The dirt reservation road proceeds NW. along the river lowlands, enters a reservation timber reserve at =60.5 m.=, and skirts the eastern wooded shore of the Missouri before rising again to the benchland. At =68 m.= is a store and filling station. The route now passes through the area occupied by the Hidatsa, also known as the Minitari or Gros Ventres (Fr., _big bellies_). Their homes are much like those of the other two tribes. The Hidatsa and the Crow Indians of Montana at one time were a single tribe. During a period of want one winter in the eighteenth century, a buffalo was killed by the tribe, and the animal satisfactorily divided until they came to the stomach. The division of this organ led to a quarrel which split the group, and one faction moved W. and became the Crow tribe. SHELL CREEK, =79 m.=, is the Hidatsa community center. A few stores, a dance hall, a handful of dwellings, and the central agency experimental farm make up the town. At =82 m.=, N. of Shell Creek, is the reservation boundary. North of the boundary is VAN HOOK, =89 m.= (1,843 alt., 372 pop.), named for a teamster who served the railroad surveyors. It is one of the trade points adjacent to the reservation and has the only creamery in the vicinity, a $20,000 cooperative plant. Here is a junction with ND 8. North of Van Hook on ND 8 is BELDEN, =104 m.= (2,250 alt., 25 pop.), the center of a settlement of Finnish people who homesteaded here in 1903-4. The Finnish tongue is used in most of their homes, and they also have the _sauna_ or steam bath without which no Finnish community is complete. The peculiar European three-cornered head scarf is still worn by many of the women. Most of the people have been naturalized and are greatly interested in political trends. About one-third of them are members of the United Farmers and Workers League of America, an organization professing communistic doctrines. The radical views and intensive political activity of these members of the community have earned it a reputation as the communistic center of North Dakota. At =117 m.= is the junction with US 2 at STANLEY (_see Tour 6_). SIDE TOUR 3B Junction US 83--Junction US 10. County dirt and graveled roads, "The River Road." Junction with US 83 to junction with US 10, 35 m. Dry-weather dirt road except for 6 m. gravel between =29 m.= and US 10. Drive carefully as route is hilly with many curves. Route parallels Missouri River. The River Road between Washburn and Bismarck approximates the overland freighter trail established in the early 1870's between the end of the Northern Pacific Railway at Bismarck and Fort Buford near the mouth of the Yellowstone.