Teddy Roosevelt National Park (Teaser 6)

For those in the know, this is Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which is located in North Dakota and named after the 26th President of the United States.  According to the Park's official website:

Theodore Roosevelt National Park was established to memorialize this area's importance in Theodore Roosevelt's life and the key role it played in fostering his conservation ethics. While visiting the badlands for the first time in 1883, Roosevelt fell in love with the rugged landscape and became interested in the new business of cattle ranching. After talking with local ranchers, he decided to invest in a local cattle operation known as the Maltese Cross. His partners in the ranch were Sylvane Ferris and Bill Merrifield.

The next summer, following the death of his wife and mother in February, Roosevelt returned to the badlands. During his stay, he started a second ranching operation called the Elkhorn Ranch. He hired two acquaintances from Maine, Bill Sewall and Wilmot Dow, to run the ranch. After its creation, Roosevelt considered Elkhorn to be his "home ranch" and spent most of his time there whenever he was in Dakota.

 The park video at the visitor's center chronicles the life of Roosevelt in the badlands, describing it as a harsh life amidst 'grotesque beauty.'  Without seeing the park, it is easy to brush this off as hyperbole, but once inside the park looking out over the grasslands and sparsely dotted trees, you start to get the feeling of just how desolate and lonely this place was.  As you can tell from the photos, there is very little greenery during the early spring, and according to information at the visitor's center, the majority of the year sees snow covered ground or dried grasses; only for a few brief months in the summer is there the lush green I'm accustomed to in Taiwan.

The views are absolutely gorgeous; the days we visited were clear and bright (maybe a little too bright), and you could see over the hill ranges for miles.  Although breathtaking, if you take the time to ponder the landscape, even in the warm sun, you start to get a rather eerie feeling about the place.  The sun, although comfortable at first, becomes slowly unbearable because of it's harsh brightness, and the wind that accompanies it in the early spring is bitterly cold and dry.  The combination of the two, while a welcomed experience in this age of comfort and luxury vehicles, must have been incredibly difficult to endure when exposed to it daily over many years.

Roosevelt's rustic log cabin can be viewed just out the back of the visitor's center; while small and plush looking for the time, it is incredibly bare and primitive by today's standards.  I think we often forget to connect to the past in this age of mass technology and information, and it's so easy to look at these kinds of vestiges and simply see them as a shallow exhibit with no meaningful depth.  To do this kind of walk through of any historical site is to rob it of its significance though, and removes visitors from its power and importance.

Connecting for me means quietly reflecting on what life would have been like in the daily routine of the people that lived there; how would it differ from my own life?  What things would be expected of me living in that time and space?  I always try to imagine myself in the landscape, natural or man made, going about some approximation of life: how hard was the bed and how would it feel putting my head down to sleep on it?  How would it feel sitting in one of the wooden chairs facing a small stove?  Did the log walls provide real insulation, especially against the fierce winds on the plains?  How would one have cooked or even gotten appropriate nutrition and produce in a landscape so barren for most of the year?

And even with all of these questions, the thought remains that the European imports (AKA frontier 'Americans') were not the first to come through and utilize these lands, though perhaps the first to exploit them to the extent that they were.  In fact, these lands provided many native peoples with a variety of uses, such as a place to hunt, collect food, water, paint, or medicine, and even seek spiritual guidance, well before the imports showed up: the Crow, Hidatsa, and Mandan peoples, along with many other groups, all utilized this land for a myriad of purposes.  Before them, prehistoric peoples traversed these lands, probably to hunt and collect natural materials.  How did these peoples manage to survive and even thrive in this incredibly harsh environment?  The knowledge and skill required to sustainably use the resources found here are innumerable, and the endurance needed to stay on this land in order to utilize that knowledge and skill set just boggles my mind.

