(bright upbeat music) - Hello, and welcome to Prairie Pulse.

Coming up later in the show we'll profile Morehead artist, Emily Williams Wheeler.

But first joining me now is the director of the state historical society of North Dakota, Bill Peterson.

Bill, thanks for joining us today.

- Thanks for having us, John.

- As we get started, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and your background.

- Oh, okay, well, I have a normal story.

I was raised in Michigan.

My origin story is a historian started on lake Superior when I was a little boy.

I found a piece of the Edmia Fitzgerald.

It was some famous wreckage from a 1975 wreck there.

And one of the local historian there, was an elderly woman, a retired school teacher who spent hours teaching me about Great Lake's, maritime history, and particularly that stretch beach.

And I just was fascinated by and interested in it over time.

I turned those stories that she told me into a dissertation and went through college and made history my career and one of the passions of my life.

- How old were you when you discovered that?

- I was about seven.

- It's funny how something like that can really yeah, set the tone.

- It sets the course of your life.

- Well, of course, located in Bismarck, what's the role in the mission of the state historical society of North Dakota?

- All right, well, the mission is to collect, preserve, interpret and celebrate the history of North Dakota and its people.

That's what we do and that's what we love to do.

And I would say that we explore and document some of the things that make people in North Dakota so unique and make this place such a unique part of American life.

So North Dakota's a little different and we love it.

for that reason it's special.

- Yeah, well, what are some of the exhibits, I guess currently on display at the heritage center?

- Well, we have a great exhibit right now called fashion and function North Dakota style.

and it's got a little bit of everything in it.

It's got things in there from miss America, some of her clothing to some of Peggy Lee's clothing, some of Lawrence Wes clothing, we've got the governors and first ladies, we've got governor Link's wife's Mrs. first lady Link's wedding dress that just came to us.

It's been, it's a pretty, it's a great exhibit that talks about how north Dakota's dress for success.

- So when I state, when I say state historical society of North Dakota, what does that encompass in far as buildings and I guess, yeah, square feet, whatever.

- Great question, great question.

So the heritage center, I always get the square footage.

It's I wanna say it's about 100,000 square feet, but we have the heritage center and state museum that also holds the state archives and our museum collections, then we also have 59 other state historic sites around the state.

So yeah, we cover all of the, from every corner of the state with our mothership sort of to speak right in Bismark there.

- Sure, okay.

Well you succeeded longtime director, Claudia Berg.

Can you talk a little bit about maybe her work and her legacy?

- Sure, Claudia came to work for the agency back in, I believe it was right around 1982 when the first heritage center opened, when it moved from what is now the state library.

And she started kind of worked her way up through the agency and ultimately ended up handling the expansion.

She was the expansion coordinator and she was the director of the agency for a number of years until she retired back in July.

So her history with the agency has just been phenomenal and the entire agency has a bit of a history of promoting talented people from within.

So Claudia is just another example of, of someone who started out.

I think she was in the graphic design team, making exhibits and ended up, you know, running the agency as, and ending her career with us that way.

So a story legacy and you know, what a wonderful, what a wonderful person and to have guide the state historical society through its expansion and through the last couple of years, and to, to get it to the point where they hired me.

- And that expansion, I remember a huge undertaking and, and a great benefit to the, - Oh, it's amazing.

It's, we hear so many complimentary remarks about the, the heritage center and what's going on there.

- Well, let's try to some of the things that go on in and around state historical society.

What about discussing the native American hall of honor?

- Well, the native American hall of honor is something that was started by the historical society and Scott Davis and the bureau of Indian affairs.

And it was a way to, and, and also our foundation.

It was a way to recognize really spectacular and rich contributions that native Americans have made to the state's history.

So every year they, they have a induction ceremony where there's people nominated from across the state.

The office of Indian affairs has a committee that sifts through the nominations and they select any number between four, three to five, I think, is, is what they normally select.

And then there's an award ceremony in the fall that coincides with one of the, one of the powwows at the college in Bismark.

And that induction ceremony is done on every September.

- And, you know, talk about the archives there.

Of course, the expansion allowed, I guess it is massive.

It seems like, and over the years, these archives have been a huge help to prove public for our documentaries, but can people access them or what?

- Anybody can access them.

So there's the archives contain 2 million photos, 13 terabytes of electronic information and eight miles of records.

44,000 linear feet of records.

So it's expansive.

If you ever go behind the scenes, when you're in Bismark with me, you'll be amazed at what is there.

It's hard for one person to know everything.

So we have a couple of different types of archivists that focus on certain parts of the collection.

I think one of the things that I think we're really proud of, or, I mean, I'm really proud of pointing this out is we have an excellent moving picture archive.

So our moving, our film footage.

