Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly vol. 26.djvu/338

277 continent entitle him to a high rank among the geographers of all time, a monument in the form of a huge granite globe grooved with parallel and meridian lines had been placed on a commanding point on the bank of the Mouse, near where the bridge of the Great Northern spans that stream.

It was a lovely Dakota day. The people from a wide range of the surrounding country congregated. The Governor of North Dakota presided. A most impressive and fitting prayer was offered. The "Great Northern Songsters" sang appropriate songs and the story of the heroic purpose and strenuous undertaking of Verendrye and his sons and of the life and most effective services of David Thompson were forcefully told in papers by Lawrence J. Burpee, of Ottawa, and T. C. Elliott, of Walla Walla. A community picnic in the grove down by the edge of the river and athletic games followed.

The historical expedition then proceeded by train and by autos on westward some thirty-seven miles to the enterprising city of Minot. Remarkably rich zoo collections, in its spacious park areas were viewed and in the evening the members of the expedition were feted with a banquet at which addresses were given by a number of the distinguished people of the company including Major General Hugh L. Scott. During the night the "Upper Missouri Special" took the expedition on to the site of Fort Union on the north bank of the Missouri and at a point directly on the present boundary line between North Dakota and Montana. Fort Union for some forty years following 1829 was the chief trading post of the American Fur Company. To it the Indians of the ten or more tribes frequenting this region were accustomed to take their collections of furs for trade. And there on this morning of the 18th of July their leaders of the present generation were in full force, camped and ready for a day of historical council and festivity. Tribal