Lise Erdrich

In January 1857, a survey party left St. Cloud, Minnesota, bound for the headwaters of the Red River. Despite winter hazards, they were determined to beat rivals to the region. The expedition was led by French-Chippewa guides Charles and Pierre Bottineau. Pierre, known as the Kit Carson of the Northwest, was a famous frontiersman and surveyor.

The twelfth day of Christmas or Twelfth Night, is known as Kings Day at Turtle Mountain. In Catholic tradition, it is the Feast of Epiphany, honoring the three wise men who traveled to Bethlehem to see the Christ Child.

In 1958, 96-year-old Joseph Gourneau, father of Turtle Mountain Chippewa tribal chairman and historian Pat Gourneau, was interviewed by Bob Cory of the Minot Daily News. Joseph was one of the last generations born to follow the buffalo.

Elders who were children in the 1930s at Turtle Mountain remembered Midnight Mass as the main celebration of Christmas. Families traveled by sleigh to the church, with children bundled under blankets. Most people were Catholic, their roots tracing back to the late 1700s fur trade when Indigenous women married French and Scottish workers.

On this date in 1948, a flood of oratory marked the closing of the trial of August Pusch, who was charged with the poisoning death of his wife. The jury began deliberations in what was headlined as Wahpeton’s most bizarre murder trial.

On this date in 1909, Wahpeton newspapers congratulated Eugene Schuler on his federal post office and Catholic church construction at Kearney, Nebraska. His firm soon secured federal contracts across the western U.S., including the Wahpeton post office in 1915. Schuler’s Northwestern Construction Company built public buildings, Catholic churches, schools, private residences, and commercial and industrial facilities in at least 12 states.

Most of us have probably read or heard some version of the postman's creed but according to the U.S. Postal Service, the organization has no official creed or motto. The United States Post Office was founded by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia on June 26, 1775, at the start of the American Revolution but it was not until around 1914 when an architectural firm in New York City, popularized the motto when they inscribed the words “Neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet, nor hail, nor armed villains deterred this hardy courier” on the exterior walls of the New York City Post Office.

On this date in 1800, fur trader Alexander Henry concluded his November journal entries for the Park River post. He described methods of hunting raccoons, black bears, and grizzly bears hibernating along the Red River. The hunters checked large hollow trees for signs of animals inside. They would then cut a hole into the hollow space and set fire to smoke out the inhabitants. On November 30, seven raccoons were taken from a tree, which was six feet hollow inside, with two feet of rim and bark on the outside.

On this date in 1896, the Jamestown paper reported Mrs. Swain had been taken home to New Rockford for burial. She and her lover were found dead in a Valley City hotel room. A note left at the scene said, "You will find sufficient funds in my pocketbook to bury us. Our last request is to bury us together without any fuss, and do not try to find out who we are. Parted in life but joined in death."

Thanksgiving activities filled the pages of local newspapers throughout North Dakota. Details about plans, table fare, festivities, and guests at private homes were reported throughout the century, as well as Thanksgiving events at state and federal institutions. These stories often portrayed such places as a "gravy train" funded by taxpayers and human-interest stories that highlighted the societal benefits of these institutions.