Theodore Roosevelt NP & Fort Union

Trip to Minot, ND Days 4 & 5 | Reva, SD to Minot, ND | Theodore Roosevelt National Park | Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site | September 2022

On day four of our trip to Minot, we packed up our campsite in Reva Gap Campground, then made our way West to take US-85 North into North Dakota. For our drive up to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, we retraced the route we had driven back in 2017 through the Little Missouri River Grasslands. The road was just as pink and the scenery just as great as we remembered it. We even stopped at the same spot, the Burning Coal Vein campground and the Southern terminus of the Maah Daah Hey Trail for a short walk and to see if Charlotte remembered this place. We thought of this as like reclaiming the memory for us, under much happier circumstances (we also didn’t get a flat tire which is always a plus)!

Once we made it to Medora, we went East on I-94 a few miles to visit the Painted Canyon overlook in Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which we had neglected to stop at last year while passing through. We had a picnic lunch near the canyon, then took a short walk around before getting back on the road. 

We went a little further East on 94, then took US-85 North making way on new highways and new counties. Our plan was to camp near the Northern unit of Theodore Roosevelt NP at the Northern Terminus of the Maah Daah Hey, but since we still had plenty of daylight left we went a little out of our way for a new county and to visit Killdeer Mountain Battlefield State Historic Site. After navigating through back-roads (where we realized the ongoing struggle between the old – ranchers – and the new – oil wells), we arrived at the battle site to find a few grave sites and a plaque sharing the history. Truthfully, the site was very underwhelming, but the backdrop of Killdeer Mountain was nice.

This site marks yet another site where the US Army attacked various bands of Lakota, irrespective of combatant status, though this battle took place in 1864, well before the Great Sioux War in 1876.

That night, we camped at the CCC Campground just across the Little Missouri River from the North Unit of Theodore Roosevelt NP. It was a nice quiet site with the trailhead for the Maah Daah Hey Trail, the only downside being that whoever camped in our site last had left tons of trash and food tossed aside in the bushes which Charlotte immediately busied herself finding. The sky had also become hazy from wildfires in Northern California and there were a lot of bugs, so after a short sunset walk on the Maah Daah Hey Trail we retreated to the tent to read and relax.

The next morning, we started off bright and early packing up, then went to drive through the entire North unit of the national park. We hoped that we would see lots of wildlife like we did last year while driving through the Southern end, but today we only saw a couple of bison. We got out at several overlooks and enjoyed the different views of the Little Missouri River though. Once we had driven to the end and back, we got our cancellation stamps and then continued on our way.

Our next site for today was Fort Union Trading Post National Historic Site (not to be confused with Fort Union New Mexico) on the Montana/North Dakota border at the confluence of the Yellowstone and Missouri Rivers. Our chosen route took us very close to Montana, so we crossed into Fairview, MT to get an extra Montana county as well as a second when we arrived at Fort Union. There were only two other cars and an empty fort to wander around when we arrived and we made the most of the quiet morning.

We were both surprised to learn that Fort Union was, in fact, NOT a military fort, but was instead one of the principle trading posts of the American Fur Company, though the military did operate a fort closer to the confluence called Fort Buford. Fort Union was active from its founding in 1828 until just after the Civil War. As the displays and exhibits explained, while the Fort was active, the largest source of conflict was from competitors, like the Hudson Bay Company, than from hostile natives. The ‘fort’ served as a storage house and economic hub for the trans-Missouri when the presiding belief was to leave the plains (sometimes called the ‘Great American Desert’ during that period) to those natives who lived there. But as migrants began to till the prairie and the tribes were placed on reservations, the dynamic shifted. And as conflicts like that at Killdeer Mountain became more common place, the role of Fort Union disappeared, and the role of Fort Buford grew.

We walked the grounds with Charlotte and then drove over to Fort Buford to get a view of the confluence before changing direction and doubling back East on US-2 to our final destination, the Magic City of Minot, ND.