting tools make designs that look like this.

Cord wrapped stick impressed sherds from On-A-Slant Village (83.442.4.1530, 747, 913; photos by David Nix)

Replica cord-wrapped-stick tools (SHSND AHP educational collection)

I also enjoy the really fancy designs like this one.

There are many kinds of decoration on this rim sherd from On-A-Slant Village (83.442.4.799; photo by David Nix)

This pot has almost everything—cord impressions along the rim and under the rim along the neck, tool impressions (the round dots), incised lines, and ridges from shaping the pot using simple-stamping (visible along the broken edge of the pot).

Last year, the museum collections committee analyzed the current representation within the state collection and noticed there were particular gaps of objects from childhood and teenage years, most significantly those items from the 1960s to the present. The State Historical Society of North Dakota is also looking ahead and considering how much collections storage space we will need as we continue to collect objects into the future.

To help us get an idea of what the people of North Dakota would most like to be collected and preserved from their childhood and beyond, the staff began conducting an online survey in February to gather input from lifetime, current, and past North Dakotans, as well as visitors to the state, about what the State Museum should collect.

We have received many great responses since the survey launched, and here is a little about what we have learned so far. I hope you like stats and nostalgia as much as I do, because here we go!

Here are the results as of Aug. 10:

• 134 unique responses.
• Representation from 37 North Dakota counties, with the most responses from Burleigh (34) followed by Morton (8).
• The highest number of responses from participants born in the decades 1950-1959 (37) and 1960-1969 (32).
• 230 suggestions for toys.
• 239 suggestions for clothing.
• 234 suggestions for activities.
• 105 suggestions for “other,” i.e., stuff that didn’t quite fit anywhere else.

By object category, here are the top responses, as well as an assortment of other interesting answers.

Toys

Top responses: Barbie, GI Joe, Cabbage Patch dolls, Hot Wheels, LEGO toys, Lincoln Logs, toy vehicles

Random responses: Chatty Cathy dolls, color-changing toys, homemade toys, lawn darts, water baby dolls, Yu-Gi-Oh cards

Clothing

Top responses: Bell-bottoms, bib overalls, Hash jeans, jeans, jelly shoes, Air Jordans, scrunchies

Random responses: Toe socks, stirrup leggings, skinny jeans, paisley, hand-me-downs, Uggs

Activities

Top responses: Bikes, roller skating, baseball, books, board games, video games/game consoles (Super Mario Bros., Space Invaders), phonographs

Random responses: Cartoons on Saturday mornings, 8-tracks, chalk drawing, drive-in movies, local music bands

Other

Top responses: CD & cassette Walkman, inflatable furniture, boombox, clamshell VHS tapes, ordering Scholastic books from a catalog, teen magazines (Tiger Beat, J-14, Bop)

Random responses: The ”Macarena,” TV dinners, duck-and-cover training pamphlets, food and drink packaging, hairstyles (the Rachel, mullet, bouffant, etc.)

As someone who falls into the 1990-1999 age range, it has been wonderful seeing the creative, thoughtful suggestions both from my peers and people born in the decades before and after me. Not only are the responses helpful for us at the museum as we look to the future of the collection, they are also a great way to learn about what objects, activities, styles, and clothing have been important to children in North Dakota throughout the decades.

Is there something from your childhood that you think we should collect? Does it look like your county or age group needs more representation? Head to the collections survey here and make your voice heard!

If you would like to donate to the State Historical Society museum collection, be it a My Little Pony, bellbottoms, a boombox or anything in between, you can complete our Potential Donation Questionnaire here.

For the past ten or more years, we have had increasing questions on when, how much, and what of our collections would be put online. While not all our collections are available to be viewed on our website, there are increasing numbers of databases and indexes that allow researchers access to more information from a distance. In this new age of living around COVID-19, online access to collections, databases, and resources is especially useful.

Below is a round-up of some useful sites that can assist your research from a distance. See what you can discover!

Photographs, maps, and other printed materials

(New!) Photobook. We do have some of our photos available to be viewed in various spots on our website and on social media, but up till now, only a small selection have been available to look at easily unless you were in the building. I wrote this and this blog post to aid with searching for and ordering photos in the past. However, this new site allows researchers to search and view a large selection of our images! Although not all our photos are scanned, any that ARE scanned will show here. This webpage is free to use and is keyword-searchable based off the information we have in our system. It is worth noting that not all our images are scanned and not all are identified. If you would like to order a higher resolution scan or reproduce and use the image publicly, you may need to provide a fee and get permissions, so please contact us. Search by keyword (Item Detail) or by collection number, if you know it (you can search through inventories here).

Digital Horizons. You can still use this to search out images from our collections and from other institutions in the state—but you may not realize that you can now use it to read some scanned County History books, thanks to the State Library, as well as the North Dakota Blue Book.

