Bismarck’s Astonishing Museum And How To See Dakota The Dinomummy

Bismarck’s Astonishing Museum And How To See Dakota The Dinomummy.

Whether you visit to see Dakota the Dinomummy, historic clothing and fashion, how the state transformed modern history, or go on fossil digs, the North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum has it all. North Dakota doesn’t get the glamorous attention as other road trip destinations, but it should. With top-notch galleries and exhibits, a road trip to Bismarck’s State Museum is a can’t-miss opportunity. Plus, the museum won’t cost you a penny. That’s right, free admission.

Seriously, Bismarck should be on your road trip radar. Here are some of our highlights that will make you think twice about your next getaway. 

North Dakota Heritage Center and State Museum Exhibits

Initially, guests see a colossal Mastodon near the entrance, but the extremely rare Dakota, the Dinomummy, steals the show. The State Museum has four primary galleries, three permanent and one rotating. With that said, pay special attention to the rotating and traveling exhibits featured in the Governor’s Gallery. Regardless, don’t miss any of the four impressive galleries.

Adaptation Gallery: Geologic Time

 

Discover subtle mysteries throughout the State Museum, but the Geologic Time exhibit probably pays the bills. This gallery is where kids and adults get wowed. 

Before entering the galleries, a giant Mastodon skeleton greets you. Regardless, the most talked about exhibit is the life-size casts of a Tyrannosaurus rex and a Triceratops facing off. In any case, my favorite exhibit was Underwater World, mainly because the gigantic sea specimens from the primordial oceans were new to me. 

The exhibit’s fossils are from 80 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Period when an inland sea covered North Dakota. At one point, tropical swamplands covered places like Medora, where crocodiles and palm trees are still found. 

A few examples of fossils displayed in the Geologic Time exhibit are:

• Plioplatecarpus – a twenty-four-foot long mosasaur, a predator that looks like a lizard, found near Cooperstown.
• Xiphactinus – 16 -foot-long fish that resembles a tarpon.
• Archelon – a huge sea turtle that measures twelve feet long.
• Many smaller fossils of fish and animals are scattered throughout the exhibit with magnifiers for a close-up look.

Innovation Gallery: Early Peoples

The Innovation Gallery is dedicated to North Dakota’s Native people. The gallery contains exhibits of how Early Peoples from over 13,000 years ago lived before exposure to European Americans and then flows through the eras to more modern times. For example, see inside a tipi and how they served as early homes. Also, look closely at the State Museum’s exceptional collection of apparel and textiles with its artistry from natural materials.

Inspiration Gallery: Yesterday and Today

Throughout the state’s history, North Dakota remains one of the nation’s leading ethnic and culturally diverse states. More than three-quarters of the population claimed to be immigrants or were born to immigrants around the turn of the century. As a result, living alongside residents from other countries and Native Americans was a common way of life.

The Inspiration Gallery exhibits what life looked like in six themes. Agriculture Innovation, Industry and Energy, Newcomers and Settlement, Conflict and War, Our Lives, Our Communities, and Cultural Expressions.

 

Get To Know Lewis and Clark’s Enormous Dog, Seaman

Catherine Weldon’s Portrait Of Sitting Bull

 

Many know Catherine Weldon from the 2018 movie about her life, Woman Walks Ahead. In 1890 Weldon painted a portrait of Sitting Bull. She chose one 1884c published photo, out of thirteen, taken by Palmquist & Jurgens in St.Paul, Minnesota, for her model. Weldon informally served as Sitting Bull’s translator and advocate and, at times, lived in his community.

The State Museum received Weldon’s original painting in 1953 as an estate gift. The portrait has also been displayed off and on over the years since they received it. 

You might also like Easy Ways To Experience Remarkable Art In Bismarck

Governor’s Gallery: Fashion and Function

 

After walking into the North Dakota Heritage Center & State Museum entrance, we expected to see excellent exhibits of dinosaurs and important historical pieces that shaped the state. However, what we didn’t expect to see was a stellar exhibit of over 400 clothing collections dedicated to North Dakota fashion. Of these, 130 are dress forms.

