Knife River Indian Villages Hosting Annual Northern Plains Indian Culture Fest

The 2006 Northern Plains Indian Culture Fest will be held Saturday and Sunday, July 29 and 30, from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Mountain Daylight Time, at Knife River Indian Villages NHS. The park is located one-half mile north of Stanton, North Dakota. Parking and admission to the event is free.

Ongoing demonstrations will include flute music, Three Affiliated Tribes history, flint knapping, quillwork, beadwork, fur trading, rock art, bow making and iron trade goods.

There will be a children’s activity on Saturday and Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Each child can make their own parfleche storage container. They can also try their hand at traditional Hidatsa and Mandan games from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. and again from 1:30 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.

The Knife River Indian Heritage Foundation, the park’s Friends Group, will be selling buffalo sandwiches, hot dogs, fry bread, corn and cold drinks. The group will also offer a special program at the 7 Trails Trading Post just south of the park. Jo Ann Winistorfer, co-author of “Tracing Your Dakota Roots: A Guide to Genealogical Research in the Dakota,” will present two separate 2-hour seminars on Saturday, July 29. At 10:00 a.m. Winistorfer will present a session entitled, “Trading Your Ancestral Trail: First Steps.” The afternoon session, beginning at 2:00 p.m., is titled, “Tracing Your Ancestral Trail: Ethnic Footprints.” The afternoon session focuses on American Indian, Norwegian and German-Russian cultures. Question-and-answer sessions, along with brief updates on computer genealogy and DNA research, will follow each session.

The Culture Fest event is sponsored by the North Dakota State Legislature through a grant to the North Dakota Council on the Arts, Theodore Roosevelt Nature and History Association, Union State Bank, the Knife River Indian Heritage Foundation, and Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site.

Please bring your lawn chairs and water and join us for the Northern Plains Indian Culture Fest. For additional information, please contact the park at (701) 745-3300.