What’s the best time you’ve had in a museum? And what made that visit so awesome?

Part of our work in the Communications & Education Division is to find out what our visitors want and need to have the best (or most life changing) museum experience.

The late Governor Art Link once described the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum as “the people’s place.” Our division staff strives to keep his words in mind with everything we do. We focus on providing historically accurate, memorable, educational, and entertaining experiences for 230,000 people coming to this place each year. Quite simply, we want you to learn, have fun, and love museums.

Visitors of all ages and backgrounds come here to discover, to occupy kids for a few hours, to conduct academic research, to enjoy time with friends, to disconnect, to enjoy a program, to sip a latte in the café, or to come in from the cold. With so many motives for museum visits, we use research tools to help us understand what’s most important to you.

We conduct surveys, offer questionnaires during programs, conduct focus groups, compile community input, make comment cards available, and monitor what interests you on our websites and social media. That data helps us make informed decisions on future programs, exhibits, and even where our tourist brochures are placed. Your comments make a difference and shape the way we serve the public.

Here are a few key items that were collectively important to our 2016 visitors:

You requested more family activities. We provided more family friendly experiences and had an enthusiastic public response. The opening of the Treehouse exhibit for young visitors has provided fresh energy and laughter in the building. We added programs for toddlers and parents, new art activities, and more free family films. The Museum Division staff also enhanced a popular hands-on dinosaur interactive in the Geologic Time gallery featuring a T. rex battling a Triceratops. Your feedback caused us to stretch in new child-friendly ways, and we are grateful.

You requested more traveling exhibits to bring the outside world into our state. “I can’t afford to travel, so I appreciate having national exhibits brought here,” wrote one commenter. We listened. In 2016, we offered the Smithsonian’s Green Revolution exhibit and Shakespeare’s First Folio exhibit. Teaser alert: Watch for the national Chocolate exhibit opening on May 27. Everything’s better with chocolate, museums included.

You wanted easy access to history content at your fingertips. Many of you have commented that our agency website is difficult to navigate. We agree, and we’re working on it. You’ll see a facelift in 2017. Meanwhile, our staff launched a new State Museum website to help tourists and locals better plan visits and experience parts of the museum virtually.

We discovered that our social media subscribers can’t get enough historic photos of blizzards. One December Facebook post reached over 220,000 people. Personal connections to history matter. We understand and will keep working to find and share historical stories and objects that have an impact.

Cars parked in the Kirkwood Mall parking lot in Bismarck were covered in snow up to their windows during the April 1997 blizzard. SHSND 32228-02-10

Sometimes we can’t honor every request, like the suggestion of a grade schooler who let us know he would prefer a green John Deere tractor to the red Case ag cab on exhibit. But we do consider every request.

While we can’t change a life with every visit, we do promise to offer some pretty amazing moments of viewing rare fossils, a few shrieks of joy from our Treehouse toddlers, and some engaging ways to explore your own connections to North Dakota history—thanks to your helpful comments. As we begin 2017, I invite you to continue sharing questions and ideas.

PAR-2016015 Japanese WWII Yosegaki Hinomaru, good luck flag.

A Japanese flag (PAR-2016015) and a piece of wood with Japanese writing (PAR-2016085) were unaccessioned items recently found in the museum collections storage area (see Lost and Found in the Collections). Lacking any documentation or provenance on these items and with similar, well-documented objects already present in the General Collection, the Museum Collections Committee declined the objects for the collection. After careful deliberation, the committee determined the best route for these objects would be to turn them over to the Obon Society. The Obon Society is a nonprofit organization that specializes in the repatriation of war prizes taken from Japan during World War II. They specifically focus on the repatriation of Good Luck flags, Yosegaki Hinomaru. Before leaving home, it was common for a soldier’s family and friends to write well wishes and to encourage bravery in battle on a small Japanese flag. The flag was then presented to the soldier and the soldier carried the flag with him throughout his time in the war. It was believed that the Yosegaki Hinomaru held a power with their messages that would watch over the soldier and see him through difficult times.The Yosegaki Hinomaru were popular war prizes among US soldiers, and many flags were taken from Japanese soldiers and brought back to the United States. We currently have 3 Yosegaki Hinomarus in the Society’s collection. Now, many veterans and family members of WWII veterans are returning these flags and other war prizes back to Japan. The flags hold deep meaning for Japanese families. For many families, these returned war prizes are the only remains of the soldier they will ever receive.

