Last Updated on: 25th August 2025, 09:18 am
If you find yourself driving across the state of North Dakota – either to or from the underrated Theodore Roosevelt National Park – you may be wondering how to break up the journey. Of all the attractions in the central part of the state, the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site should not be missed.
In addition to getting to experience a recreated Hidatsa earthlodge, the informative on-site museum provides plenty of fascinating information about the culture of the Plains Indians tribe.
And for those with a special interest in the topic, there are two more sites you can visit, both of which we’ll be covering below: the On-A-Slant Indian Village and the Menoken Indian Village Site.
I managed to visit all of the following sites in a single day while traveling between the Theodore Roosevelt National Park area and the city of Fargo.
For more information on places to stay in North Dakota, be sure to check the end of the article.
The Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site
In the summer months, the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site is open from 9:00-17:00, while entrance is free. The site is about a 90-minute drive from Dickinson, or about an hour drive from Bismarck.
The Visitor Center
Entrance to the site is via the Visitor Center, which contains an informative museum in addition to a theater showing a 15-minute documentary.
The Knife River – a tributary of the Missouri River – was long home to the Hidatsa tribe, who lived here for around 500 years. The museum contains a plethora of Hidatsa artifacts, while you’ll also learn about the daily lives of Hidatsa Indians throughout the four seasons.
Fascinatingly, the Hidatsa played the same game of Chunkey (also spelled Tchung-kee) that was played at ancient cities like Aztalan State Park in Wisconsin and Cahokia in Illinois! The Hidatsa are believed to have been the only group that played the game in the west.
Though the rules of the game aren’t entirely clear, it typically involved one man throwing a wooden javelin at another man’s disc-shaped stone. A few of these stone are on display at the museum.
The Hidatsa likely learned about Chunkey through trade, as the Knife River area served as an important trading hub. For example, shells from as far east as the Atlantic Coast made their way here, while the Hidatsa traded with a wide variety of tribes from throughout the American West.
The main product that traders came to buy at Knife River was flint. And after the arrival of the Europeans, things like metal items began to be traded here as well.
The Earthlodge
Just behind the Visitor Center, a paved trail will take you to the replica of a Hidatsa earthlodge, the main highlight of visiting the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site.
Each lodge would house around ten to twenty people. And in addition to being homes, the lodges were also sometimes used as places for meetings and religious ceremonies.
In traditional Hidatsa culture, earthlodges were designed and maintained by women. Typically measuring 30-60 feet in diameter, the lodges were largely built of wooden beams, dried prairie grass, and thick sod.
Impressively, the lodges would typically take just 7-10 days to complete and would then last for around ten years.
In the center of the lodge was a fire which inhabitants would sit around while indoors. The elder male of the family got his own special chair known as an atuka.
In this recreation, behind the atuka we can see a large animal hide adorned with various pictographs of a former chief’s battle exploits.
Other items, meanwhile, include a table used for food preparation, a pit for storing excess corn and beans, a small corral, and a box suspended from the ceiling to protect certain items from mice.
Unfortunately – at least at the time of my visit – visitors were prohibited from freely exploring the lodge, and could only view everything from a single corner of the interior.
The River Villages Trail
Just behind the earthlodge is the River Villages Trail, a 0.7-mile trail that takes visitors to Knife River. And along the way, you’ll pass by the sites of the original Hidatsa villages.
But first, near the start are examples of traditional gardens where women would grow corn, beans and squash.
While aerial images reveal a much clearer picture of what dense settlements these were, you can still see lots of indentations from ground level.
Even now, it’s clear how closely the various earthlodges were built together, which was likely done for defensive purposes.
These were largely summer residences, while in winter the Hidatsa lived in forests surrounded by trees that would help protect them from the cold wind.
But what ultimately happened to these villages? Tragically, a majority of the local population was wiped out by smallpox that was inadvertently introduced by European settlers in the 19th century.
The remaining survivors then moved further north to a place called Like-a-Fishhook Point.
Amazingly, it was likely right around here that Lewis and Clark met Sacagawea (also spelled Sakakawea), a woman who aided their expedition to the Pacific.
Sacagawea was born in the Shoshone tribe before being taken captive by some Hidatsa and kept near Knife River. She was later sold into a marriage with Quebecois trapper Toussaint Charbonneau.
