~ wander.essence ~

north dakota’s big skies & the international peace garden

wanderessence1025 September 22, 2020

When I left Jamestown, North Dakota, I made my way north toward the Canadian border, en route to the International Peace Garden. I originally planned to go to Arrowwood National Wildlife Refuge but decided against it as it was raining and it would have been 16 miles each way on a dirt road.

I fell in love with the flat plains, fields of sunflowers and corn, and the gray dramatic skies. It was a chilly 55°F. Dirt roads disappeared off the highway into nowhere. Alternately, the sky spit sporadic sprinkles or misted over completely. I passed many homesteads engulfed by huge tracts of farmland, dotted with barns and silos.

map of U.S. license plates

Sykeston welcomed me amidst endless lines of telephone poles and vast golden fields punctuated with squat pointy silver silos. Soon fog draped itself over the land. Pretty delicate trees stood in a dainty line. It felt wonderful not to be hemmed in by trees, people or traffic.

When I was at the Nicollet place, the docent there said “we” tend to get claustrophobic when we can’t see great distances, like when there are trees, or tall mountains, or fog hemming us in. I wondered who he meant by “we” – South Dakotans (of which he was one) or all humans. I’ve always loved wide open spaces and big skies and sweeping views. I never see the point of walking in a forest. I wonder if I might have some Dakota blood in me.

All around me were gold fields and green fields, black cows, lakes, wetlands and tall dancing grasses. I had read in My Ántonia of farmers planting rows of trees as windbreaks, as protection from the wind, and I saw them everywhere. Low hanging clouds moved swiftly across the dark skies, and corn in the fields shimmied in winds that carried flocks of birds into a scatter dance. The clouds were like a low ceiling pressing down on the landscape, two great plains facing off, like warriors wielding shields.

I was welcomed to Harvey: “Not just a place…it’s an experience!” Near the Sheyenne River, I headed north on Route 3 for 43 miles. I saw cylinders with the brand CROPLAN stamped on them. (CROPLAN provides quality seed to farmers). I crossed a bridge arcing over a long freight train lumbering across the land. Three big trucks with huge cream cylinders passed by me on the narrow two lane highway. The land wasn’t as flat as I’d imagined North Dakota; rolling hills were stacked with neat bales of hay and cattle dotted the hills.

There were more cream cylinders, this time Meridian. These were silver hopper bottom bins; I found they were multi-purpose storage bins, supposedly versatile and used for grain, seed, fertilizer and more. I found myself curious about farming because I don’t know a thing about it.

I was out here in North Dakota with not a soul in sight so was shocked when a single car whizzed past me near a field of sunflowers, in a hurry to get to nowhere.

At 11:00, I landed in Rugby; known as the Geographical Center of North America. There wasn’t much to the town, just a Restoration Ministries, a field of school buses, the ubiquitous gas station/convenience store. The clouds were woven into long skeins of wool overhead.

Rugby, N.D., Geographical Center of North America

I passed a man in a pickup truck stopped in the middle of the road; he was picking up a male hitchhiker carrying a huge backpack. Rounded mounds were to my left, wind turbines to my right. I watched as the corn grew all around me. Lana del Ray sang, asking if it was the end of America. I saw yet another kind of storage bin, a hopper bottom and bin package called Micada. These are retro-fit hopper bottoms for any existing grain.

Gold tipped grasses swayed as Rodriguez sang that his heart had become a crooked hall full or mirrors. He sang that he set sail in a teardrop and I felt I had set sail in a raindrop today. The leaves on the scattered trees were changing into yellows, greens and reds.

By 12:15, I’d arrived at the International Peace Garden. As the 3.65-square-mile garden sits on the border of Canada and the U.S., I drove past U.S. Customs but didn’t check in with them, and turned right before Canadian Customs.

The International Peace Garden was dedicated July 14, 1932. It commemorated peace between the U.S. and Canada. To the south of the invisible border, wheat fields were everywhere, and to the north, the Manitoba Forest Preserve. A place was chosen on North Dakota Route 3, the longest north-south road in the world, and about centrally located on the continent of North America. Lake Udall is on the U.S. side and Lake Stormon is on the Canadian side.

I started my visit in the Conservatory, home to more than 5,000 unique and rare species of cacti and succulents.

