64 BUREAU OF AMERICAN ETHNOLOGY [Bunn 185 
Small game is abundant in the area and was formerly more so. All 
open water is covered with migrating waterfowl at the proper season; 
grouse and the nonnative ring-neck pheasant are plentiful, but the 
prairie chicken has been greatly reduced in numbers in recent years. 
Jackrabbits and cottontails still furnish sport for the hunter. 
Today only the white-tailed deer remains to represent the many 
species of big game with which the area once teemed. The bison are 
now represented only by an occasional skull bleaching in a coulee 
bottom; and with the bison have vanished the antelope, mule deer, 
and ellk found by Lewis and Clark in this area. The mountain sheep 
and mountain lion, as well as both the black and the grizzly bear, made 
their last stand in North Dakota in the Badlands along the Missouri 
and Little Missouri Rivers immediately north and west of Mercer 
County, but all have been extinct in the State since about 1900. 
Muskrat, skunk, beaver, and badger are still present in the area in 
some numbers, but raccoon are rare. The wolf, wolverine, and otter 
have long since disappeared, but the howl of the coyote is still to be 
heard on moonlight nights, and a few bobcats are present in the dense 
thickets which fringe the Missouri River. 
The northwest corner of Mercer County lies within the boundaries 
of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, established by Executive 
Order in 1870 for the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara, or as they are 
officially known, the Three Affiliated Tribes. This reservation as 
originally established ran from a point on the Missouri River 4 miles 
below the Fort Berthold Indian Village (Like-a-Fishhook Village, 
32ML2) 38 miles in a northeast direction, then in a line northward to 
the mouth of the Little Knife River, then along the left bank of the 
Missouri to the mouth of the Yellowstone River. Here the line turned 
westward and followed the south bank of the Yellowstone to the 
Powder River. That stream was then followed to the point at which 
the Little Powder River united with it. From the mouth of the Little 
Powder the boundary followed a direct line to its starting point, 4 
miles below Fort Berthold (Kappler, 1904. vol. 1, pp. 881-883). 
This original reservation area has been reduced and reshaped by 
Executive Order and acts of Congress until just prior to the taking of 
land for the Garrison Reservoir there remained a gross area of 
643,368 acres lying on both sides of the Missouri and Little Missouri 
Rivers in North Dakota. Within its boundaries are included parts of 
McLean, Mercer, Mountrail, McKenzie, and Dunn Counties. The 
boundaries are irregular, but the area has a maximum length of 50 
miles, east-west, and a maximum width of 36 miles. About 1950 the 
land ownership consisted of 63,683 acres alienated from trust status, 
550,096 acres of individual trust allotment, 27,729 acres of tribally 
owned trust land, and 1,860 acres of Government reserves. Right-of- 
way for the Garrison Reservoir necessitated the acquisition by the 
