Pam's Blog

About halfway between Bismarck and Fargo is Jamestown, home of a huge statue of a buffalo. It stands 26 feet high is 14 feet wide and 46 feet long. It weighs 60 tons. This man-made attraction has been drawing tourists since it was built in 1959. I remember being there as a kid. Frontier Village is a block long main street collection of old west town buildings, some doubling as gift shops, and near by is the Buffalo Museum.

In the hilly land that surrounds Frontier Village is a live herd of buffalo. The unique thing about this herd is it includes three albino buffalo, which are extremely rare. Native Americans consider the white buffalo sacred. We saw the back end of one of the white buffalo at a distance, flicking its tail, and had a much better view of one on postcards in the gift shop. The only animals we saw up close were two pygmy goats, Ted and Fred. So, it was a little disappointing.

In addition to meeting the characters of the Old West through stories, we ran into some modern day characters.

We dropped in to see Chuch Cochrane in Custer, SD. Cochrane taught at Fargo South High in the 70’s and 80’s with Dad, retiring to Custer in 1990. While in Custer he owned and operated the Trading Post up until four or five years ago. He also had a business called French Creek Charlie where he took people out panning for gold.

The second thing I noticed about Charlie’s log cabin home was all the stuff. It’s like a shrine to dead and historical things. There are no fewer than four stuffed animal heads (big horned sheep, deer, anteloope and even a jackalope) and guns mounted on the wall using deer hooves as holders.

Charlie is 72, a smoker, a bit hard of hearing, has difficulty breathing and walks with a cane as a result of a knee replacement on May 2. He is full of stories and opinions (he was watching Fox News when we arrived) about local goings-on and can out talk even Dad.

We listened for almost an hour until his (fourth) wife, Pam, returned from playing cards with her mother at the local nursing home. They play gin, and Pam’s mom usually wins, although Pam won that day.

The six of us went for pie at The Purple Pie Place. While we ate our baked goods, Pam suggested local attractions, some of which we had already seen and some we took in after we left them.

I don’t remember having Mr. Cochrane for a teacher but Barb does. On our way out of the pie place he asked Barb point blank if he was a good teacher. Without missing a beat she said, “Sure. You betcha”. Good answer!

We said our goodbyes and explored Custer for an hour. Our first stop? The Trading Post.

I-94 makes its way out of the Badlands with long curves towards the prairie. Fields begin to take up the space as it opens, the land becoming flatter and flatter going eastward.

There were more semis on the road today, evidence of the health of the western ND oil boom … and the fact that we were on the Interstate for the first time in a week.

We made a stop south of Mandan at Ft Abraham Lincoln. Custer was stationed at Ft Lincoln for three years up until his death in 1876. A replica of the house he and his wife lived in has been rebuilt in its granduer, including a large parlor, two guest bedrooms and servants quarters. The tour was given by a young woman in period clothing and, as we stepped over the threshold, spoke as if it was 1875.

We toured the barracks where the cavalry slept and ate. Cots line the walls and, in the footlockers there are biographies of some of the soldiers. Also on the grounds of the fort are some Indian Mounds, dwellings that the Mandan lived in for a thousand years.

On our way out of Medora we drove a short distance of the 36 mile road through Theodore Roosevelt National Park, stopping at one of the prairie dog towns and at a secnic outlook. The Badlands remind me of terrain in science fiction movies. It is rugged, barren, and extremely unique.

Medora is nine square blocks sporting the tag lane “North Dakota’s #1 vacation” to which I say Medora is North Dakota’s only vacation destination. It’s also home to Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Our first stop was the Chateau de Mores State Historic Site. The chateau was built in the 1880’s by the Marquis de Mores and his wife as a hunting cabin. The house has 26 rooms, 10 of which are bedrooms. It is two stories with a huge porch on the front and hunting room on the back. Many of the furnishings are original.

The Marquis de Mores was newly married to Medora, after meeting her on the French Riviera. He built the town and named it after his bride. The both hunted the area, she a better shot than he. They had several servants to help run the place. In addition to his business schemes, he had a hotel built in town as well as a house for her parents.

Both the marquis and marquises were from money. He was a French aristocrat and she a US banker’s daughter. Both were educated; she spoke seven languages and he four. Her father bankrolled many of the marquis’s projects, primarly a meat slaughtering and packing plant. Eventually the plant and other ideas failed and they moved away leaving the chateau in the hands of a caretaker. They never returned and the home became a boarding house at one point. The son of de Mores gifted the house to ND and it and the interpretive center do a nice job of portraying the life and times of these people.