People hike on April 11, 2025, in Three Affiliated Tribes National Park on the Fort Berthold Reservation in western North Dakota. (Fawn Fettig via AP)
BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — A new tribal national park in North Dakota’s rugged Badlands is opening a little-seen area of the dramatic landscape to hikers and other outdoors enthusiasts, part of a Native American tribe’s efforts to preserve the land and encourage recreation.
The Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation established Three Affiliated Tribes National Park with the purchase of 2,100 acres (850 hectares) of a former ranch adjacent to the Fort Berthold Reservation’s boundaries on the south side of the Little Missouri River.
The area was in the tribe’s original treaty lands but a government allotment act later reduced the reservation’s size, said Mary Fredericks, director of the tribe’s Parks and Reserve Program. The reservation’s boundaries have expanded to include the park.
Tribal Chairman Mark Fox said the goal is to establish a park for cultural and recreational purposes such as canoeing, kayaking and viewing wildlife.
“It’s part of our history, our lands, very significant to us, the whole area,” Fox said. “This is just another strong move to reacquire some of our lands and then do something very effective with it, so to speak” to aid tourism and the economy through recreation.
Park officials are being careful with how they plan and develop the park to be thoughtful about impacts on the landscape.
“This place will be here in perpetuity and it will be better when we are done than it was when we got it, and that’s what we’re pushing for, that’s where we’re headed,” Park Superintendent Ethan White Calfe said.
North Dakota’s Badlands — the name denotes the difficult terrain — comprise a stark, erosive, colorful landscape with dramatic shapes, petrified wood and ancient fossils. The area draws hikers, campers, hunters, bicyclists and other outdoors enthusiasts.
The park, which held a soft opening in September, is open only to foot traffic by a free permit online. Park officials require visitors to register their plans and hikers must park at a grass lot. By the end of the summer, organizers hope to have 10 miles (16 kilometers) of trails finished, Fredericks said.
Plans to build a visitor center and campground are in the works. Park officials also intend to work on native prairie and soil restoration in the erosive environment where some native plants that thrive in the area have been pushed out by invasive species, White Calfe said.
“We’re looking at it as how do we help this area look like it did 300 years ago? How do we help this area heal to where it is in a lot of more of a state of equilibrium,” White Calfe said.
It’s a beautiful and picturesque but deceptive and steep landscape, Fredericks said.
The park is bisected by a state highway that drops from a flat into a rugged river bottom. People can see parts of the park while driving, but not its interior, she said.
Eventually, the park could be a gateway for visitors to the reservation, Fredericks said. Outdoor recreation is available at Lake Sakakawea, which straddles the vast reservation, and nearby at Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the Maah Daah Hey Trail.
The MHA Nation benefits from oil development on its reservation, which helped the tribe to afford the land for the park, Fredericks said.
“But in that we have to be careful and preserve and conserve,” she said. “I’m very, very proud of our tribal council for having the foresight to buy this land with the intent of making it into a national park … because we don’t know what’s going to happen 50 years from now and what our landscape is going to look like, but we can preserve this part of it.”
The park neighbors Little Missouri State Park, which draws horseback riders to its 40 miles (64 kilometers) of trails in the Badlands.
The rugged landscape “kind of has that almost spiritual feel to it. It’s peaceful,” state Parks and Recreation Department Director Cody Schulz said.
State park officials have worked with the tribe for about two years on its plans and partnering together, such as connecting trail systems, Schulz said. Tribal park officials are collaborating with anyone willing, Fredericks said.
White Calfe said the park is an opportunity “to tell our own story, our own narrative from our own perspective in a place like this. That’s pretty valuable.”
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