We've got some great footage in there from TV stations across the state, but we represent pretty much the dawn of the TV era to up through the, like the 1990s and right up until digitization took over pretty strongly.

So we're always getting requests for that kind of imagery.

And so we have a AV archivist and we have a photo archivist, and we have all kinds of people that help people with research and we have about every by any, we have about 6,400 reference requests, people coming to us, looking for information and research projects.

So books, movies, documentaries, all kinds of projects.

- Well with that said, I mean, so how many employees do you have that you take care of the state historical society?

- We have about 80 full-time employees, 78 and three quarters, I think is the tally on that.

And then about another 100 temporary employees.

And I would say that that what, one of the things that makes my job so easy is that these employees inspire me every day.

They are the most wonderful group of people that do the work, that keep the heritage center, not only looking great and functioning well, but keep the history preserved, keep our visitors happy, keep our sites rolling along and greeting visitors from all across the country.

It's just a, it's just a, it's a heartwarming and inspiring place to work.

- So how with all this massive building and archives and sites across the state, how are you, how do you fund all that?

- How do you fund all that?

Well, it's, that's a good question.

Well, we receive funds from the general fund, we receive special funds, which is earned revenue.

So it's combination of funds from the legislature.

One time funding earned revenue and grant funding.

The state historic preservation program is funded through the federal program.

And then of course we're supported in large part by the state historical side of North Dakota's foundation, which raises money for us and helps us get the job done and take care of some of the great things that we do across the state as well, so.

- All right, well, let's go back to some of the things that you have at the heritage center?

What about the paleontology display?

- We have a, we have a great exhibit that goes back to 60 million years ago, and we, where we talk about all of the, the dinosaurs that roamed North Dakota before it was North Dakota, per se.

So there's an excellent edmontosaurus.

I think the paleo guys would narrow me a little bit down on what kind of a dinosaur is, but Dakota is an amazing dinosaur fossil that is very unique to North Dakota.

Was found over the Western side of the state.

And they're learning all kinds of things about it.

The paleontologist could tell you that Dakota died.

His skin became fossilized.

So it's mummified, it's actually a dinosaur mummy that then it turned to stone.

So they can see where things are chewing on it, on the skin.

They can see there was tears in the hide of the animal.

You can pet the dinosaur hide.

We've also got a big chunk of 3D printed dinosaur replica, dinosaur hide that people can actually see.

It's remarkable.

They've learned so much from Dakota in as far as what kinds of things might have scavenged on his carcass to how he might have lived when he was, when he was live and upright.

- I do remember being in the basement areas, getting to touch.

- Yep.

- Yeah.

- It's remarkable, and the rest of the paleo collection is amazing too, but the Dakota is one that everybody's really proud of.

- Anyway, its amazing to see some of that stuff.

And what about the veteran's history project?

- The veteran's history project is something that's happens a lot of up in the archives.

And it's a oral history.

We do a lot of oral histories up there and we're trying to talk to people and capture oral histories of veterans and capture their stories and what their lives are like as veterans.

- You talk about oral histories and that's great that you do veterans.

I know we've done some of that here, but do you do other oral histories from people?

- Yeah, we have about 3000 oral histories in the collection.

So I'm really proud of that.

I didn't have anything to do with it really.

I'm really proud of the team that collected them.

But one of the things that I think is really fascinating is literally John and a couple of decades or so somebody could come in and bring their kids in to listen to a recording of their great, great, great, great grandparents that they've never met and they'd be able to hear those voices and see those words and that I think that'll be, that's transformative.

The, the power of that, just be amazing.

- I'm sure it can be.

And estimate maybe you have these numbers.

How many visitors do you get?

Whether it's week, month, the year through the doors.

- A little over 400,000 a year to all of our sites.

So about 230, some thousand at the heritage center and another 200, about 200,000 to sites across the, across the state.

So that encompasses some of our more popular sites, like the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center in Washburn, Chateau in Medora, the Missouri Yellowstone Confluence Interpretive Center for Abercrombie, just down here, down south of Fargo a little bit.

And the Pembina State Museum up in the Northeast corner of the state.

- Well, you kind of beat me there 'cause I was gonna ask you, could you name some of those sites?

Cause you said 59, I believe.

- 59, yeah.

- So those are some of the more well known maybe.

- Yeah, some of them have interpretive centers.

So the ones I named have interpretive centers and then other ones are just wider places and the road where we mow the grass and take care of a sign.

- Okay, all right.

Are there busier months or times?

Do you have a peak season or?

- Yeah, some summers are always our peak season.

Right, people tend to get out and visit us in the summertime when schools are out and when people generally tend to travel on vacation that sort of thing.

So that's June to September, May or September are our peak seasons.

But the heritage centers see folks all year long.

- Some people may have heard about a recent leak you had at the heritage center caused some damage.

- Yeah, it didn't really cause too much damage, but it did.