Conservatory at the International Peace Garden

In the Formal Gardens were more than 80,000 annuals and perennials.

Formal Gardens at the International Peace Garden

Formal Gardens at the International Peace Garden

Formal Gardens at the International Peace Garden

Formal Gardens at the International Peace Garden

The 9/11 memorial site pays tribute to more than 2,800 lives lost in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. On June 3, 2002, the garden received ten 10-foot girders from the World Trade Center wreckage. The girders lie at rest at the 9/11 Memorial Site as an everlasting reminder of the human tragedy that occurred one quiet September morning in New York City, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.

I hadn’t known about the 9/11 Memorial Site at the garden, but it seemed appropriate that I happened to visit on September 11, 2019. Apparently, they had held a 9/11 memorial that morning and were putting away the chairs by the time I’d arrived.

9/11 Memorial at the International Peace Garden

9/11 Memorial at the International Peace Garden

9/11 Memorial at the International Peace Garden

9/11 Memorial at the International Peace Garden

The World Trade Center Tragedy

Military Action

Effects of the 9/11 Event

9/11

I went into the All-Faith Peace Chapel, where Tyndall stone walls were embedded with marine fossils and inscribed with quotes.

Peace Chapel

quotes in the Peace Chapel

The Carillon Bell Tower was cast in Croydon, England in 1931, a year before the Peace Garden was dedicated. The 14 bells in this tower were a memorial gift from two sons to their late mother. The sons of Lady Arma Sifton – Sifton was once a big name in Manitoba business circles – purchased the bells in her memory for the First Methodist Church of Brandon, where they chimed for 42 years.

The bells range in size from 250 to 2,000 pounds, and were valued at $150,000 CDN in the mid-1970s, when Brandon’s Central United Church donated them to the Peace Garden.

The Peace Garden was able to provide a home for the bells because of assistance from North Dakota Veterans organizations. In a great effort, they raised $48,000. The Tower is dedicated to war veterans.

Apparently they ring every 15 minutes during the warmer months.

The Carillon Bell Tower

I walked back through the Formal Gardens on the way to my car.

Formal Gardens at the International Peace Garden

Today was one of the colder days on my Road Trip to Nowhere; I had to drag out my winter coat.

me at the International Peace Garden

Formal Gardens at the International Peace Garden

Formal Gardens at the International Peace Garden

Formal Gardens at the International Peace Garden

I drove the loop around the gardens and stopped in briefly at the North American Game Warden Museum.

North American Game Warden Museum

Timber Wolf

Mountain Lion

Kodiak Bear

Polar Bear

I stopped at some wetlands at Peace Garden Lake.

Peace Garden Lake

Peace Garden Lake

Peace Garden Lake

By 2:45, I left the International Peace Garden and entered through U.S. Customs back to North Dakota. In about a half hour, I was in Bottineau, where I would stay the night.

I checked in early and then went out for dinner at Marie’s. I enjoyed a martini with a cucumber and lemon. I also had Poutine. It said on the menu: “Our northern neighbors created and gave to the world this dish of french fries and cheese curds topped with brown mushroom gravy.” I also enjoyed a Lava Cake for dessert: “Wonderfully warm, moist chocolate cake filled with creamy, semisweet chocolate ganache, topped with soft ice cream and raspberry puree.”

Marie’s in Bottineau, N.D.

inside Marie’s

Poutine

The best thing about the day was the drive, and sadly I have no photos of that. Woolly clouds hung over a rolling patchwork terrain of golds and greens: sunflower fields, wheat fields, corn fields, grasslands and wetlands. With that heavy cloud bank hovering overhead, it was a dramatic scene. I was bowled over by the beauty of it all. Sadly, these country roads had no place to pull off, and I wasn’t sure a photo would have done it justice anyway. But, oh! It was stunning!

Here are my journal pages from today:

International Peace Garden

September 11, 2019

*Drove 230.10 miles. Steps: 6,814, or 2.89 miles*

*Wednesday, September 11, 2019*

charleston: the battery, the old slave mart museum, & magnolia plantations

wanderessence1025 September 20, 2020

Sarah and I arrived early in Charleston, parking in a garage near Waterfront Park, and walked into the park. Situated on eight acres on Concord Street, it was built on what used to be marsh and water. The Pineapple Fountain is artful and has a surrounding wading pool.

