The Historic Pembina Trail by Ox Cart

Here's a nice little video I found on YouTube taken on the historic Pembina Trail!

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Ox Cart Angel on Amazon!

Pembina, ND (E. Grand Forks visit - pt 1)

I gave a presentation on Ox Cart Angel in East Grand Forks, MN on August 11th as part of their 125th anniversary. I went up a day early, however, so that I could drive an hour farther north to take a look at Pembina, North Dakota. Pembina is right in the upper northeast corner of ND - you could almost spit into Canada from there, and then turn around a bit and sneeze into Minnesota.

I've wanted to visit Pembina for a long time, because the earliest ancestors on my mother's maternal side - that we know about - lived there. Also, it's where Ox Cart Angel starts out. The main character's home is Pembina.

I finally made it! Note the Red River cart.

Pembina was once quite a bustling place - a transportation hub for the oxcart trails. My great-great-great-great grandfather - a French Canadian - and his wife - an Ojibwe woman - lived there back in the early 1800s.

Here's where the Red River and Pembina River merge:

My g-g-g-g-grandparents surely saw this same view, although without the bridge in the background. And different trees.

They also probably lived near this spot:

Although now, this is what is there:

I'm thinking the g-g-g-g-grandparents didn't have the jungle gym.

I stopped at the Pembina State Museum, which is a nice place. They have a replica of a Red River cart there:

I went up in the tower, where there's a viewing platform.

The hard part was rapelling back down.

Here's the best view from the tower:

Pembina!

Anyway, it was very cool to see the place. It felt like a connection to my past; like the past had come up to meet me. I left as the sun started to set - the motel there was booked for the night, so I stayed in Drayton, which is a bit south of Pembina. The next day I headed down to East Grand Forks for my presentation at their library. It went well, and the people hosting the event were incredibly nice. I'll talk a little more about that at another time.

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Ox Cart Angel on Amazon!

Where the Heck is Pembina?

Ox Cart Angel’s main character, Claire Dumont, comes from the town of Pembina, now part of North Dakota. In 1862 when the novel takes place, however, North Dakota was part of Dakota Territory, which took up South and North Dakota, as well as much of what are now the states of Montana and Wyoming. The Dakota Territory was formed in 1861, only a year before the events in the novel take place, so for most of Claire’s life, Pembina was part of the Minnesota Territory. It’s a bit confusing, I know. However, despite which country, territory or state Pembina used to belong to (Canada once even thought it belonged to them in the early 1800s) it is still in the same place it always was; hugging the Red River and snug right up against the present-day Minnesota border on its eastern side, and almost touching Canada on its northern side. In fact, the Pembina State Museum has an observation tower from which you can see Canada.

It’s a small town, its population under 600 in 2010, but what it lacks in size, it certainly makes up for in its importance to our country’s history. I hope to make it up there this next summer. I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to find it. If I get lost on the way, I can always listen for and follow the ghostly squeaking of ox cart wheels that once plied the area. Surely they can still be heard if you listen hard enough. 

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Ox Cart Angel on Amazon!