Although the Obon Society focuses most of their efforts on the good luck flags, they accept other personal items that were taken from Japanese servicemen including diaries and letters. For this reason, we also transferred the piece of wood with writing on it to the Obon Society. The writing on the wood gives identifying information, similar to the kind of information that would be on a military dog tag. Hopefully the Obon Society will be able to trace the name written on the wood to a living family member.

The Obon Society is not always successful in their endeavors, but they try to send all items back to a family member. If that is not possible, they try to find the community the soldier was from and give it to a community center, local government, or even a local shrine.

The Obon Society believes that returning these war prizes is an exercise of goodwill and friendship between two nations and a symbol of reconciliation. It can bring closure to families both in Japan and the United States. The Obon Society’s work has been endorsed by the American Embassy in Tokyo, Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, and the Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs. The Museum Collections Committee believed this was an opportunity for the State Historical Society of North Dakota to contribute to a humanitarian cause.

The State Historical Board approved the repatriation action at their October 10, 2016, meeting. The proper paperwork was filled out and the flag and wood were shipped to the Obon Society in November. We have since received a thank you letter letting us know we will be notified when the objects are being researched and whether or not the Obon Society was able to trace the items to the family or town from which they came.

If you would like to find out more about the Obon Society and their mission, visit http://obonsociety.org. You can also learn more from the video, A Peaceful Return.

If you were to look at a map of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation with Arikara elders living in White Shield (North Dakota) today, they would tell you where they used to live. They would point to where their houses were, their relatives’ houses, their school, and the berry patches they walked to with their grandmothers. They would point to the churches, roads, and cemeteries, and the gardens they had to weed in the morning before they could play with their friends. They would describe these in astonishing detail. And this would be all the more astonishing because they would be pointing to the middle of the nearly 200-mile-long Lake Sakakawea. Nishu, the home they describe, has been under water since 1954.

Even, even to this day, if I jump in a boat, and I take that boat out on the lake, invariably I will go downriver. Go down the lake. Pretty soon I’ll be circling around and telling my grandkids or my kids, “I used to live right under this water right here.” (Almit Breuer, former Nishu resident)

Map of Fort Berthold communities inundated by the Garrison Reservoir, showing previous river channel and current lake boundaries. (SHSND AHP Files)

Nishu was a 20th-century settlement on the Missouri River, established by the Arikara in the 1890s. It marked an important chapter in Arikara history, in which this Native nation simultaneously grappled with the effects of the U.S. government’s assimilation policies and maintained many ancestral traditions, such as corn agriculture. In the 1950s, they watched as the place they had made their home was slowly swallowed by the newly constructed Garrison Reservoir. Although it is no longer accessible, it continues to be a significant heritage place for Arikara people today.

Project participant and former Nishu resident Mary Bateman (W. Murray)

Very little information about Nishu exists in the written record. Furthermore, the people who remember living there are in their 70s, 80s, and 90s. This created a sense of urgency about documenting Nishu before people’s memories and experiences of it were gone forever. Younger generations have no visual cues for remembering Nishu, because they have only known that area to be a lake. This creates a serious disconnect between generations who have experienced the landscape in completely different ways. Since preserving the physical remnants of this place was not possible, we sought to preserve its intangible history – the memories, knowledge, and experiences of the people who knew it best.

