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| where I went this month |
You can see I made a valiant effort to cover the state and actually got to most areas during July. And since North Dakota is the 19th largest state in the Union, that's a lot of miles.
North Dakota's land
As you could tell from my daily posts, ND doesn't have a wide variety of land forms. There's the Pembina Gorge I missed up in northeastern ND, and of course there are the Badlands, beloved of Theodore Roosevelt, along the western side. There're some much smaller gorges carved by the Missouri River in the central and western parts. Otherwise, ND is definitely part of the Great Plains with flat land and rolling hills, all covered with crops and grasses.
What it does have a lot of are lakes. As I learned, it's part of the Prairie Pothole region of the US and seems to have a pond - large and small - or lake - ditto - almost everywhere. And along with those bodies of water, it's got birds galore.
As I said in one of my posts, I found ND to be a beautiful state - and I wasn't expecting that in the least. I'd expected a flat, treeless prairie, and it is indeed a prairie that is very flat in the east. But there are 5 state forests, though no national ones - so you could say trees, yes, but by state standards, not national ones. Considering the amount of land that's covered by crops and grazing land it's a wonder there are any trees at all.
But to me, North Dakota has a subtle kind of beauty that came over me gradually. I can see why those who live here are attached to their state.
North Dakota's people
In all my driving around in the other states, I've noticed that it's as rare to see a North Dakota license plate as one from Hawaii - I almost never saw one and wondered if it was just because ND has a small population. Now I think I know why.
For one thing, yes, it does have only about 750,000 residents, not many more than the city of Memphis, TN. But also, almost a quarter of the state's entire workforce is employed in agriculture, one way or another. About 90% of the state is covered with farms and ranches. Agriculture is North Dakota. What this means to me is that many North Dakotans simply can't go very far from home - they have to stay close to tend to their plants and animals. Instead, they frequent their own state parks. In droves. So they still get out and enjoy themselves, they just don't go very far afield (so to speak).
Everybody I talked to here loves where they're living. Usually they said it was because they liked small-town living or liked the people there. But I didn't find one person who was ready to move to another state, and this surprised me. Most people said they were still living where they'd lived all their lives. These are people who like permanence, apparently.
Another surprise I had was in finding that, almost without exception, people were friendly and polite and pleasant. (You'd think they were Canadians, who of course are right next door so maybe they had some influence?) They were all happy to talk to me about how happy they were to be living here (and other things too of course).
Despite having the distinction of being the most church-going state in the country, I didn't find a heavy-handed religious presence. No unusual number of billboards telling me that Jesus can save me or that I should respect life (meaning not get an abortion). Of course I expected some heavy-handedness, with that statistic, but I guess up here folks keep their religion to themselves.
ND is heavily Caucasian - about 88% of the population in the 2010 census. Interestingly, ND's population grew by almost 16% by the 2020 census - one of the highest growth rates in the country. I don't know how the demographics shake out in these new numbers but it'll be interesting to see who's moving here. Yet it still ranks ahead of only Alaska, Vermont and Wyoming (which is last) in terms of population.
Bismarck and Fargo are decent-sized cities, but half of all North Dakotans live in rural areas. So with its rank of #19 in land size, you can see just how sparsely populated this state is.
North Dakota is just about equidistant from the North Pole and the Equator, and it could hardly be any further inland from an ocean. As a result, its climate has wide swings, being hot in the summer (which I can attest to) and very cold in the winter. It's also one of the driest states, getting about 20" annually in the east and 14" in the west. Despite the lack of precipitation, it can have some unusually high snowdrifts - Fargo had 117" one winter - which are blown across the prairies to end up here.
I'm mentioning this weather info to show that these folks are tough and have staying power.
Driving in North Dakota
In keeping with the pleasantness I experienced from people in the stores, I found ND drivers to be pretty polite and safe. Although I was frustrated my first day in the state by drivers refusing to pass me when I'd pulled over for them, that's the last time I found that. Drivers everywhere else in the state rarely tailgated and were happy to pass me when I pulled over.
The roads here are mostly in good shape, and I could trust that the state highways would be as comfortable to drive as the US ones - better sometimes. Maybe it's because this state is so dependent on agriculture, but I found state highways everywhere - often in places where I'd have expected county roads in other states. They're like the Farm-to-Market roads in Texas that crisscross the state to serve farms and ranches - they're everywhere and kept in pretty good shape.
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| Legendary North Dakota Peace Garden State |
What I didn't see that I wanted to see
Because I made a concerted effort to get to most areas of the state, and because I was careful to figure out ahead of time what I didn't want to leave the state without seeing, there isn't very much I missed other than the places I noted in my daily posts.
North Dakota has 63 national wildlife refuges - more than any other state - and I'd like to come back with a better pair of binoculars so I can see more of what's here. The Audubon Society says ND may be one of the most underrated birding destinations in the US.
I missed the Salyer National Wildlife Refuge in central ND on the Canadian border and I'd like to visit it. It's the largest refuge in the state and with a staggering diversity of habitat, it's one of the most important refuges in the US.
I actually drove near Long Lake NWR in southcentral ND without realizing its importance. I'd like to come back in October, because thousands of Sandhill Cranes come there too, along with 20,000 other shorebirds who are migrating through. But even in July I might have seen a number of nesting birds, including Sharp-tailed Grouse.
But I guess I'd mostly like to come back just to see the land again. The rolling hills, the fields of wheat and canola and sugar beets and soybeans and sunflowers. The wide open spaces. Sure, Texas has wide open spaces, but there it's covered in scrub brush mostly. Here it's covered with crops. It's fertile.
My conclusion
Because I'm writing this so long after I was in North Dakota, I read back through my posts to remind myself of what my month there was like. And I can see they don't at all convey how much I liked this state, or how peaceful I found it here.
I think that little problem with Dexter and the chipmunk and my consequently damaged arm colored all my other perceptions - it still hurts quite a bit more than 6 weeks later and it made all of life extremely difficult at the time.
But I loved being there and loved the state. It's a real shame that I can't seriously consider it as a permanent place to live: it's very definitely not a 2-party state, it's very definitely not ethnically diverse, and it could hardly be farther from an ocean. Despite these drawbacks as a place for me to live, I'd love to come back. And to anyone who might think about visiting here, my advice is to plan to stay awhile. Stay long enough, and travel through the state enough, to give it a chance to show itself to you. I think you'll find it's worth it.
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