There was a rough drain that leaked it.

It gave away a little bit and about, I, we think about six or 700 gallons of water came into the inspiration gallery.

It was a ironically an exhibit when that talked about when North Dakota was a swamp.

So it was true to true to form that day.

That was back in October, but the teams got together, they got everything dried out.

We had to replace some carpet and some of that sort of stuff got damaged, but none of our collections were, were harmed and, and just really proud of the team and how they jumped in and got everything buttoned up and fixed.

And it was, it was a, no real harm was done.

- Well, good, glad to hear that.

Tell me what is North Dakota passport and how does it work?

- Okay, well, North Dakota passport is a great program that we did in conjunction with state park.

State park approached just about doing this passport where we paired up some of our sites and some of state parks and recreation sites.

And so you, you can go to the sites and you get a, you get a stamp and a, it's like a passport.

So you get your stamp when you go to a site and then you get to move on and explore the site.

And when you get them all done, you have this memory book of all the places, all the wonderful places in North Dakota that you want.

- Well, can you talk about some of the, maybe best historical sites to visit around the state?

- Well I have 59 of them.

But you know, I really like the, the Lewis and Clark interpreter centers, a new one for us that used to be in state.

And prior to that, it was, it was private.

That's a really interesting story.

Some of our sites are like double ditch are, is a state historic site, just north of Bismark.

Super powerful and it discusses North Dakota before, before Europeans came.

So it's a native village, Mandan village that had thousands of people in it.

Right, so some of these things, I think these sites are real thought provoking.

They get people to look the, the cultures that were here in North Dakota along the river were, you know, they were, they were wealthy, they were complex.

They were, they were just these really rich civilizations and nations really that a lot of people I didn't learn about as a kid in school, it wasn't until I got here and went to one of these sites like double ditch, where you can literally look out and see much of the same landscape that Lewis and Clark saw, it's very intact.

Right, I joke about north Dakota's historic landscapes are very much intact.

If you were to go to New York city and ask George Washington to take you to some of the places that he fought the revolutionary war, those landscapes are gone, and he wouldn't be able to recognize the landscape.

But here in North Dakota, throughout North Dakota, they're all intact.

So one of my other favorites is, the Ronald Reagan Minuteman missile site, which is an underground missile control silo that was built during the cold war when we were, when we were fighting an active cold war with the Soviet.

So there's, you could have launched 13 nuclear missiles from there, or maybe it's 50.

I sometimes some of the numbers escape me, but it's fascinating, okay?

The time capsule that will be eerily familiar to you.

- Well, Ken let's see.

I got, what is the excellence in local history award and how do people get nominated for that?

- Well, that's one of our, Elsewhere one of our most prestigious awards that we give out each year, the historical society gives out a couple of them and that's a couple of historical awards.

That's one and people self can self nominate that.

And usually people nominate somebody in their community that's done an amazing job with a local history organization or for some other kind of history project.

And they get the nomination from our website or they get, they can contact us and we set them up with the nomination official.

- 'Cause people may not even know about this.

- Right, right.

- So it's open for anybody to either self nominate or nominate someone done anything in yeah or local history.

Well, so what is, can you talk about the importance of historic preservation?

- Well, I think.

Historic preservation gives us that sense of, of where we're going, right?

You know, there's some compelling research that talks about the value of people knowing their history and what that, what that can do for them later in their life and it makes there's there's real indications that they, they lead more successful lives than people that don't have that, right?

And historic preservation, is that written in large for a community.

So a community that preserves its history and can have this notion of who we are and what we've done is successful, right?

So here in here in Fargo, you know, there's, there's a number of projects that have been done that have restored historic buildings.

They've used historic tax credits for that.

And it's kept the flavor and the character of these wonderful downtowns alive and well.

And so I think it's it's one of these things and it just helps the community become more vibrant over time.

- Yeah, now you, you talked a little bit about this 'cause, you know, in your view and maybe you can expand on it.

Why is North Dakota's history so interesting?

- Well, I think because we're a little different, right?

And I say that in the most positive way.

I, by and large, I think more people here know their history than any other place I've been in.

And I've lived all across the country.

And when you meet people in North Dakota, almost everyone knows their history.

We've got the Germans from Russia country.

We've got the Scandinavian home studying stories.

We've got some, we've got some Ukrainians out in the west and there's these pockets of our settlements and our populations that have a very unique way of approaching the world, right?

We're the only state with the state bank, we've got a state mill, you know, there's, but there's also that real fierce independence here, right?

So I think that, I think that makes North Dakota unique and it makes it amazing, frankly.

Our history here and the way that people know and understand it and then preserve it is remarkable.

It doesn't happen that way everywhere else.

- Yeah, are there any new projects on the horizon?

- Well, yeah.