Pineapple Fountain at Waterfront Park

Pineapple Fountain at Waterfront Park

Sarah ran and I walked south along The Battery. It was a chilly morning, just above freezing, but at least we had blue skies. South was the Cooper River, with views of Fort Sumter, Castle Pinckney, and Sullivan’s Island. Landward was the adjoining White Point Gardens and elegant mansions. The Gardens boasted cannons; a statue of General William Moultrie, commander in the Battle of Sullivan’s Island; another statue “To the Confederate Defenders of Charleston;” and the USS Hobson Memorial, which sank after a collision with the carrier USS Wasp in 1952.

White Point was originally called Oyster Point because of the enormous outcropping of oysters whose shells glistened in the sunlight.

The Battery was named for hosting cannons during the War of 1812. The sea wall was built in the 1850s. Charlestonians gathered here in a party-like atmosphere to watch the shelling of Fort Sumter in 1861, ignorant of the horrors to come in the Civil War.

The promenade was a great place to stroll or jog.

The Battery

statue of General William Moultrie at White Point Gardens

“To the Confederate Defenders of Charleston”

The Battery

cannons at White Point Gardens

The Battery

We returned to the north and walked past Rainbow Row, one of the most photographed sites in the U.S., although I didn’t know why as the colors were not that vibrant and it was hard to get far enough away to get the line of pastel houses all in one photo. It includes only nine pastel-colored mansions facing the Cooper River. These bright historically-accurate colors are remnants of Charleston’s Caribbean heritage, a legacy of English settlers from the colony of Barbados who were among the city’s first citizens.

Most of the houses date from 1730-1750. Originally they stood right on the Cooper river, with their lower stories used as storefronts on the wharf. The street was later created on top of landfill, called locally “made land.”

These were the the first Charleston homes to be renovated and brought back from their early 20th century dereliction, inspiring the creation of the Preservation Society of Charleston (the first such group in the U.S.).

Rainbow Row

Rainbow Row

Rainbow Row

We continued to Waterfront Park where we looked out over Charleston Harbor.

Waterfront Park

Waterfront Park

Pineapple Fountain at Waterfront Park

After our run/walk, we drove back across the Arthur Ravanal Bridge to Mount Pleasant, where we showered and dressed. As today was Mike’s and my 31st anniversary, I sent him a message: “Happy anniversary, honey! Sarah and I have already walked all along the Battery. She ran, I walked.” He wrote back: “Happy anniversary to you as well! Sounds like a nice morning. I’ve been working from home since 7:30. Sitting in dining room for once. Actually got a little over 8 hours sleep for first time in a long while. Needed it badly…” I knew he was stressed out dealing with our son, who was having meltdowns over his massage therapy course and the state of the world, so I was happy he’d had a good night’s sleep.

our Airbnb in Mount Pleasant

We returned into the city to visit the Old Slave Mart Museum, where, sadly, no photography was allowed inside. I could only guess Charleston didn’t want its reputation sullied on social media by the horrific slave trade that took place here for so many years. The conditions were horrible, as can only be expected when human beings are treated like property.

After 1808, the U.S. banned the importation of enslaved people, thus increasing both price and demand. Auctions generally took place in public buildings where everyone could watch. In the 1850s, public auctions were put to a stop when city leaders discovered that European visitors were horrified. The slave trade moved indoors to “marts” near the waterfront, out of the public eye. This is the last remaining such structure. Built in 1859, its last auction was held in November of 1863.

The museum had great exhibits about the transatlantic slave trade and the architectural history of the building. The main exhibit area held documents, tools and displays about this sordid chapter in local history. It was an eye-opening and disturbing museum.

Old Slave Mart Museum

After our visit, we wandered past the French Huguenot Church. This is one of the oldest congregations in Charleston and the only remaining independent Huguenot church in the country. It was founded around 1681 by French Calvinists. Deliberately used as a firebreak during the great fire of 1796, the sanctuary was rebuilt in the stucco-coated Gothic Revival style, completed in 1845.

French Huguenot Church

We headed to Husk Restaurant for lunch, which turned out to be one of the finest meals we had in Charleston after Chez Nous.

