I can’t believe that people survived in North Dakota prior to modern technology. The weather here is so ridiculously bipolar that anybody being forced to exist out in it would likely go crazy. In the summer it is nothing special to walk into a department store (or your choice of building without easy sight of the outside world) leaving the elements, a steamy 90 plus degrees without a cloud in the sky, only to walk out of that deparment store (or your building of choice) to find that it is raining and the temperature has dropped to a brisk 75 (which feels alot colder than it sounds when you are soaking wet). For me the worst part of such an event is that now, all of a sudden, I am dressed completely inappropriately and now have to finish whatever errands or frivolous flights of fancy I had planned being wet and cold. How would the Native Americans living here have handled it? (I ask this as a very ignorant being, as I have not done much if any research as to the life styles of Native Americans in the area.) Now, I don’t believe a native would have had the ability to change their clothes on a whim, a change in the weather would probably mean that they would have to remain wet for the remainder of the day. All of their things would be wet, and potentially ruined. I can’t imagine how uncomftorable it would be to be incapable of escaping the elements and entering a nice dry, heated/air conditioned house.
And then there are the winters. The average temperature here in January is negative 2 degrees (f). And that isn’t even including the wind chill, which has a tendency to make it feel a heckuvalot colder. Last winter there were several days where the temperature was negative 50 degrees (f) with the wind chill factor. You really don’t want to be outside on those days, and if you can’t avoid it, you cover up really well. How could somebody survive a winter like that without a heated place of residence. I can’t imagine that mud houses (or whatever else the Native North Dakotans lived in) would have been nearly as effective at sheltering one from the intensely cold winters as a modern house.
I have reached the end of this post and I have one main fear, that this may seem as though I am looking down upon the way that Native Americans lived before they were modernized and forced to be like the invading Europeans. This is not the case at all, the purpose of this post was to discuss the ridiculous weather that North Dakotans have to endure, and to highlight how clever and adaptive the Native Americans must have had to be to survive. I have unending respect for them.
