National Buffalo Museum

Next we traveled east to Jamestown, ND.  We set up the RV in a nice campsite on the Jamestown Reservoir.  All the great fishing places were somewhat wasted since we weren't fishing.  Oh well, at least we enjoyed the scenery.  We spent the afternoon at the National Buffalo Museum.  Great museum with a buffalo herd containing many normal buffaloes and three white ones.  The most famous animal was White Cloud.  The Indians consider a white buffalo sacred so when she was born about 17 years ago on a ranch in North Dakota she caused quite a stir.  A white buffalo is an albino and they are not as protected from the sun as a normal buffalo.  Unfortunately they usually spend the hottest part of the day under the trees at the river bottom so we didn't get to see White Cloud. We did see another one referred to as an "apricot" buffalo.  This one was not white, but carried the white gene.

Of course we had to see the "World's Largest Buffalo". Back in 1959, the town decided that they needed an new identity to attract tourists traveling between Fargo and Bismarck and thus Jamestown's nickname, "The Buffalo City", was born.  This large buffalo was erected by a local artist on a hilltop near the road.  It is interesting that many years later the only albino bison in the world would reside here.