Husk

Husk

I enjoyed a “Fistful of Berries” Bourbon: Husk blueberry shrub, ginger beer, lime, & vanilla. Sarah had an “Alley Cat” – white port, red bell pepper juice and shrub, honey, and Meyer lemon bitters.

Sarah ordered two appetizers: one was Sweet Water Valley Pimiento Cheese on Grilled Crostini, pickle relish, crispy country ham and chives; the second was a soup of Heirloom candy roasted squash, duck confit marmalade, curly kale, roasted fennel, sorghum, and pepper mash.

For lunch I had Shrimp and Geechie Boy Grits, with sweet peppers and onions, fennel and tomato broth. It was so delicious! Sarah had Husk fried chicken, roasted cabbage and onion, confit fingerling potato and mushroom jus. Sarah treated us for lunch. 🙂

dining room of Husk

“Fistful of Berries” Bourbon

Soup of roasted squash

Sweet Water Valley Pimiento Cheese Grilled Crostini

Shrimp and Geechie Boy Grits

Soon after lunch, we saw the mural we’d seen our first night in Charleston, this time in daylight.

mural near Poogan’s Porch

After lunch, we strolled through the Old City Market, which is like a pedestrian shopping mall, full of southern -style souvenirs and sweet-grass baskets. I bought a couple of Charleston mugs and a Gullah print for $5.

Old City Market

shop at Old City Market

As we drove to Magnolia Plantations & Gardens, we passed an old roadside trailer with a sign “Timbo’s Hot Boiled Peanuts,” and I remembered fondly a childhood friend of mine whose mother, born and raised in Charleston, had introduced me to boiled peanuts.

drive to Magnolia Plantation & Gardens

Magnolia Plantation & Gardens cost a fortune for admittance. Sarah wasn’t keen on going because all she wanted to do was shop. This got to be quite a drag. I realized our relationship over her adult years has been for me to go down to Richmond, where she lives, and eat, drink and shop. We’d never done much more than that, which saddened me.

The founder of Magnolia Plantations was Thomas Drayton, Jr., son of a wealthy Barbadian planter. He came from the Caribbean to build his own fortune. He immediately married the daughter of Stephen Fox, who began this plantation in 1676. Magnolia has stayed in possession of an unbroken line of Drayton descendants to this day.

I loved all the Spanish moss on the trees and the long Japanese-style bridges.

peacock at Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Spanish moss at Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Biblical Garden at Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Spanish moss at Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Sarah at Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Sarah at Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Cypress knees at Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Spanish moss at Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Sarah at Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

The gardens felt slightly kitschy. Not manicured, it had a wild playful feel. Chinese lanterns were set up for the holidays, making it look a bit gaudy. It claims to be the first garden in the U.S., dating to the 1680s, but also the first public garden, dating to 1872. It is one of the earliest tourist attractions in the U.S. It has themed gardens: The Biblical Garden, the Barbados Tropical Garden, and the Audubon Swamp Garden, complete with alligators and named after John James Audubon, who visited here in 1851. There was an extra charge for the Swamp Garden, which we didn’t visit.

Chinese lanterns at Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

bridge at Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

Chinese lantern arch at bridge at Magnolia Plantations & Gardens

On the way back, we decided rather than go out to eat, we’d check out a couple of markets and get something for dinner to go. At Gita’s Gourmet, we got containers of Brunswick Stew and Chicken Poblano Soup, hummus, Alouette Everything cheese spread, crackers, and feta-stuffed olives.

As we ate our dinner, Sarah introduced me to the TV series The Good Place, which I found rather annoying. She complained that every time she introduced me to a TV show, I automatically didn’t like it just because she recommended it. How ridiculous! There is no accounting for why people like certain shows and not others. I dislike shows about the afterlife, futuristic shows, horror or violent shows, or fantasy. This one was about the afterlife and I found the characters grating.

Then she introduced me to the show This Is Us, which I liked very much, and we ended up watching several episodes of it. Thus I proved her wrong, that I could in fact like shows she recommended.

We also argued about the focus on food and fancy restaurants. I didn’t want to keep eating the amount of food we were eating at every meal, nor did I want to spend huge amounts of money every time we dined. She is a foodie through and through, and sees vacations as a time to sample local cuisine. I also love to sample local cuisine, but I don’t feel the need to have a huge spread at every meal.

