Heritage Renewal

Publicity is just starting to go out for the Great Plains Folk Festival, a week of events sponsored by the Center for Heritage Renewal and co-sponsored by the Memorial Union Gallery, the Division of Fine Arts, and the Department of History. Festival events serve as enrichment for students in HIST 431, "The North American Plains," but also welcome the public in order to promote appreciation of the heritage of the region. Special guests of the center for the festival include Leo Beauchamp, the memory artist of Olga, North Dakota, and the Parisien brothers (Vincent, Joe, & Jimmy), fiddlers from Belcourt.

Students from HIST 431, "The North American Plains," supported by the Center for Heritage Renewal, took part in a significant restoration project in Dunn County on October 13 and 14. Toni Berning, Aaron Granley, Ann Erling, Molly Lefor, Dan McCollum, Ashleigh Pust, David Suda, Todd Volk, and Cory Wheeler composed the work party at the historic Hutmacher farmstead. The Hutmacher farmstead is a complex of vernacular buildings constructed of locally quarried stone and earth and locally harvested timber by a German-Russian family. Restoration of the complex is proceeding under the auspices of Preservation North Dakota, the statewide organization for historic preservation, and its executive director, Dale Bentley, under a Save America's Treasures grant from the National Park Service. The NDSU service learning party was led by Tom Isern, Professor of History, director of the Center for Heritage Renewal, instructor of HIST 431, and board member of Preservation North Dakota. History PhD student Suzzane Kelley also worked at the site, representing the NDSU History honor society, Phi Alpha Theta. The NDSU delegation worked alongside PND members and enjoyed a visit from descendants of the Hutmacher family, who reminisced about their life in the locality. Workers were mainly concerned with restoration of the farmhouse roof, which entailed laying a rough base of brush cut from nearby hills; gathering flax straw from nearby fields, fashioning bundles from it, and laying it atop the brush; sieving and wet-mixing clay to lay atop the flax by hand; and mixing clay, sand, and aggregate mortars to top off the roof. Some members of the work party also tuckpointed farmhouse walls using a mortar of clay and sand. In off hours the workers from NDSU enjoyed the Manning commuinity pancake breakfast and a campfire concert by Chris Sand, Dunn County's Rappin' Cowboy.

Video of the Hutmacher restoration project, featuring NDSU students, at YouTube

Photos of the Hutmacher restoration project, featuring NDSU students, at Webshots

Reports from NDSU student participants, in the October archives of the HIST 431 Webblog