On Monday ,September 24th ,we found ourselves back tracking westward on I-94 ,over miles we had seen the day before. There is a good reason the decision was made to do so. We traveled 7 miles south of the town of Mandan on highway 1806 to reach our destination.
Three years ago we,my grandson Nick, daughter Kyli , her husband Justin and I, got to visit the North Dakota Heritage Center in Bismarck. It was a wonderful experience that started in the prehistorical periods. We saw some artifacts of the prehistoric native americans which sparked an interest in the settlement discovered by chance at Ft. Abraham Lincoln.
Our guide for the On-a- Slant village was of the Sioux tribe from the Standing Rock Reservation in South Dakota. He mentioned that they had one person on staff of Mandan descent that does conduct tours. He told us the site they are working on rehabilitating was inhabited from 1575 - 1700's. Due to the exhaustion of natural resources they left the area and returned years later when the resources were once again able to sustain a community.
This year we included the sight seeing of the adjoined area as well in our one day side trip with our daughter. She hadn't had a chance to see it yet since moving north.
Each of us purchased an "Interpretive Pass" and the cavalier had to pay to enter, even had her own sticker to say she could take us where we wanted to go since everything was pretty spread out.
George Armstrong Custer had been apart of the history at Ft. Abraham Lincoln. In the next few days I will be sharing more about about what we saw and heard during our visit.
It was a cold, rainy day ,but enjoyed none the less...