Sacagawea would end up serving as an interpreter and sometimes guide for the expedition. And her presence assured other tribes that the expedition came in peace, as women never accompanied war parties in Native American culture.
The edge of the trail offers beautiful views of the Knife River from a few different perspectives. While there’s normally a wooden staircase that takes visitors down to the edge of the river, it was closed at the time of my visit due to bank erosion.
On-A-Slant Indian Village
While the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site is the most essential archaeological site in North Dakota, those with a special interest in the subject can make a few more stops during their journey across the state.
Within Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, for example, is the On-A-Slant Indian Village (also known as just Slant Village).
Entry for the State Park costs $7, but there was an odd glitch with the online payment system during my visit. No staff were present at the entrance, and the website only gave me the option to pay for a camping reservation.
I decided to just proceed to see if I’d encounter any park staff, but I never did. Frankly speaking, $7 is a bit steep for those simply wanting to see the Indian village.
At first glance, this village, constructed near the confluence of the Heart River with the Missouri River, appears even more impressive than the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site.
Here you’ll find five earthlodge replicas instead of just one. But upon closer inspection, only a couple of them can be entered.
And the ones that can be entered are mostly void of decoration. One of them, however, does at least function as a small museum.
Notably, the On-A-Slant Indian Village was not inhabited by the Hidatsa, but by a similar tribe of Plains Indians known as the Mandan.
While in the past, the Hidatsa, Mandan and Arikara tribes lived separately, they started living together after smallpox wiped out many of their people. Collectively, they’re commonly referred to as the ‘Three Affiliated Tribes.’
And they all built earthlodges which appear similar in shape and size.
An archaeological survey discovered as many as 75 earthlodges here. The site was occupied from around 1650-1750, meaning the village had already been abandoned by the time the Lewis & Clarke Expedition arrived.
But the inhabitants were likely impacted by an earlier smallpox epidemic, with the survivors moving north closer to Knife River.
Another attraction at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park here is the Custer House, a reconstruction of a house inhabited by none other than Lieutenant George Custer.
The park is located just south of the North Dakota Capital of Bismarck. And while I didn’t end up visiting any attractions, I made a quick stop to see the state capitol building and the nearby Sacagawea Statue.
Speaking of Sacagawea and the Lewis and Clark Expedition, another historic North Dakota site not covered here is Fort Mandan, a winter encampment set up by the expedition.
Menoken Indian Village Site
About a 20-minute drive east of Bismarck is yet another Native American site that, while the least essential of this list, doesn’t require a major detour to see.
To reach the Menoken Indian Village Site, take Exit 170 from Highway 94, turning north onto 171 Street NE. You’ll then make a short drive down an unpaved road. The site is free to enter and is completely unstaffed.
The village dates from the 13th century AD and was built along Apple Creek, another tributary of the Missouri River.
Given how old the site is, it can’t be directly linked to any of the Three Affiliated Tribes, though the people who lived here were surely ancestors of either the Hidatsa, Mandan or Arikara.
The village consisted of 30 earthlodges. It was surrounded by a ditch and a palisade, or row of vertical wooden stakes, revealing how there was great fear of attack from other tribes.
All in all, there’s very little to see other than a few indentations. But the on-site signage provides a lot of interesting information about the buildings that once stood here.
Additional Info
The closest town to Theodore Roosevelt National Park is Medora, a charming and well-preserved Old West town. Hotels here, however, can be quite pricey. And there aren’t many options online other than AmericInn by Wyndham Medora.
The next best option is the city of Dickinson, about a 35-minute drive away. Dickinson is also about an hour and fifteen minutes from the park’s North Unit – not much further than the one-hour drive from Medora. As mentioned above, Dickinson is also just 90 minutes from the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site.
Dickinson is a rather unremarkable city of 25,000 people, albeit one that has plenty of shopping and dining options compared to Medora.
I stayed at the Microtel Inn & Suites by Wyndham which was fine for the price. Other popular options include the Holiday Inn and Hawthorn Extended Stay.
Fargo, North Dakota’s largest city, has plenty of accommodation options to choose from. I only had time for one night in town, but I stayed at the Travelodge by Wyndham Fargo. It was pretty much what you would expect for the price.
Some other highly-rated options, meanwhile, include Candlewood Suites Fargo-North Dakota State University by IHG, Radisson Blu Fargo and Fargo Inn and Suites.