The museum in Washburn will be switching to its winter hours as of Oct. 1 and will be open for visitors Tuesday to Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and closed on Sundays and Monday.

Kirkey said the fort at Fort Mandan will still be available for visitors to tour for the next few weeks but it will be closed for the winter beginning Oct. 17. The visitors center at Fort Mandan, located a couple of miles down the road from the interpretive center at Washburn, includes a children’s play area and more displays that provide information about the Lewis and Clark Expedition and the time they spent with the Mandan and Hidatsa in the winter of 1804-1805. The visitors center will be closed beginning Oct. 1 but the interpretive center in Washburn will be open throughout the year.

Admission is $8 for adults, $5 for students and free for children under the age of 5. For more information, look at the North Dakota Parks and Recreation website or call 462-8535.

Visitors to the fort will set foot on ground that might have been trod upon 215 years ago by explorers William Clark and Meriwether Lewis and dozens of members of their Corps of Discovery, which set out to explore the land that had been acquired by the United States in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803.

Submitted Photo Other historic replicas also exist at the Fort Mandan site.

The area is also where they met the legendary Sakakawea, who acted as their guide and cultural interpreter during the expedition and set off with them in April 1805 with her 2-month-old son bound to her back.

The fort, built in 1972, is a replica of the original fort, which was destroyed by fire sometime between 1805 and 1806. Descriptions in the writings by members of the expedition were used to build the replica.

“This is close to where they built the original fort,” said Dana Morrison, the interpretive coordinator, on July 1.

The exact site of the original fort is not known, but Morrison said it is likely up the Missouri River or now under the river.

The ongoing coronavirus pandemic required some adjustments in normal activities at Fort Mandan earlier this summer, so staff created interpretive panels that provided information about the displays inside the fort building. Various displays show how different rooms at the fort might have looked, including the quarters that Sakakawea would have shared with her husband, Toussaint Charbonneau, his other wife, Otter Woman, and others.

Members of the expedition would have cooked most of their meals in their quarters or in the courtyard. Their food would have come from trading for items with the Mandan and Hidatsa and from hunting.

“They say they were quite comfortable when they were in the fort itself,” said Morrison.

There are other displays at the site, including a blacksmith’s forge and rooms showing bunks like those the members of the expedition slept in and equipment they would have used.

It would have been less comfortable outdoors than inside.

Morrison said members of the expedition endured a frigid winter in 1804 and 1805. The average temperature would have been about 4 degrees above zero and the coldest it got was 42 below zero.

“That’s not unheard of here, but for them it was quite a drastic change from what they were used to,” said Morrison.

The museum attracted quite a lot of attention during the bicentennial of the expedition back in the early 2000s, but it is still a big draw to the area, even during the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

Morrison said people have come from many different states to visit the museum and Fort Mandan.