Arikara elders Jerry White, Sr., Rodney Howling Wolf, and Duane Fox look at a map of Nishu. (W. Murray)

In 2014, the State Historical Society collaborated with the Arikara Cultural Center (ACC) in White Shield to conduct an oral history project. The goals were multifold, but the priority was to create a local archive of Nishu memories to benefit the contemporary Arikara community. Namely, we wanted younger generations to have a way to access this chapter of their past in the absence of physical reminders on the landscape. We are grateful to Dorreen Yellow Bird, elder liaison for the Arikara, for her support as she helped us connect with people who used to live in Nishu and the neighboring Elbowoods (also underwater).

Interviewing Joyce Nolan, former Nishu resident. (W. Murray)

Over several months, Dr. Brad Kroupa (ACC) and I interviewed 15 people, most of whom lived in Nishu. Some were either familiar with Nishu or had relatives who had told them stories about Nishu. Thus far, we have collected more than 30 hours of video and audio footage describing life in Nishu. Interviews recount everything from the central role of horses in transportation to the persistence of traditional kinship roles to what it was like receiving initial news about the Garrison Dam development that would destroy their homes. For example, we learned exactly how much kids dreaded having to help their parents weed the garden, the specific ways Arikara women prepared corn, whose father had a beautiful singing voice, the significance of military service in Arikara ceremony, the Nishu school bus route, who accidentally set their grandparents’ barn on fire, whose relatives had knowledge of healing, and what aspects of Nishu life people miss most today (and much more).

What we heard most strongly is that Nishu residents took care of one another. Despite the considerable distance between houses (owing to allotment policy), people visited one another often and unannounced, shared in subsistence labors such as gardening and cattle raising, and were connected by a strong sense of familial responsibility. People’s nostalgia about Nishu was tied to feelings of interdependence and support. Listen to this audio clip from our interview with Magdalen Yellow Bird, talking about the importance of visiting in Nishu.

Arikara Congregational Church in Nishu. SHSND Archives 0041-0260.

Understanding the Nishu experience casts new light on how traumatic the Garrison Dam was for Fort Berthold residents. The Garrison Reservoir split the reservation into five segments. Short visits to relatives on horseback became burdensome, hours-long car rides. The flooding of the most fertile agricultural land meant that corn agriculture–central to Arikara lifeways and identity for centuries– was no longer possible. The relocation also forced the Arikara into participating more fully in a cash economy, which prioritized self-sufficiency and individual property ownership. This undermined the communal aspects of their subsistence traditions and contributed to the partial erosion of the familial connections and obligations that had served to foster a sense of community in Nishu.

Mrs. Sitting Bear (Arikara) gathering corn (date unknown). SHSND Archives 10190-00791.

The Arikara Cultural Center is now using what was learned in the Remembering Nishu project to start community-building and wellness initiatives in White Shield, including the development of a community garden and youth research projects. In a few months these transcripts, audio, and video files will be available for you to review in full at the State Historical Society in Bismarck and the ACC in White Shield. In them, you will discover Nishu’s vital role in Arikara history and find insights into the human experience that extend beyond North Dakota. Through Nishu we understand the complex impacts of landscape loss and the role of tradition in creating healthy communities.

We are grateful to all project participants for being so generous with their time and knowledge, for their commitment to the preservation of Arikara heritage, and their profound concern for the well-being of future generations.

Occasionally, when evaluating farmsteads for historical significance and eligibility for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, even an ordinary farmstead will have a unique or unusual feature. Such is the case in northeast Barnes County, where there are at least two A.C. Ochs Brick & Tile Co. brick silos seen on two separate farmsteads in Noltimier Township. It’s easy to distinguish the silos because the brand name “A.C.O.” is stamped on the exterior, just under the roof. These silos have roofs of domed sheet-metal with a prominent metal ventilator, are accessed by a single door, and have metal ladders that lead to a round opening. They were commonly constructed in the Midwest from approximately 1910 to 1945.

