Moominmama's Adventures

In which Moominmama explores eastern Montana, where dinosaurs once roamed... Montana is larger than life. Entering from the east, the sweep of the landscape is immense. It is easy to imagine dinosaurs striding across the yellow grass and sagebrush. Occasionally, Moominmama saw herds of dark cattle in the distance,  gathered together like black olives in dish -- for all those dinosaur cocktail parties! This is clearly dinosaur territory, with fossils still being discovered in the sedimentary rock. But the landscape then would not have featured dry grass and sagebrush (which smells wonderful, lemony!) as it does now.  This area was part of the Western Interior Seaway that divided North America, providing a shallow body of water connecting the Gulf of Mexico with the Arctic Sea during the middle to late Cretaceous period. Water levels rose and fell, but in the process, some of the largest dinosaurs to walk the earth left evidence of their existence. The fossils found in Montana i...

In which Moominmama learns about the Lakota and their testy first meeting with Lewis & Clark... This week, Moominmama paid a visit to the spot above where the Bad River meets the Missouri River. To the right, on an island now part of the town of Fort Pierre, Lewis & Clark had their first meeting with the Lakota in the fall of 1804.  Everyone walked away in one piece, but that didn't mean they were happy. William Clark named the next island he came to: Bad Humoured Island and described the Lakota in his journal as "the vilest miscreants of the savage race."  By all accounts, the Great Plains nomads living west of the Missouri River, had seen few white people at that time. But the Lakota had a reputation as a powerful tribe, and Lewis & Clark were directed to make contact to let them know their lands were now under the purview of United States and President Thomas Jefferson. Since no one spoke the other's language, it's unclear what got communicated. The...

In which Moominmama visits the Badlands and learns how diverse a desert can be.... Moominmama has traded "Beware of Alligators" signs for "Beware of Rattlesnakes" here in South Dakota. I expected the state to be mostly flat, but it's flat in the way a newly made bed is after kids jump on it -- rumpled. That is until you come to the Badlands with their strange striped peaks and crumbly rock. Moominmama arrived in South Dakota several hours east of the Badlands but got up early Wednesday morning to make the trek, leaving the Moominhouse behind at the campground and loading the car for an overnight. The drive included a change to Mountain Time, so I arrived before 7 a.m. and got to enjoy my first forays in the National Park with only handful of other early risers.  The Notch trail had me climbing a wood-and-cable ladder to gain some altitude for the view. But my favorite trail was the Door trail which took me out onto this strange dusty landscape that could have be...

Wherein Moominmama has her prejudices upended learning about the Mdewakanton band in Minnesota... The Dakota people see life in circles: the rotation of days and seasons; the cycles of planting, hunting and fishing; life and death. All is interconnected. So it's no surprise that this Dakota cultural center on native land near Lake Prior, Minnesota is designed in a circular shape, in fact overlapping circles. Much of the building is reserved for the Shakopee Mdewakanton (pronounced Mid-eh-WAH-ka-ton) Sioux Community, but a museum display and gift shop are open to the public. The Mdwakanton are one of seven bands (Seven Council Fires) of the Dakota/Lakota/Nakota Nation.  The Dakota/Lakota/Nakota terms differentiate between dialects of a people spread across the west and upper midwest. They were called the Sioux by French fur traders whom they first encountered in the 1600s. The history of the Minnesota Dakota mirrors much of what happened to native peoples throughout the U.S. They ha...