Vital Records

(New!) North Dakota Birth Record Index. Birth records are closed for 125 years by North Dakota state law. Birth records older than 125 years can be searched out on this index. You must contact Vital Records to obtain a copy of the record.

(New!) North Dakota Death Index. Use this index to search out deaths that occurred in North Dakota from about 1900 to present (not including the past year). You can search by last name and date. This index was put together with data from the Department of Health’s Vital Records office. You must contact Vital Records to obtain a copy of the record.

(New!) North Dakota Marriage Records Index. This index consists of pre-1925 marriage records indexes from our Archives as well as marriage record information (1925 to present) provided by the Vital Records office. Not all marriage records from all counties before 1925 are fully indexed and included in this index. We hold pre-1925 marriage records in our collections, but to obtain certified copies of marriage records, contact the county in which the marriage occurred.

(New!) North Dakota Divorce Records Index. This index searches for divorces in North Dakota from 1947 to present. Before 1947, divorces may be filed with the county or held in our collections. Check our online holdings available here.

Newspapers

Chronicling America. If you haven’t yet learned about this site, you need to check it out! It is a free-to-use, word-searchable database of an increasing selection of newspapers from our Archives and from other archives and libraries across the country. We use and refer people to this very helpful site all the time. (Read more of my own experiences here!) And while most runs of the papers only go through about 1922 for North Dakota, the Bismarck Tribune is now available into the 1930s.

ND Archives Newspaper website. But wait! That’s not all! For more newspapers in different areas, covering even more spans of time, check out this very useful website. Also free-to-use and word-searchable, this has increasing numbers of papers that cover early days up to present in various communities. If you are interested in learning more about how to get other local papers up on the site, please contact us.

The North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum is back open! Our museum has been rated the top destination in Bismarck for several years, so it makes sense that it attracts photographers from all over the world. As part of the digital media team, I’m lucky enough to see all corners of the museum. Today, I’m going to share with you my favorite spots to snap a perfect post.

1. Cannonball Concretions

The ND Heritage Center & State Museum is located on the beautiful North Dakota Capitol Grounds. With plenty of space for social distancing, try out your daily walk or yoga pose while the morning is quiet.

Sarah Walker, head of reference specialist.

2. French Gratitude Train

What’s your gratitude story? Learn about the French Gratitude Train online or find it on the south grounds.

French Gratitude Train, south grounds of the ND Heritage Center & State Museum.

3. Innovation Gallery: Early Peoples Trade Route Map

This map shows the trade routes from North Dakota and across the Atlantic Ocean. What do you see when you look at a map? How far you’ve come or where you are headed?

Map and routes located in the Innovation Gallery: Early Peoples.

4. James River Café

Treat yourself to a latté in a quiet corner of our café. Bring your special project and unwind for a bit surrounded by the beautiful canopy views.

Cross stitch by Lilly Bowe, visitor services, and comfortable, quiet spaces at the James River Café.

5. Outdoor Spaces

The ND Heritage Center & State Museum has lots of space for outdoor picnics, relaxing with friends, and spending quality time with your dog. Recharge, run, or relax in the shade of the museum.

Enjoy the outdoors. We have free Wi-Fi inside when you’re ready.

6. Adaptation Gallery: Geologic Time Dinosaurs!

It’s always a good day to see dinosaurs. You can take a sloth selfie, too.

When dinosaurs ruled!

7. Museum Store

Here’s a recipe for fun: the museum store! Check out the fun and North Dakota-made gifts.

Clay cookware, available in the museum store.

Or find your new Zoom shirt! (You know you need one.)

This shirt is online meeting ready.

8. Bison Statue

Normally, we’d say keep a safe distance from our North Dakota bison, but this one on the north grounds is perfect to get close to.

Jessica Rockeman, new media specialist.

9. Inspiration Gallery: Yesterday and Today 1950s Soda Shop

Little known fact: Bring a friend to our 1950s soda shop. There is a table and seating inside for two. Hear what would have been on the jukebox. What do you dance to?

Ice cream is great in any era.

10. Natural History in the Inspiration Gallery: Yesterday and Today

Stay well.

Have a BEARY good day!

When I was a kid growing up in North Dakota, I didn’t get to travel much, but I dreamed of going to Europe and seeing its historic sites and cities. So you can imagine my delight when, as a grad student, I got to move to Germany for a few years and visit Paris, London, Florence, and even less-traveled places like Bulgaria and Cyprus. This led me to reflect on historic sites, both in Europe and at home, and how their popularity often has more to do with location than significance. In particular, I came to appreciate the historic places I knew and loved back home. Childhood me could never have guessed that I would get to live in a 16^th-century German half-timbered house, but while there I also yearned to be back at On-a-Slant Village in Mandan. To my own surprise, I found myself trying to remember exactly how the prairie grasses smelled there when their scent was carried on the springtime wind.

St. Olav’s Church, a beautiful building I first learned about on a visit to Tallinn, Estonia, in 2010, may have been the world’s tallest building in the late 1500s to early 1600s. It taught me that often the fame of a historic site has more to do with its location than its actual merits.