A.C. Ochs Brick & Tile Co. began when Adolph Casimir Ochs, known as “A.C.” Ochs opened the A. C. Ochs Brick and Tile Company in Springfield, Minnesota, in 1891. Ochs and his company began making smooth-face brick in 1910, supplying face brick for many buildings in Minnesota and South Dakota. After World War I, the demand for smooth brick for use as vertical siding increased. Ochs’ company met the demand by opening a plant in Minneapolis, where his brick was used to build several buildings on the University of Minnesota St. Paul and Minneapolis campuses.

When the Great Depression hit, Ochs’ company turned to making brick silos entirely of burnt clay, iron, and cement—completely without wood. Bricks were curved and radial-cut in an angle so the silos were smooth on both the interior and the exterior with few air spaces to retain heat: a unique method of construction for that period. The silos in Barnes County appear to be of this style, constructed after the Great Depression.

A.C.O. silos became common throughout Minnesota and other portions of the Upper Midwest. Ochs’ silos were also built in Wisconsin, Iowa, and the Dakotas, since Ochs hired laborers to construct his silos in other areas where the need arose. It is likely the bricks were transported by rail if the customer was located outside of Minneapolis or Springfield. Advertisements for the A.C.O. silos touted they were as “cheap” as a wood-stave silo but would not rot.

The silos in Barnes County are historically significant as pristine examples of brick silos constructed by the A.C. Ochs Brick & Tile Company. Although the silos were common in Minnesota for three decades, examples of these silos are not prevalent in Barnes County, where many historic-age silos are removed from farmsteads to be replaced by modern steel corrugated grain bins.

Advertisement, date unknown. Source: Minnesota Bricks

A.C.O. silo in Noltimier Township, Barnes County. Photo by Julia Mates/Chelsea Stark, July 20, 2016 SHSND SITS 32BA298

A.C.O. silo in Noltimier Township, Barnes County. Photo by Julia Mates/Chelsea Stark, July 20, 2016 SHSND SITS 32BA299

Sources: Minnesota Bricks, “A.C.O. Silos in Eastern North Dakota,” http:// www.mnbricks.com/aco-silos-in-eastern-north-dakota; The Clay-Worker, Vols. LIX–LX (Indianapolis: T.A. Randall & Co., 1913); City of Springfield: Historic Context Study, Prepared for the City of Springfield, MN, June 11, 2011.

“A strong camp and picket guard were posted for the night—a cold lunch was passed around at nine o'clock, and then some tried to sleep. But soon the night darkened into blackness. Hundreds of wolves, attracted by the scent of blood and of corpses set up a most unearthly howling and yelping, while there gathered and broke over us a thunder storm more grand and terrific than anything I had ever experienced. There was incessant and intensely vivid lightening for nearly an hour, and then came peal and treble peal of heavy continued and incessant thunder which lasted for two hours. A shower, not in drops but in sheets poured for an hour upon our parched camp, till within the corral, in the natural basin around which it was formed, cattle were standing in the morning in two feet of water. The fatigue of the day, the groaning of the wounded, the howling of wolves, the unprecedented storm under such circumstances made this a night in my experience never to be forgotten.”^[1]
James L. Fisk,
Dakota Territory
September 3, 1864

+++++

“To gain a little personal fame he (James L. Fisk) has thrown the train to the south of a route already open & well defined by Gen. Sully under the guidance of the most competent guides, & has been pushing ahead through a rough broken country of which he is utterly ignorant & his engineer often unable to set on his horse from intoxication…. Yet I like him for his good nature covers a great many defects.”^[2]
William L. Larned,
emigrant member of the Fisk expedition,
September 10, 1864

+++++

Hubris, poor planning, and bad luck had followed the emigrant train to this point.

I began this story in my last blog post, [http://blog.statemuseum.nd.gov/blog/troubled-time] and quotes like those above are the reason why I enjoy doing research in the State Archives at the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum (http://www.history.nd.gov/archives/index.html). Publications sometimes leave out the gritty details and personal anecdotes of the participants in historical events. Additional searching adds context and substance to some of these stories. Personally, I find it fuels the “what ifs” of history.

