From Stanley to New Town, we drove past barren farm fields and featureless March landscape. We had no idea what we were going to find, but if this was any indication, we prepared ourselves to be disappointed. The start of the trip was not very visually stimulating. It’s no wonder the MHA Nation is frustrated with the way the government made it difficult to move about the reservation. We drove nearly 140 miles from the north edge of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation to the south edge.

If this were 1905, we would have driven 65 miles to the Missouri River at Elbowoods, crossed the bridge, and visited the monument.īut since it was 2005 and the government had flooded the valley, including Elbowoods, and the monument, we were in for a long drive. Ironically, we started out on Highway 8, the highway that lead through Elbowoods and across the Four Bears Bridge. No one had seen it for 50 years, but now we intended to be among the first. Rumor among my close friends on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation was that the lake level was so low, the monument had re-appeared.

A fellow photographer visited me and was intrigued with the idea of finding the original, long submerged Four Bears Monument. It was a miserably cold, grey March weekend. It was erected when the first Four Bears Bridge was dedicated at Elbowoods. In 2005 It appeared, and now that lake levels are so low, it is visible again, but you can’t walk out to it. I touched a rare piece of history a few years ago when I found the original Four Bears Monument.

The Four Bears Monument is on the hill above the crowd. The official opening of the Four Bears Bridge brought excited people from all over the western part of North and South Dakota.

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