Artifacts offer glimpse of what was

When Alick Dvirnak was an 8-year-old boy he found what he thought was junk on his family's ranch and tossed it away. When he was told that he was amid artifacts from the Killdeer Battle, he started collecting and collecting and collecting.

"I was picking stuff up all the time," he said. "Possibly some arrowheads, Indian hammers and many things I didn't know what they were and I threw them."

Now the Stoxen Library houses arrowheads, a watch, trade axes, shell casings, guns, fragments from cannonballs and so much more that Alick collected during his lifetime and loaned to the facility nearly two years ago.

"It's just so exciting to have some tangible pieces of history for students and visitors," library Director Rita Ennen said Tuesday as she stood in front of the cases which house thousands of pieces.

The 91-year-old Alick and his wife of 60 years, Grayce, lived on the ranch where the battle took place for much of their lives, moved to Dickinson in 2001 and about eight years ago they moved to Colorado. Though he jokes he "is a day older and a day slower," Alick has many memories of his findings and stories of how they got there.

"I could of sold it and I could have auctioned it off but we know they will be well taken care of and enjoyed by lots of people," Alick said of the pieces.

Though Alick hasn't had many opportunities to look for artifacts on his last few visits to the ranch he called home for many years, "there will probably be arrowheads for ages to come," he said.

Now his son Craig Dvirnak (Rhonda) lives on the 4,000-acre "Diamond C Ranch" where Native Americans camped for thousands of years and the battle took place.

And the Dvirnak family knows the importance of the area since Craig's grandfather moved there in 1929. They know the history and have all discovered artifacts.

"I feel really blessed and honored to be on a place like this," Craig said.

Though the collection is worth quite a bit of money, Craig will never sell it.

"I told Dad wherever your collection goes, when I get to be that age I want it to go that way," Craig said. "They belong together."

Of course, there is a part of the collection the library would not take -- an unexploded cannonball.

"It was a dud that didn't go off and laid there from July 28, 1864 until 1963," Grayce said. Now it is in a safe place, she added.

Besides thousands of arrowheads, shell casings and occasional cannonballs, more unique pieces include a brass kettle and baby spoon that Craig found and Alick found a piece of a copper bowl.

"I don't care if it's in the garden, corals, trails -- in any given week you'll find something," Craig said.

Craig knows he lives on an extraordinary place.

"When I was a kid it was no big deal but anymore, how many places in the U.S. can you go to of acreage this size and say there was a battle here?" he said.