I mean, we've got, we're working on all kinds of capital improvement programs right now.

We've got some money in the last legislative session to help bring some of our buildings into better standards, right?

So there's a big project in Jamestown with the 1883 courthouse.

We've got a lot of projects going on that are similar to that across the state.

I don't wanna steal too much of the thunder, but the North Dakota national guard has been talking pretty pretty recently and pretty excitedly about the potential of a, a North Dakota military history museum coming to a, to a place in our world real soon.

So you'll probably wanna talk to them more about that in the future, but that's pretty exciting.

There's exciting stuff going on all over the place.

We've got a couple of new exhibits coming in partnership with the North Dakota council for the art.

Those will come in, I think in about a year.

So it's gonna be pretty exciting time.

- Yeah, but with that said, as director, what are your goals for the organization moving forward?

- Oh, that's a great question.

I appreciate you asking me that.

I think the thing that I would like to see us build upon is the ability to engage with people of all walks of life in North Dakota, right?

Reach every person in the state and have a relationship with them.

I think that's one of the things that I would, I would really like to do, and I think, I think we can get there.

- Okay, well, if people want more information, where's the best place for them to go?

Who can they contact?

- No, I would sure say contact our website at historydotnd.com.

- All right, well, Bill we're about outta time.

So thanks so much for joining us today.

- Thank you for having me, I appreciate it.

- Stay tuned for more.

(bright upbeat music) Emily Williams Wheeler is a self-taught mixed media artist in the Fargo Morehead area with public art displays at various locations.

In this profile, Emily shares how she came to do what she loves as a full-time artist.

(bright upbeat music) - I'm a color person and the joy that layering of colors, it just makes, it just makes my heart sing.

(bright upbeat music) The journey that I have taken to get to where I am today was not the path that I planned.

I always had it in my mind I would be an engineer from sixth grade on it was math and science.

No art didn't want that.

I went for about a year in engineering in college and knew that just didn't feel right.

So I went over to the college of design and enrolled in the interior design program and graduated top of my class and really loved it.

We decided to start a family, my husband and I did.

I wanted to be around a little more if we, we were able to raise a family, I decided to do something from home.

I started doing greeting cards and calligraphy and making jewelry and all these craft projects.

And a publisher found me and said, change your greeting cards into a story.

And so I ended up writing six little books and they were sold internationally and they were very, I called them sophisticated stick people.

I've come a long way, but anyway, that was pretty much the onset.

And I really am a self taught artist.

So it was self exploration the whole time, finding out what direction to go.

My favorite medium will probably always be acrylics.

I just know it so well.

I love mixed media.

So I'll do the acrylics, but I'll always throw away on graphite or some method of sketching.

I love to sketch with it just to always make it my own.

I like to do dry brushing.

A dry paint over another paint.

So it just snags over the top and you can still see the other color coming through.

And to me that was like, wow, this is awesome.

I can still see the pink underneath, but this has got Aqua over it in a little hand of yellow and it just, they all are coming together, but it's textures and that just, that's totally why I do it.

That makes me really happy.

When I started painting, I always have an idea of where I'm going.

But it's, for me, the joy is evolution.

So while I know I'm gonna do this sheep or this leaping lamb or something like that, I have an idea of its shape, but I don't know exactly what its attitude would be or the colors, what will I punch out more?

What will I emphasize more?

I do have ideas to start with, but it's definitely an evolution.

(bright upbeat music) I do an awful lot of commissions, but it's based off of what I am doing and they like it.

And so they'll say, can I have a piece similar to that, or be inspired by that piece, but I'm also leaning much more toward large public installations, like entering competitions that are on a much larger scale.

That is how I was able to be selected, to be on the Skyway across Broadway in Fargo.

It was an open call for art.

And I had been wanting to put something on that Skyway for a long time and it was approved.

And so that was another way of me getting art to the public.

I've had a wonderful partnership of working with West Acres mall because they've given me opportunities that I probably wouldn't have had.

I've designed out at West Acres mall, the playroom, the mural out there.

If it were laid out flat, it would be about 185 feet by, I don't know, 16 feet high.

That was a wonderful project, a great opportunity to do whatever they, they just like what I do.

So I get to make the decisions on that.

(bright upbeat music) I don't want it to stop at just, there's another pretty painting.

So while the colors are fabulous and everything, I hope that a person is pulled closer to see the process.

I always leave the lines of sketches and whatever happens underneath.

That's like, I keep saying the evolution of the painting.

I want people to see that.

That's the depth also.

I don't do a flower painting, just a bouquet or something.

I will do a giant flower.

I'll do something that will take you closer, pull you in more.

That's what I want the experience to be.

(bright upbeat music) - Well, that's all we have on Prairie Pulse this week and as always, thanks for watching.

(bright upbeat music) - [Announcer] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie public.