She said maybe it was best we didn’t travel together and I agreed. Basically, we wanted different things from a holiday. I liked to see a variety of things and have a variety of experiences, whereas she enjoys eating, shopping and relaxing. I thought it probably was best we didn’t travel together, except maybe an overnight focused on eating and shopping.

It was very disappointing, as I would love nothing better than to travel with family. But I thought it best if we just kept close to home for family gatherings.

*Steps: 15,963, or 6.82 miles*

*Wednesday, November 13, 2019*

fargo to jamestown, north dakota

wanderessence1025 September 17, 2020

The first thing this morning, I left Fargo and crossed the Minnesota-North Dakota border to Moorhead to visit the Heritage Hjemkomst Interpretive Center.

stained glass at the Heritage Hjemkomst Interpretive Center

I wanted to see the Hjemkomst Viking Ship, whose name means “homecoming.” It was built by Robert Asp, a Moorhead high school guidance counselor whose dream was to build a replica Viking ship and sail it to Norway. Construction began in 1972 and continued slowly.

Asp oversaw the maiden voyage on Lake Superior in August, 1980, but he succumbed to leukemia a few months later.

His family worked tirelessly to complete the harrowing Atlantic crossing and realize Robert Asp’s vision. In the summer of 1982, thirteen crew members began the voyage to sail the Hjemkomst 6,100 miles from Duluth, Minnesota to Bergen. Crew members said the roughest part of the journey was on Lake Superior. They arrived to a hero’s welcome in Bergen, Norway on July 19, 1982.

I was in tears after watching the half-hour film on this story.

Hjemkomst Viking Ship

Hjemkomst Viking Ship

route of the Hjemkomst Viking Ship

Hjemkomst Viking Ship sails into Bergen

inside the Hjemkomst Viking Ship

I also toured the Hopperstad Stave Church Replica. Stave churches, built using vertical wood posts known as staves, date from the end of the Viking Age in Scandinavia. They combined Norse building traditions and medieval Christian styles. This church is a full-scale replica of the Hopperstad Church, built circa 1140 in the town of Vik, Norway.

Guy Paulson, a retired research scientist from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, began carving the church in January 1997. Although dedicated in 1998, the project took five more years to complete. The pine structure includes 24,000 cedar shingles, replicating a dragon to scare pagan gods away. Pagan elements are intertwined with Christian elements because people worshiped pagan gods but the King of Norway declared Norway would be Christian. He had to ease people into Christianity. The carvings of redwood, basswood and pine include both Viking Age and Christian symbols.

Paulson was inspired by the Hjemkomst Viking Ship to build the church.

Hopperstad Stave Church Replica

At the museum was a photography exhibit, “Truth in Focus: A Retrospective from Colburn Hvidston III,” which showed work from Hvidston’s 68 years behind the camera. Photos covered three distinct periods in Hvidston III’s life, with his long career at the Forum serving as the middle “anchor” period. He claimed to have never worked a day in his life at the Forum. Instead he claimed to have conned his publisher out of a paycheck for having a good time. He considered his main aim as a photojournalist was to mirror or illustrate reality.

President John F. Kennedy arrives at the Fargo Airport on June 19, 1960

September 14, 1960 Vice President Richarad Nixon arrives in Grand Forks campaigning against JFK for the office of president

The reverse is often true, but one seldom sees a cat treeing a dog.

On March 6, 1966, these two Grand Forks residents faced a major excavation job to fee their vehicles from the infamous blizzard’s aftermath.

Hvidston’s young son Mike noticed this situation yelling from the backseat, “Hey dad, the wheel fell off the car behind us!”

Expressing concern about the gathered crowd being kepat at a distance, CA governor Ronald Reagan, with his wife Nancy, disembarked at the Fargo airport at a campaign stop for the GOP presidential nomination, which was ultimately won by Gerald Ford.

First Stop N Go opens, Fargo 1966

Two laborers doing excavation utility work near the sidewalk simultaneously notice the legs of a female passerby on a Grand Forks construction project in 1964.

Goodbye Old Paint! A rider and his steed part company at the National Hight School Rodeo which took place at the Fargo Fairgrounds in 1970.