For instance:

The Fisk emigrant train spent seven days at Fort Rice awaiting and completing passage over the Missouri River aboard the steamboat U.S. Grant. If they had departed Fort Rice even two days later, would they have steered clear of Sitting Bull and his warriors?

Conversely, if the emigrant train had departed Fort Rice a couple of days earlier, would they have been bogged down in the rugged terrain of the Badlands and put at risk of total annihilation by the Hunkpapa (Lakota) warriors?

Sitting Bull was shot in the left hip during the Fisk raid in September 1864, when a band of Hunkpapas attacked the Fisk wagon train. The bullet exited out through the small of his back and was not serious. How would history have changed if Sitting Bull had been killed during the skirmish?

After the siege, survivors from the Fisk emigrant train returned to Fort Rice. Some of the members of the aborted expedition remained at the fort over the winter and beyond. Is it possible that some of those travelers played a part in early Edwinton/Bismarck, Dakota Territory?

On July 28, 1865, Sitting Bull and his warriors attacked Fort Rice. This intense battle, one of the largest in the history of Dakota Territory, may have wiped out the fort if not for the superior weaponry of the “Galvanized Yankees,” the former Confederate prisoners-of-war stationed there. Would this attack have occurred if Sitting Bull had been killed eleven months earlier?

What if??

If you have not yet visited the State Archives, I invite you to do so. I am interested in your thoughts and research into the “what ifs” of the failed 1864 Fisk emigrant expedition.

When most people think of finding fossils, I bet the image that is conjured in their heads is a lone paleontologist wandering through the badlands, stopping once in a while to examine a fragment of rock or bone. Admittedly this is true in most cases. Some of the techniques used to find and collect fossils in the field are over 100 years old and have changed very little. However, with the advent of new technology comes the testing of new techniques.

Finding a large fossil is one thing. Finding a large fossil and being able to see it from space; well, that is something else entirely. A few years ago a visitor came to the North Dakota Heritage Center with tales of a fossil tree so large you could see it with Google Earth. I will admit that at first I was doubtful, but after very quickly navigating to the location on the computer and seeing photos he had taken from the ground, it did indeed turn out to be a fossil tree.

Image captured from Google Earth. The object in the yellow circle is a fossil tree trunk measuring over 100 feet long.

After some quick calculations, we determined the tree to be well over 100 ft. in length. It is broken along its length into 4-6 foot chunks, some of them likely weighing several hundred pounds each.

I study small mammals. Some of the mammals I study are classified as microfossils (fossils smaller than about 1 cm). Some of these microfossil teeth can be less than 1 mm in length!

One fossil tooth from the Brule Formation of North Dakota. This image was captured with a microscope camera. The scale bar represents one millimeter in length.

As you can imagine, finding fossils that small is no easy task. Finding these microfossils starts with a process called screenwashing. This process involves washing collected rock and dirt through wooden boxes with brass screen making up the bottom of the box. The screen openings are smaller than the openings found on most window screens. What remains on the screen after the washing process is dried. Normally it is at this point that the dried material would be picked under a microscope looking for fossils. However, we have added an additional step to the process. Some fossils from certain rock formations will glow under the application of ultraviolet light. The Oligocene age Brule Formation found in North Dakota is one such rock layer. The fossil bone from the Brule Formation glows a bright white, and the teeth from the Brule Formation actually glow a bright orange. Fortunately nothing else found in this formation reacts to the ultraviolet light, just the fossils. This makes finding microfossils from the Brule Formation very easy. Before the washed and dried material is picked under a microscope using white light, we spread the material out on a dark surface and use ultraviolet flashlights to find the teeth.

Washed and dried Brule Formation matrix spread out and ready for picking. The left image was captured under normal, white light. The right image is the exact same spot, under ultraviolet light. Note the brightly glowing tooth in the right image. Can you spot that same tooth in the left image?

This works amazingly well. We have recovered several dozen microfossil teeth using this technique.