|
|
||||
North Dakota 
Motto: Liberty and Union, Now and Forever, One and Inseparable
State bird, Western meadowlark. State flower, wild prairie rose. State tree, American elm.
The most north of the great plains states, North Dakota borders Canada.
The
fertile east is more thickly settled than the west, where vast cattle and
sheep ranges predominate.
The Missouri River winds out of Montana, down past the capital, Bismarck , and into South Dakota. and finaly transformed into Lake Sakakawea, as almost an inland sea nearly two hundred miles long that's the state's premier water playground.
Theodore Roosevelt , once said "I never would have been President if it had not been for my experiences in North Dakota".
If you like being in Cattle country with cowboys and horses North Dakota is the place to go.
General Custer lived in Mandan until his death at the little Big Horn in 1776. You can take a tour of the Custer house at Fort Lincoln State Park, and they will tell you lots of things about Custers life not found in many history books. (more about Custer) in http://searchjeeves.com/usguides/montana/
North
Dakota can be very nice in the summer, but very cold in the winter, if
you like snow, it has plenty by February, and can reach temperatures of
50
below zero F and some say even colder.
The West seems to begin as soon as you cross the Missouri River from BISMARCK , a capital city with a small-town feel, to Mandan. Both were founded in 1872, Bismarck as a military camp to protect railroad crews from hostile Indians and outlaws. Its original name, Edwinton, was changed by the secretary of the Northern Pacific Railroad, both in honor of German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and in the hope of attracting Teutonic settlers. Though the scheme failed, the name stuck. The city survived an early lawless period (present-day Fourth Street was once dubbed "Murderers' Gulch") and a major fire to become first the territorial and then the state capital.
Contemporary Bismarck is pretty much contained within the oblong between I-94 in the north and Main Avenue to the south. Locals are proud of their nineteen-story limestone Capitol , 600 E Boulevard Ave, dating from the mid-1930s and set at the crest of a public park. The interior, a model of spatial economy and marbled Art Deco elegance, is open for free guided tours on weekdays. Across the street, the superb North Dakota Heritage Center (Mon-Fri 8am-5pm, Sat 9am-5pm, Sun 11am-5pm; donation) divides the state's past into six resonant sections, from the dinosaurs onwards. Look out for Sitting Bull's painted robe and the bison "smell box," which offers homesick cowboys and curious tourists a whiff of buffalo dung.
The major reason to venture into MANDAN is Fort Lincoln State Park ($4), five miles south of downtown via Hwy-1806, where the centerpiece is the Custer House (May-Sept daily 9am-7pm; Oct-April daily 1-5pm; $4), an admirable reconstruction of the 1874 original designed by the brutally ambitious, indefatigable horseman himself. The guided tour supplies nuggets of quirky information about him (he loved to eat raw onions), his wife and their household prior to his death at Little Big Horn in 1876. Nearer the river, four earthlodge reconstructions stand on the site of the once-vast On-a-Slant village, occupied by the Mandan (or River Dweller) tribe from about 1610 to the late 1700s. After the Mandan abandoned On-a-Slant village, they moved upstream and settled on the site that became Fort Mandan, where in 1804 the explorers Lewis and Clark came into contact with the Shoshone woman Sakakawea (aka Sacajawea), who helped guide them west towards the Pacific. The site and adjacent historical museum (summer daily 9am-7pm, Sept daily 9am-5pm, Oct daily 1-5pm; Nov-Apr by appointment; free with purchase of Custer House ticket) sit below a bluff topped with replicas of the Fort Lincoln infantry post. If you don't have a car you can reach the park via trolley from 200 SE 3rd St (summer daily 1-5pm; $5 round-trip; tel 701/663-9018).
The scruffy town of DEVILS LAKE , ninety miles west of Grand Forks on US-2, shares its name with the state's largest natural body of water, which has two state parks and two private campgrounds along more than 300 sprawling, irregular and growing miles of shoreline. The damming of rivers in the northern part of the state inadvertently caused Devils Lake to rise; so far it has gone up 25 feet and quadrupled in area since 1997. Pastureland has been submerged, dikes built, roads raised, and one town, nearby Churchs Ferry, evacuated. Embarrassed engineers, nervous politicians and a frustrated public are still at a loss about how to stem the tide - $300 million has already been spent on relief. Downtown, now saved by a seven-mile-long dike, holds a smattering of nineteenth-century buildings and a few rough-and-ready bars. Most of the places to stay , such as the Super 8 (tel 701/662-8656; $50-75), are strung along US-2; the Woodland Resort (tel 701/662-5996, ; $35-75) on Creel Bay, about six miles from town, rents boats, pontoons and fishing gear. You can camp three miles east of town on Hwy-2 at Shelver's Grove State Park (tel 701/766-4015) for $7 per person, $4 per vehicle, but if the lake rises another six inches you will be swimming in your tent. For more info, contact the Devils Lake CVB on Hwy-2 E next to the Great American Inn .
GRAND FORKS sits eighty miles north of I-94, right next to Minnesota, a mere 75 miles south of the Canadian border. Even before its foundation a century ago, fur traders had used the area to rest and barter during their travels between Winnipeg and Minneapolis. It's a small, friendly, outdoorsy city, with nineteen parks and several tree-lined avenues of fine homes. Furious construction has rebuilt the downtown area, ravaged in the 1997 floodwaters. But the disaster shook investors' confidence and most of the new buildings lie empty, save for their "for lease" signs posted across the windows.
The most interesting distractions can be found on the redbrick main campus of the University of North Dakota . The North Dakota Museum of Art (Mon-Fri 9am-5pm, Sat & Sun 1-5pm; donations) offers an eclectic assortment of contemporary art and top touring exhibits. Fascinating tours of the John D. Odegard School of Aerospace Sciences , one of the largest civilian pilot-training schools in the world, take in flight simulators, the air-traffic control room and an altitude chamber.
MEDORA
, the southern gateway to Theodore Roosevelt National Park, languished
in obscurity until the early 1960s, but has become one of North Dakota's
principal attractions, an inoffensively touristy place with enough to keep
you busy, and reasonably interested, for most of a day. The biggest noise
in town is the Medora Musical (daily 8.30pm; $19-21; tel 1-800/MEDORA-1),
a pseudo-Western, super-Americana variety show staged beneath the stars
in a vast, modern amphitheater. There is a lot of clogging and yodeling,
plenty of accolades to a certain 26th US President, and special guest appearances
that range from Chinese chair-stackers to double-jointed Lithuanians. The
extravaganza is preceded by a fantastic feed whereby 240 steaks are simultaneously
fondued on pitchforks inside giant oil vats (6.30pm; $18). A better idea
is to take to the hills on a mountain bike - the Maah Daah Hey Trail dips
and curves through spectacular country for 120 miles. Rent from Rough Riders
Dakota Cyclery in Medora (tel 701/623-4808). Or if TR has inspired your
cowboy within, make for the Dakotah Lodge Guest Ranch to join an authentic
cattle drive (reservations strongly recommended; tel 800/508-4897, ). If
the seems a bit much to spend, you can take two-day pack trips or rent
horses by the hour. For accommodation, you can pitch your own tent and
use the facilities or stay in homey, ranch-style rooms
