A superficial glance around town this weekend will likely reveal little more than the stark, gray cold of winter, but there's heat and color and a pounding heartbeat if you know where to look.

Turn over a stone downtown, and you can see it.

And hear it: The bass-drum heartbeat of an old woman's last powwow.

For the 15th and final time, Evelyn White Cloud has put together the Bismarck-Mandan Midwinter Powwow. Dancers and drummers will gather at the Bismarck Civic Center Exhibit Hall throughout the weekend at the small powwow.

White Cloud and her husband, the late Jerry White Cloud, started the event as a way to bring people from different races together.

"It started out as something we wanted to do for urban Indians here, but it quickly turned into something we wanted to do for all people," White Cloud, 78, said. "We wanted non-Indians to see and understand something Indian people do. It's not a big powwow, but hopefully it promotes understanding."

Though it is just a fraction the size of the annual international powwow at United Tribes Technical College, the midwinter wacipi, as it's known in the Dakota language, has grown each year. Up to 500 spectators show up to watch the artistic dances and listen to the drums and jingle dresses. The powwow was held for the first several years at the Mandan Community Center, then moved briefly to the Pavilion at Prairie Knights, near Fort Yates.

Now it's at the Exhibit Hall, but despite its success, the event could be in its final weekend. White Cloud is tired, ready to relinquish her spot in the game for a comfortable seat on the sideline.

"It's fun doing it, but this is my last year," White Cloud said. "I'm old and I'm tired. It's time to be done."

With White Cloud gone, the event could fade away. One of this year's organizers, Todd Goodsell, said most of the people who volunteer every year do so out of a sense of commitment to White Cloud.

Hopefully, she said, the message will linger even if her powwow doesn't.

"We always wanted for people to understand each other," White Cloud said.

The powwow started Friday, and runs from 10 a.m. to midnight today and Sunday.