More of Devils Lake

Today we went sight seeing.  First stop was Fort Totten.  The fort was originally a military fort built in the 1800's to protect the settlers

This is a model of all the buildings.

It was later turned into a boarding school for Native Americans.  This is one of the old class rooms, it even had some teacher reviews still in the desk.  Doesn't Joyce look like she belong behind that desk?

Another corner of the classroom, I love that piano, reminds me of the one we had when I was a kid.  In listening to one of the videos, there were many of these schools.  The government wanted to teach the Indian children and thought they should be away from their parents so they wouldn't go home at night and keep the indian behaviors.  That was awful.  That was their heritage, and they were here first.

One of the buildings facing the center.

And here is another.

There was a building full of antique artifacts.  That dresser in the corner has a bed that flips down in the back.

I love this lamp, and the shade looks like what I make.

Our next stop was Sullys Hill.  Absolutely beautiful game preserve.  It was named after General Alfred Sully who led an expedition to this area in 1865.  Two years later the army established Fort Totten  Many of the bricks used to build Fort Totten were made from the clay taken from this hill.  In 1904 Theodore Roosevelt established it as a national park.  In 1914 Congress designated it a big game preserve.

In the early 1800's there were tens of millions of bison in North America.  By the late 1880's there were less than 30 free-roaming bison in the U.S.

In 1918 there were 6 bison brought to Sully's Hill from Portland Oregon, there are now 20 to 30.  They are massive and beautiful.  Look at the babies.

There were also Elk brought in in 1917 from Yellowstone, but we didn't see any.  We were told you have to go early morning or just before dusk.

These were about 220 steps going up to a look-out.  I made it to 75, but was told by some people coming down that you could see quite a distance, but it was just woods.  Glad I didn't try to make it all the way up in that heat.

There was also a colony of prairie dogs.  They are so cute. I didn't realize they were this small, I thought they would be about the size of a ground hog but they're somewhere between a chipmunk and a squirrel.

This was an an Indian playground, they were making a huge medecine wheel on the hill.