Thematic sections divide flashy garments exhibited from special occasion costume wear to what North Dakotan’s basic everyday activities entail. Some themes that explain North Dakota’s history include Miss America, Powwow Pageantry, The Wedding March, Cattle Culture, Crowning Glory, and Indigenous Ingenuity.

 

Complete wardrobes vary from first responders, World Curling Championship, indigenous uses, heritage, wedding march, and hunting, to name a few. However, a hunting vest with a shell dispenser was one of my favorites for its ingenuity. In the front, on each side, several round vertical rows were sewn side by side to hold shotgun shells. A hunter dropped shells from the top of each row until it was packed. Then, when the hunter needed to reload the gun, he pulled a shell from the bottom, much like a PEZ dispenser. I regret not getting a photo, but I certainly will next time.

 

Speaking of curling, you might enjoy our experience Life In The Crokicurl National Championship, a combination of curling and the popular Canadian crokinole game.

The details put together by exhibitions manager David L. Newell and his team are simply astonishing. These pieces stood out to us.

 

Assiniboine Artist Orvilla Longfox

 

In particular, a Buckskin Jingle Dress made by Assiniboine artist Orvilla Longfox, on loan from the Minnesota Historical Society. Because finding traditional indigenous clothing is rare, even for museums, the State Museum needed to look elsewhere. Families pass regalia clothing down to the next generations or occasionally to close friends, so finding traditional apparel becomes difficult.

The dress has scores of tiny deer hooves attached to dangling bucktail fringes, creating a soft clattering sound when moved. Furthermore, colorful porcupine quills create artistic design patterns.

 

2018 Miss America Cara Mund

The initial exhibit contains attire worn by Miss North Dakota’s Cara Mund, 2018 Miss America, from Bismarck. The three garments consist of two gowns. One of them was a Jovani specially designed black velvet coronation gown with Mund’s Miss America sash and her Wonder Woman costume. Internationally renowned designer Fernando Wong created the outfit for Mund to wear on her last full day as the reigning Miss America. First, shoe designer and artist Taylor Reeve designed her Wonder Woman boots. Then, Valley City artist Shane Twamley covered them in rhinestones. 

Although the pageant leadership demanded she not wear the Wonder Woman costume for the “Show Me Your Shoes” parade, Mund chose to anyway. 

I found that North Dakotans were always very stylish and kept up to date, but they always wore the clothes that were most appropriate for what they were doing, and so that’s how we came up with the title ‘Fashion & Function: North Dakota Style

David Newell, exhibitions manager

Note: Fashion and Functions runs through November 2022.

Dakota The Extraordinary Mummified Dinosaur

First and foremost, Dakota, the Dinomummy is a big deal. Less than ten dinosaurs worldwide have been discovered with skin impressions intact. Furthermore, there’s a reasonable probability that Dakota has the most skin found on a dinosaur. 

Likewise, different sizes and colors of its scales show evidence of stripes on the skin. Besides scales on Dakota’s outer layer, about two inches of skin, soft tissue, and some organs remained. Dakota is an adolescent duck-billed dinosaur called Edmontosaurus belonging to a bigger group of duck-billed dinosaurs commonly known as hadrosaurs, or Hadrosauridae, the proper name.

In 1999, Tyler Lyson, a 16-year-old, found the dinosaur on his uncle’s ranch near Marmarth, North Dakota. After that, paleontologist Dr.Phillip Lars Manning from Britain’s University of Manchester led a team to extract the dinosaur. After the nearly 8,000 pound fossil “body block” was carefully removed, it was sent to Canoga Park, California to be scanned by a massive computed technology (CT scanner) machine. The Boeing Company and NASA used the giant-sized scanner for space shuttle parts at the time. 

The Hand Of Doom

Surprisingly, another fossil appeared next to Dakota in the “body block.” Dr. Manning called it the “Hand of Doom,” a crocodile’s clawed foot. 

How To See Dakota, The Dinomummy

Look for Dakota’s display in the Corridor of History near the entrance. Inside the exhibit, see Dakota’s tail, right arm, and one foot. Most of the dinosaur, except for the head, is still inside the body block in the downstairs paleontology lab. Unfortunately, the head has not been found. 

