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Photo Diary: Chief Looking's Village, Bismarck ND [1]
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Date: 2023-08-05
This is a small city park just a short distance from one of my camping-out spots. It protects the site of a former Mandan Native American Village.
For those who don't know, I live in a converted campervan and travel around the country, posting photo diaries of places that I visit.
Looking was the leader of a small band of Mandan Native Americans who settled on a bluff overlooking the confluence of the Heart and Missouri Rivers in about 1550. The Mandan were an agricultural people who lived in settled villages and grew corn, beans, sunflowers and squash.
These settled towns were sometimes the target of raids by nomadic people like the Lakota or Arikara, so they were often surrounded by a ring of wooden palisade fence, and often a defensive ditch.
This was a time of transition for the Manda. Prior to this time, the Mandan lived in long rectangular wooden structures, and about half of the excavated lodges at Chief Looking’s Village are of this type. By around 1550, however, the Mandan had established a trading network that reached as far as the Great Lakes, and this wealth, along with their steady supply of farmed food, allowed them to switch to more solid domed huts, likely introduced to the area by the neighboring Arikaras, that were made by piling soil over a wooden framework. Mandan villages became larger and closer together.
The village was abandoned by the Mandan, however, in around 1650. In 1872 the land was bought by Civil War veteran William Ward. In 1930, Ward’s heirs, recognizing the historical significance of the still well-preserved village, sold the site to the Burleigh County Pioneers Association, who then donated it to the City of Bismarck. It became known as the Ward Earth Lodge Village.
In 1934 the National Park Service carried out archaeological excavations in the area, and the Civilian Conservation Corps added three replica Mandan mound huts. They were later destroyed in a fire.
In 1976 the city turned it into a park, and a year later the site was added to the National Register of Historic Places. In 2002 the name was changed to Chief Looking’s Village, and more excavations were done in 2008, 2015 and 2016.
Some photos from a visit.
Looking up at the bluff from the bottom
The village site is pretty big
The site overlooks the Missouri River
A network of trails runs around the village site
Looking out over the site
The circular depressions are the remains of round lodges
Part of the defensive palisade ditch
Another part of the defensive ditch
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