Another, longer excerpt from the Park's website about the prehistoric and historic periods explains a bit more about the many peoples that have traced these lands in the past:

Our current knowledge of the badlands' prehistoric past is very limited because only a handful of artifacts have been found. These items indicate that the badlands region has been inhabited for thousands of years. Archaeologists have dated artifacts found elsewhere in North Dakota back to 11,000 B.C., but, so far, no objects of that age have been found in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Ancient artifacts have not been found in the park either because the land was not inhabited or because erosion has altered the landscape and obliterated or obscured these items. Artifacts from the Archaic Tradition (5,500 BC – 500 AD) have been identified in the park including a spear point made of Knife River flint and several projectile points. Projectile points and cord-roughened pot shards indicate the presence of people of the Plains Woodland Tradition (1 – 1,200 AD). More recently, the pre-Columbian peoples in the Late Prehistoric / Plains Village Tradition also appear in the archaeological record in the form of a wide variety of projectile points, pot shards of several designs, and the remains of a bison processing camp. Presumably, the people who used these tools came to hunt and perhaps gather other materials, but there is no firm evidence of any permanent or long-term occupation.

Several sites from the Historic Period (1742 – 1880s AD), that coincide with oral tradition, have been found in the park including stone rings, a rock cairn, and four conical, timbered lodges. Two of the lodges, presumably used by men engaged in seasonal eagle trapping, are still standing today. These structures are astonishing reminders of how recently traditional societies used this land as their ancestors had done for generations. One archaeological interpretation indicated that the use of the badlands for hunting, gathering, and spiritual pursuits, though undertaken by numerous cultures and groups over millennia, had not significantly changed over that entire time span.

A rich diversity of cultures utilized the badlands region during historic times. The most significant groups were the Mandan and Hidatsa, whose traditional bison hunting grounds included the Little Missouri River basin. West of the badlands, the Hidatsa’s close relatives, the Crow, also utilized the badlands at the eastern edge of their territory. Many other tribes including the Blackfeet, Gros Ventre, Chippewa, Cree, Sioux, and Rocky Boy came to western North Dakota in the early 19th century mainly for hunting and trading, often at Fort Union Trading Post. These groups did not necessarily seek out the badlands in the way the Mandan, Hidatsa, or Crow might. The Assiniboine occupied a large area of the Northern Great Plains north of the Missouri River. The Arikara entered western and central North Dakota and several bands of the Lakota (Sioux) expanded their range into western North Dakota in the 19^th century. Each group has its own history, traditions, spirituality, stories, and uses associated with the badlands. Eagle trapping, bison hunting, and other spiritual purposes were among the traditional uses.

Eagle trapping was important to the Mandan and Hidatsa culture. The process of eagle trapping was intensely spiritual, following certain social, spiritual, and astrological protocols. Even today, many of the specifics of the ritual are known only to those who have the rights to the knowledge within the tribes. Traditionally, only men with rights to perform eagle trapping were allowed to perform the ritual, and then only during specific times of the year as determined by astrology and presumably to coincide with eagle migration. Preparation including fasting and prayer were essential prerequisites to the act of trapping an eagle.

Bison were another critically important resource for traditional societies, and the badlands offered opportunities to hunt them effectively. The steep badlands terrain made it possible to hunt bison without firing a shot. All that was required of the hunters was to cause the bison to stampede over a steep drop-off. A few sites within the park are known to have been used for this purpose, including the remains of a bison processing area. Plains peoples had uses for every part of the bison. The most important parts were the meat for food and the hide for clothing, blankets, and tipi coverings. Other parts of the animal were used for tools, medicine, toys, decoration, rituals, and more.

Springs were the preferred place to collect colored clays used to make paints for a warrior's face, horse, and home. Paint was considered a powerful medicine. Some springs were used for very specific purposes: for drinking, to collect a certain material, or to perform a specific ritual or ceremony. Evidence from these activities is scarce and largely based on oral tradition kept alive by today’s tribal members.

For more information about the ritual uses of the badlands, I strongly recommend you check out the Park's website and the Encyclipedia Britannica.

My own summary of the park is simply this:  if you want to enjoy the desolate nature of the badlands, this is a great place to do it.  For lots of wildlife viewing opportunities, come in mid spring when the animals are rearing their young- it makes for great photo-ops and gives you the chance to see family units interacting.  It is possible to do a circle tour of the park in your vehicle for those who are short on time or have limited mobility.  For those who want to do some day or overnight hikes, there are plenty in both sections of the park (North and South), and I highly recommend doing at least one short hike into the wilderness while you're there to really appreciate the wild but harsh wilderness.

Animals spotted in TRNP:

1. Prairie dogs
2. Bison
3. Deer
4. Hawks
5. Feral horses
6. Long horned cattle
7. Tons of unidentified birds