Paleontologist Jeff Person and Fossil Digs

 

North Dakota Geological Survey Paleontologist Jeff Person’s passion runs deep. He must be one the most fervent career people we’ve met. So we were fortunate that he gave us a tour of the Bismarck paleontology lab below the State Museum.  

A major motivation for all of us on staff is knowing that when you find a fossil, you are the first human to ever see that particular specimen. Depending on where we are digging, that could mean that for the 32, 67, or 80 million years that bone has been buried, YOU are the one that found it and saw it first. I like to help people have that experience and see the excitement they feel when they discover something.

Jeff Person, paleontologist

Would you like to go on a fossil dig with a paleontologist? Fossil digs through the North Dakota Geological Survey Fossil Dig Program are surprisingly inexpensive and more accessible for the public than many think. But much harder to grab a spot. Work with paleontologists and other volunteers. Some people attend for the first time, while others come back yearly. Fossil digs typically run from June through August. 

People come from across the United States and internationally to participate. Lately, digs have become popular with participants from Italy. But, in bad weather, spaces may become available in the Bismarck Paleontology Lab to work on fossil preparation and cleaning.

The Cost Of A North Dakota Fossil Dig

The daily cost was around 50.00 dollars in the past, but expect changes. Every year many factors go into calculating costs, so we wanted to mention this price as an example of how affordable it can be. All costs aside, this program may be your best choice. Other programs offer similar opportunities but cost about 1,000.00 a week, and you must attend a weekly session. Here, you can choose to participate for one day or five. 

According to Jeff Person, “I will say that we take pride in saying that we are the least expensive public dig program that we know of.”

How To Sign Up For A North Dakota Fossil Dig

Follow this advice from by Person. “The best way to sign up is to follow us on social media. We are on all the major platforms and can be found by looking for “NDGSpaleo” on any of them. We announce when registration will be taking place on those sites. Dig registration usually takes place in February or March. Our dinosaur dig is our most popular dig, and usually, tickets sell out (sic) within minutes, the other two digs are usually 90-95% sold out within an hour or two. Therefore, anyone wishing to join us really needs to pay attention to when registration is taking place.”

The minimum age for a fossil dig is twelve years old. Anyone under eighteen needs an accompanying adult. Participants need to arrange their lodging, transportation, food, and water but the fossil dig program provides all tools required.

A special thanks to Jeff Person for the tour and for helping with clarifying some details.

Little Kids, Big World

Even though the State Museum offers a fun weekly kids program called “Little Kids, Big World,” we would enjoy participating too. Toddlers and preschoolers get a variety of hands-on learning experiences at the museum. Just like the museum, admission is free.

Look at this sample of activities covered.

• Abstract Circles – a scavenger hunt where children search the museum for abstract circles, then make their own.
• Dino Dig Time – the children turn into paleontologists to dig for dinosaur bones.
• Ready, Set, Liftoff – after inspecting the museum’s spacesuit exhibit, each youngster creates a rocket and then watches its launch. 
• Kaleidoscopes, Shapes Galore – participants look throughout the State Museum exhibits for shapes and then create their shapes for a project.
• Tipi Time – children help assemble a tipi and then learn what items are usually inside.
• USS North Dakota – see artifacts from the 1908 battleship, then build a boat and try to make sure it floats.

Accessibility 

• The building and grounds are wheelchair accessible.
• Elevators are by the Northern Lights Atrium and the Missouri River Event Center.
• Check out scooters and wheelchairs at the Information Desk.
• Public Restrooms are fully accessible.
• Accessible parking available
• Only service animals are allowed inside.

Kristi’s Take On The State Museum

In my opinion, the North Dakota Heritage and State Museum is far and away a great place to visit. The ever-changing exhibits, spectacular fossils, events, history, and free admission make this a must-see for families. However, this museum is not just for kids. Think about an unforgettable date night or an inspiring stroll through time. The building is so bright and cheerful that it is a great place to take your mind off the everyday world and immerse yourself in history. The staff is delightful, and the bathrooms are a work of ceramic art. I can hardly wait to revisit the State Museum.  

 

Although the Bismarck-Mandan Convention and Visitors Bureau sponsored our visit, all opinions are our own.