FOUR BEARS PENINSULA Sunshine finally broke out, and people came in droves Saturday to help North Dakota say farewell.

Today is the last day of the official Lewis and Clark bicentennial signature event hosted by the Mandan-Hidatsa-Arikara Nation.

Saturday, boys threw spears in the sunshine, aiming for a bright orange balloon 20 paces away. Only boys and men could touch the spears, and 200 years ago, the balloon might have been a dried bison bladder filled with water.

The happy, cheering boys were among thousands all over the peninsula and in New Town, listening to music, watching beautifully dressed dancers and applauding Lewis and Clark re-enactors' military march. The steady tone of the singers' drums called people together, and the rhythm filled the body and the entire peninsula like a beating heart.

There was a feeling Saturday of the end coming near, and the man taking on the role of Meriwether Lewis for the St. Charles re-enactors admitted to a sense of sadness as both the signature event and the entire bicentennial moves into its finale.

Today, it will be more final.

Three Affiliated Tribes Chairman Tex Hall will lead the farewell ceremony at 11:30 a.m. at the Arbor on the peninsula. The ceremony will end with the water departure of the Lewis and Clark re-enactors to symbolize how they did go, practically on the run downhill, downriver, back home to St. Louis. The expedition would go home in history, after two years in the American wilderness and many of those days among the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara.

The tribes will say their present-day farewell.

They've had thousands of visitors this weekend how many, no one yet knows for sure. The number might never be known, but it is likely greater than any single event has ever brought to the reservation before.

Kenneth Klusmann, of Mandan, came with a foursome for the day and was wandering through the earthlodge village, where tall corn and bushy squash plants grow in a native garden, enclosed by a woven willow fence. Klusmann said he was glad to see the mingling of people all around him.

"There's been a long enough time of differences," he said. "We've come a long ways since I was a little kid."

He said for all the land that was taken from them and for the memories he has of people tossing quarters to the Plains Indians who would dance for passengers at the Mandan train depot, it is time to do better.

"They go out of their way to make sure we're welcome, and I don't think we do," he said.

Karen Hartman, a tribal member, said she believed the bicentennial event had the potential to change people who came to it. She said she feared it would do less to change those who live right there.

Juanita Helphrey was director of North Dakota's Indian Affairs Commission for 15 years, working diligently to improve cultural relations and rights of native people. She is back home at Fort Berthold now and said the best way to develop relationships is for people to be immersed in her culture, like so many were throughout this event, which started Thursday. Helphrey said she believes the relationship between Indians and non-Indians would benefit most if people understood the last 500 years of history.

"This is our story," she said. "Let us tell it."

Gerard Baker, superintendent at Mt. Rushmore National Park and a tribal member, told his tribal history Saturday. The signature event especially honors Sakakawea, a tribal woman who accompanied the expedition, and Baker said honoring Sakakawea is honoring her entire tribe. The value of the bicentennial event being hosted by and among Sakakawea's people is a new awareness, and Baker said he was pleased to see more whites than tribal members at many events.

"In the old days, we welcomed visitors all the time," he said. "People will see that we are still here. There have been so many disappointments, but we still understand each other."

Besides the farewell ceremony, today's events will include the presentation of "This Land We Stand On." It depicts the impact of the construction of Garrison Dam, which flooded much of the homeland of the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara people. The presentation will be at 10 a.m. at the main tent on the peninsula. The event will conclude with a grand final celebration and grand entry of dancers and dignitaries at 4 p.m. at the Arbor.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511or lauren@;westriv.com.)