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• Language: unknown
• Subjects: Canada; East Bank; Grinder; Indian; Stanton; assiniboine
• Online Access: http://cdm16921.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/ndbb/id/10133

Mandan Winter The Lewis and Clark Expedition reached what would become North Dakota on October 14, 1804, where they set up a camp on the east side of the river near the mouth of Four Mile Creek five miles south of what is now Fort Yates. They saw their first snow a week later, and arrived at the Knife River Indian villages on October 26. The expedition was met by Hugh McCracken, an employee of the Northwest Fur Company. In addition to a number of British fur merchants, the five villages were home to several French fur trappers, including Sakakawea's husband Toussaint Charbonneau. To have white traders in residence was not unusual. The Knife River villages were a well known trading center for the Great Plains Indians long before the British, based at Fort Assiniboine in present day Canada, began working the area for furs. The French explorer La Verendrye, in his journal of 1738, noted the Mandans were accomplished traders: "Of all the tribes [the Mandan] are the most skillful in dressing leather, and they work very delicately in hair and feathers; the Assiniboine cannot do work of the same kind. They are sharp traders, and clean the Assiniboine out of everything they have in the way of guns, powder, ball, kettles, axes, knives and awls." When Lewis and Clark arrived, the five villages (two Mandan and three Hidatsa) were nestled in the Missouri River Valley, near where the Knife River flows into the Missouri from the west. Present-day Stanton, North Dakota, sits upon the site of one village, a power plant upon another and a National Park Service historic site marks three additional villages. Because the captains needed the friendship of the Mandans, the expedition presented the Mandans with an iron corn grinder, in addition to the typical trade goods and tools they offered other Indians. It was a fitting gift since corn was the major source of food for the Mandan and Hidatsa people. The welcoming nature of the matriarchal Mandan and Hidatsa people, as well as the gifts, won over the earth lodge people. Feeling more secure, Clark chose to locate Fort Mandan on the east bank of the Missouri River, two or three miles east of the lower Mandan village, Matootonha, and on the same side of the river as the second Mandan village, Rooptahee, which was five to six miles to the north. He intentionally chose the site at a distance from all the villages so the fort would not be associated with any particular one. Indian Village Life Most winters the Mandan and Hidatsa people would leave their summer villages on the Missouri River bluffs and move down into the river bottoms in the trees where 1999-2001 North Dakota Blue Book 11