There was another exhibit about World War I. As European countries sunk deeper into war, Clay County, Minnesota residents reacted to newspaper reports of the appalling destruction in Europe with a mix of horror and indifference. On the East coast, many supported an intervention on the Allied side, but in Clay County, few supported the war. All seven county newspapers either opposed intervention or were neutral. That changed once war was declared.

According to the exhibit, “U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, an idealist, saw Americans fighting against despotism, militarism and barbarism. Wilson was also an authoritarian who expected Americans to volunteer their money, their time, and themselves to the war effort even if they had to be forced to do so. Anyone who did not was seen as ‘Pro-German’ or even a traitor.” America was unprepared for war, having to quickly raise, train and equip a 4 million man army. It took a year before large numbers of Americans entered combat, and 8 months later, it was over and 116,000 young Americans were dead.

America was completely unprepared for war in April of 1917. Soldiers marched in their civilian clothes because there were not enough uniforms. In training camps, soldiers learned to follow orders, stand in line, march, sleep outside, and kill. After about 3 months, the boys were sent to France.

Donating to the Red Cross, buying Liberty Bonds, and eating less meat and wheat was supposed to be voluntary, but the hyper-patriotism of the time left little room for real choice. Pressure to conform and do one’s duty was intense. Anyone not contributing was liable to be called a slacker, pro-German, or even a traitor.

Liberty Loan Drives were forced on customers whose accounts were deemed to have enough money. Banks could deny farmers operating loans. Newspapers published the name of purchasers and amounts purchased. Vigilantes might visit one’s home.

Due to a worldwide food crisis during the war, the US Food Commission organized the efficient conservation and production of food. It carried out an intensive education campaign to convince Americans to plant gardens and voluntarily reduce consumption of meat, fat, sugar and especially wheat. It worked. The U.S. never had to ration food during the war.

Map of the WWI powers

Enlistment poster

Victory Liberty loan and bond posters

The Home Guard

Notice that alarming shortage of seed corn

Food Will Win the War

Buy a Liberty Bond

Always a fan of quilts, I found one displayed at the museum.

quilt at the museum

******

I returned to North Dakota at 10:53, and walked around downtown Fargo. At first, it was very dark and gloomy, but as I strolled, the sun started to peek out. I loved the classy Hotel Donaldson at one end. Someone had told me it had a great rooftop bar, but with the rain I hadn’t been able to enjoy it the night before. The art-deco Fargo Theatre was at the other end. The Fargo Theatre had been renovated and showed artsy, quirky films. The theater opened in 1926 as a vaudeville and silent-film hall. I also found some other cool vintage art deco signs.

Fargo, North Dakota

fading ad in Fargo, North Dakota

O’Day Caché in Fargo, North Dakota

The Toasted Frog

White Banner Uniforms

Fargo Theatre

twist

Hotel Donaldson, Fargo, North Dakota

Spirit Room, Fargo

Painted utility box in Fargo

Fargo, North Dakota

I went by the Visitor’s Center at 2001 44th Street South. There I posed, wearing a hat with ear flaps, with the original iconic wood chipper from the movie Fargo. I bought a couple of postcards and a lot of information about various places I planned to visit. The clerk there said about Medicine Wheel Park in Valley City: “It’s worth a minute.”

Fargo Visitor’s Center

me with the iconic wood chipper from the movie Fargo

puzzle map of North Dakota

buffalo at the Visitor’s Center

the wood chipper from Fargo

******

Back on I-94 W, I passed Kindred at 12:35 and it was 64°F. It was flat, flat, flat through Casselton and Lynchburg. Corn abounded as I drove through Wheatland and Chaffee. Hay bales and cows marked the territory from Absaraka to Embden. I passed Ayr, Buffalo, Alice, and the Maple River as I drank a Naked Mighty Mango. Anytime I drank mango juice I was reminded of Oman and other Asian countries where I lived and worked. I also ate a box of artisan salami and cheese with crackers and a Reese’s Cup, my happy bar, for dessert.

The flat landscape was shadowed by dramatic skies and clouds, with tatters of blue and sunlight peeping through. I passed Oriska and Fingle. I was still seeing corn, silos, and a single wind turbine. I thought it interesting how some silos were pointed and some round.