Like so much else in this world, people give too much attention to just a few things. Just as there are celebrities among people, there are celebrities among places. It leads to a serious imbalance in global tourism. I’m just one of millions of people who want to—and do—visit Tuscany, the Rhein Valley, and so forth. But these incredible numbers of visitors are doing lasting harm to hotspots like Venice, Florence, Amsterdam, New Orleans, and Yellowstone. Meanwhile, North Dakota remains the least-visited state in the United States.

A healthy number of interested tourists incentivizes locals to preserve their historic places, as well as the music, art, languages, food, architecture, and landscape that go with them. The incentives may be financial. At the Etâr Ethnographic Open Air Museum in Bulgaria, for example (highly recommended, by the way), people are hired to make traditional arts and crafts, many of which are also sold to visitors. The incentives may also simply be inspirational—seeing visitors’ excitement reminds locals of the value of their own heritage. Frankfurt, Germany, for example, which receives moderate visitation, recently reconstructed several streets of their historic old town that had been destroyed in World War II.

The world’s superstar attractions need fewer visitors, while places like North Dakota need more. Last December, the Netherlands announced a rebranding effort aimed in part at attracting fewer but higher-quality tourists. Maybe someday we’ll convince them to sponsor Travel ND ads to lure some visitors away from them and toward us!

Over 15 summers working at various historic sites in North Dakota, I’ve been fortunate to meet thousands of tourists, and I’m happy to report that they’re exactly the kind of visitors the Netherlands dreams of. Because North Dakota is far away from major population centers and transportation routes, those who come here do so with intention. They ask thoughtful questions and want to enjoy everything North Dakota has to offer.

You’d be shocked to learn, however, how many only came here because they want to visit all 50 states, and usually I hear that this is their last one. Sadly, most hadn’t heard what’s unique about North Dakota—things that might attract many more people. Just some examples:

• Traditional dishes like rØmmegrØt, knoephla, wojape, and the taste bud-defying lutefisk.

Comfort food for North Dakotans may be a memorable cultural experience for visitors. This knoepfle soup was made for a special event by the Road Hawg Café in Hazelton.

• Dozens of unique corn varietals with different flavors bred over centuries by North Dakota tribes.
• Earthlodges—an American Indian style of architecture uniquely adapted to the Plains.
• Radio in French or Native American languages that can still be heard in different parts of the state.
• This is the original homeland of the tipi, or that their familiar shapes are actually a masterpiece of thermodynamics.
• The corners of the state, being in the middle of North America, resemble microcosms of the continent, such as yucca and prickly pear in the southwest Badlands to aspen and birch forests in Pembina County.
• The unique Métis nation that arose from the Red River fur trade.
• Many North Dakota towns beginning as settlement colonies of a specific village in Europe, each mirroring the dialect, religion, and family names of its mother village in the old country.
• North Dakota’s unique state-owned grain elevator, selling popular flour, bread mix, and pancake mix you can buy at most grocery stores.
• Games like Dakota and Arikara doubleball or German-Russian horse knucklebones (bunnock), which are as entertaining to watch or play as any modern sport.
• Lakota winter counts that preserve tribal historic records stretching back long before European contact.
• Stunning fields of flax, sunflowers, and canola in bloom.
• Coal mines where you can visit the pit and see the actual wood grain of ancient jungles preserved in lignite.

But when I share these things, they’re almost always fascinated and want to learn more. Many only planned to spend a day in North Dakota and told me they wished they had known to plan more time.

Historic sites both attract these visitors and share this culture. You can’t (and shouldn’t) walk into a modern German-Russian or Mandan home, but you can visit Welk Homestead or Double Ditch Indian Village. We can and do share the music, stories, food, clothing, and games of North Dakota’s unique heritage, being careful, of course, not to misuse culture that is sacred or proprietary. We are delighted to direct visitors to the families, communities, businesses, and tribes who know this culture best. That’s how sustainable tourism works.

This work is urgent. Since I started working at North Dakota historic sites in 2005, it has become harder and harder to find artists, artisans, language speakers, and other cultural experts who can recreate a historical object for us or appear as a guest speaker. Many have passed away before the next generation recognized the value of what they knew. It would be amazing if many more North Dakotans could make a career teaching Lakota, forging German-Russian cemetery crosses, serving potato klubb, making birch baskets, weaving Métis sashes, and more.

North Dakota has all the culture it needs to rival Boston, Santa Fe, or Albuquerque. It’s not so wild a dream. New Mexico at the end of World War II was even more remote than North Dakota, yet they preserved or rebuilt their historic structures, carried on their cultural traditions, and made the rest of the world aware of how many unique things they had to see and do. That’s the vision that I and many other North Dakotans who love historic places see. Let’s work towards balance. Let’s give people a reason to give touristy cities a break and come visit us. We’d be doing everyone a favor.