Taken from the bridge between Four Bears Village and Sanish in the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in North Dakota. The bridge passes over the Missouri River/Lake Sakakawea. Painted on the grass over that cliff is a medicine wheel. Beautiful sight and good medicine. This was taken on my trip to the Dakotas where I attended a conference on Native health.

The Fort Berthold Indian Reservation belongs to the Three Affiliated Tribes, or "MHA", that is the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara Indians. Unlike their neighbors the Lakota and Cheyenne who were nomadic, the three affiliated tribes were stationary living mostly off agriculture in the area. Rather than living in tipis as their neighbors did, they lived in Earth Lodges, sturdy and made of wood and sod if I remember correctly. The reservation has seen an increase in crime recently due to the oil boom that brought many non-tribal people out here for jobs. The reservation was unprepared for the unprecedented move in of outsiders.

There is a sad story surrounding this area. Down the river off the reservation, white men built a dam, and as a result of that, the area became flooded, and destroyed a former village that now exists only underwater. Many in the village died as a result of this and the rest were displaced permanently, having to leave the place they had called home for generations.