In Valley City, I went to the 30-acre Medicine Wheel Park on the Valley City State University Campus. It featured two solar calendar replicas, Indian burial mounds, and a solar system model, which stretched from the Sun to Pluto. Boulders representing the planets were spaced apart in exact proportion to their distances from the sun on a scale with one foot equaling @3 million miles. The Earth’s orbit corresponded to the outer circle of the Medicine Wheel.

The project was done in 1992 by university students. Inspired by the Big Horn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, it reflected the beauty of the earth’s journey around the sun and the grand cycle of the seasons.

Medicine Wheel Park

I visited Chataqua Park to see the High Line Bridge, a 3-span, 255-foot bridge. At 3,860 feet long, it is one of the longest and highest single-track railroad bridges in the country.

High Line Bridge

High Line Bridge

******

Back on I-94W, I crossed the Continental Divide at 1,490 feet. Corn still abounded near Spiritwood. The sky looked like a Harvey Dunn painting, dappled with yellow bands of crops lit by the sun, glowing golden. Cattle and hay bales dotted the rolling landscape. I arrived in Jamestown close to 3:00.

As I drove into Frontier Village, I saw hay bales and thought they were bison! I couldn’t help but laugh at myself.

In Jamestown, I went to Frontier Village, a collection of historic buildings that the community thought should be saved. A post office, trading post, 1881 church, fire department, jail, barbershop, and dentist were some of the structures that recreated small-town life in the 1800s. The village also had a caboose, medical display, frontier cabin, General Store, a “Writer’s Shack” with a tribute to local writer Louis L’Amour, and a saloon, as well as a print shop and an art gallery. There was also a frontier bank and blacksmith’s shop.

These buildings all had special meaning to the history of Jamestown.

Frontier Village

Stage Coach and Pony Rides

Frontier Town Hall

White Cloud Crafts

Caboose and Train Depot

inside the train depot

pioneer laundry

Log Cabin

bed and doll in log cabin built in 1898

1929 Chevrolet

General Store

Pioneer Church

Dedicated to All Deceased North Dakota Pioneer Citizens Buried in Unmarked Graves

Dentist

Jail

$500 Reward notice

$1,000 Reward for Tom Nixon

Grain Belt Beer on tap at the Saloon

Frontier Village

Barber Shop

Frontier Village

Blacksmith Shop and Frontier Bank

Sheriff’s Office and The Blue Blazes Saloon

Jamestown Fire Department

pioneer stuff for sale

stuff for sale

Village Trader

Frontier Town Hall and windmill

Louis L’Amour was born in Jamestown, ND on March 22, 1908, the youngest of eight children. His mother was trained as a teacher and embedded the importance of books in all her children. Louis often listened to stories of his great-grandfather Ambrose, who was scalped by Sioux Native Americans. In 1923, when Louis was 15, the LaMoore family left Jamestown due to the poor farm economy.

Louis went on to become a successful and professional writer. He wrote and published 117 novels, 400 short stories, and poems. Forty-five films and television series were produced based on his writing, movies such as Conagher featuring Sam Elliott, and Shalako featuring Sean Connery and Bridget Bardot.

Louis L’Amour books

At the far end of the Frontier Village was the World’s Largest Buffalo Monument: Dakota Thunder. It had been watching over Jamestown since 1959. In the late 1950s, the new Interstate Highway was making its way across North Dakota. The Chamber of Commerce decided Jamestown needed a man-made attraction to draw tourists. It commemorated the vast herds of buffalo that once roamed the prairies. The total cost was $8,500. On the 50th birthday celebration, a Name-That-Buffalo contest was launched. On July 24, 2010, Dakota Thunder received his name. It is 26 feet tall, 14 feet wide, and 46 feet long, and it weighs 60 tons.

World’s Largest Buffalo Monument: Dakota Thunder

me with the World’s Largest Buffalo

World’s Largest Buffalo Monument 1959

I also visited the National Buffalo Museum, where I watched a film about how the buffalo, actually called bison, were nearly eradicated as settlers sought to destroy Native Americans’ source of food. Bison were down to 1,000-2,000 and now have been revived to nearly 400,000.

