FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Jeff Blanchard
April 30, 2008
(701) 825-6840

SUMMER HOURS TO BEGIN AT
PEMBINA STATE MUSEUM MAY 16

PEMBINA – Beginning Friday, May 16, visitor hours will change at the Pembina State Museum, a regional museum of the state’s history agency, the State Historical Society of North Dakota.  At that time, the museum’s summer schedule will take effect.

The Pembina State Museum is currently operating on its winter schedule, which remains in effect through May 15.  Winter schedule hours are Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m.  Summer hours, in place from May 16 through September 15, will be Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Sunday from 1 to 6 p.m.

Admission will be free to the museum’s seven-story high observation tower on Sunday, May 18, in honor of International Museum Day.  The tower offers visitors a spectacular view of the Red River Valley.

The Pembina State Museum is a 12,000 square-foot facility housing two museum galleries.  The permanent exhibit gallery features 100 million years of regional history from the Cretaceous Period to contemporary times.  The second gallery houses temporary and traveling exhibits highlighting regional and state history.

Visitors will also see an exhibit that opened in January, Emigrants from the Empire: North Dakota’s Germans.  This exhibit investigates what it means to be German in North Dakota before and after both world wars.  Artifacts, photographs, and documents tell the story of who they are, how and why they emigrated, and how their culture and traditions still thrive in North Dakota.  Also available for viewing is the exhibit, Looking Back: Pembina’s Flood Battles, which examines the struggles the city’s residents have faced with flooding during the past 150 years, including battles both won and lost.  Pembina’s location at the confluence of the Red and Pembina Rivers was of strategic importance to early fur traders, but it has had its disadvantages as well, as the exhibit illustrates.  It will be at the museum through Spring 2009.

The Pembina State Museum, located at Exit 215 off Interstate 29, is open year-round.  It is closed only on New Year’s Day, Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas.  For more information, call the Pembina State Museum at (701) 825-6840 or visit the State Historical Society of North Dakota’s web site at www.nd.gov/hist.

Pembina State Museum
Summer 2008 Program Schedule

May 16: Pembina State Museum begins summer hours, through September 15. 
Monday-Saturday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sunday 1 to 6 p.m., Central Time.

May 18: International Museum Day: Free observation tower admission.

May 26: The Pembina State Museum will host a Memorial Day Observance beginning at 10 a.m. in the Veterans’ Memorial Plaza on the grounds of the museum, in conjunction with the Kern-Thompson American Legion Post 77. 

July 5: 14th Annual Gingras Day! celebration at the Gingras Trading Post State Historic Site.  This year’s event will be held in conjunction with the Third Annual Art and Heritage Festival at Riverside Park in Walhalla.  Everyone is invited to a day of activities celebrating Métis culture and the 19th Century fur trade era, featuring living history presentations, traditional music and dancing, and demonstrations of traditional crafts.  Also guided tours of the Gingras house and trading post.  Events begin at 10:30 a.m. at Riverside Park.  Extra parking will be available at Riverside Park with a shuttle running between Gingras Trading Post and the park all day.  The day concludes at 9 p.m. with a bonfire and storytelling at Riverside Park.  Guided tours and events held at Gingras Trading Post are free and open to the public.

August 9: Pembina Red River Rodeo events at the Pembina State Museum.  Vintage car show following the parade, approximately 11 a.m.  Rodeo Queen and Princess speeches, modeling and impromptu questioning at 1 p.m.  All events are free and open to the public.

September 16: Pembina State Museum begins winter hours through May 15: Monday through Saturday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.

– 30 –