National Buffalo Museum

Buffalo trails were the first roads used by colonial settlers moving westward, and influenced settlement in the Ohio River Valley. By 1790, Lexington, Frankfurt, Louisville and Cincinnati had developed along old buffalo trails. The westward development pushed the animal west of the Mississippi River. The trails eventually guided the Union Pacific route along the Platte River.

The buffalo was the mainstay of the Indian. All parts of the animal were utilized. Buffalo hides were used to make bags, robes and tipis. A tipi is a conical tent made of animal hides and used by the Plains Indians. The durable tipi provided for a warm, waterproof, and easily transportable home. Most Plains Indians were highly mobile hunter-gatherers, and the tipi could be broken down and quickly packed when a tribe needed to move.

The buffalo robe was one of the most common articles of clothing on the Plains. It was worn year-round, as a wrapper, hair side in for warmth, hair side out in milder weather. Plains robes were for everyday use. Others were decorated with quillwork and beading, and were painted with native dyes or pigments obtained through trade.

Buffalo meat was eaten, and what couldn’t be eaten was dried for later use. Bones and organs were used for food or made into tools. Buffalo horns were used to carry gunpowder.

The American buffalo completely influenced the lives of the Plains Indians. The animal became a powerful symbol in dances, societies, visions, cures, rituals, and religion. Ceremonies were held in its honor – the buffalo was revered like no other animal.

Small ranchers sell bison meat to specialized markets. It is illegal to administer grown hormones to bison. Ted Turner, a big bison rancher, is one of many in the Hall of Fame, which includes those ranchers who have tried to increase numbers of bison. I learned that the buffalo is America’s national mammal.

The bison is the largest land animal in North America. There are two living subspecies of wild bison – the plains bison (bison bison) and the wood bison (bison athabasce). The bison in the National Buffalo Museum, as well as most bison raised for meat in the U.S., are plains bison.

Buffalo or Bison: What’s the Difference?

Modern Bison Skull

painting of bison

bag made of buffalo hide

Buffalo Tipi

Two types of North American Bison

Bison

Shirt made of deerskin

Buffalo and Elk on the Upper Missouri by Karl Bodmer

Bison Fighting

White Cloud was born on July 10, 1996, on the Shirek Buffalo Farm in Michigan, North Dakota. She joined the live bison herd at the site of the National Buffalo Museum in Jamestown in May of 1997. What made White Cloud so unique was the fact that she was a true albino bison and a pure bison, having been DNA tested for both albino genes as well as cattle genes. The odds of a true albino bison could not be calculated, making White Cloud both a phenomenon and a rare legendary animal. A white bison is considered to be a sacred creature by many Native American people, giving this animal a stature symbolizing peace, unity and hope. To others, the white bison symbolizes great changes in the world.

White Cloud (1996-2016)

White Cloud had 13 calves, including a white male named Dakota Miracle (2007-2019), who also lived with the Museum’s herd.

A captive bison lives an average of 20-25 years. White Cloud’s life expectancy was unknown because of her albinism. Genetic mutations can cause health problems, and the summer months were very hard on her. She could not regulate her body temperature well, causing her to drink a lot of water. She also suffered from sunburns.

White Cloud returned to her birthplace, Shirek Buffalo in the spring of 2016, where she died of old age on November 14th.

Last, I went to see the St. James Basilica, North Dakota’s Mother Church. It was elevated as a Minor Basilica on July 23, 1989. St. James was the 24th church in the U.S. to receive the designation.

St. James Basilica

inside St. James Basilica

Jamestown was a quiet and neat little town, but I almost got broadsided on a residential road that didn’t have a stop sign.

home in Jamestown

I checked in to EconoLodge Jamestown. For dinner, I bought a beer at a local grocery store and ate my leftover dinner from last night in my room.

Below is my journal spread from this day.

Journal spread for September 10, 2019

*Drove 118.3 miles; Steps: 10,198, or 4.32 miles*

*Tuesday, September 10, 2019*

on journey: watertown, south dakota to fargo, north dakota

wanderessence1025 September 16, 2020

After finishing my breakfast of scrambled eggs and sausage, I checked out of my hotel and went to downtown Watertown in dreary and chilly weather to walk around the downtown area. I found some enticing shops, but it was too early for them to be open.

Watertown, South Dakota

I enjoyed the Watertown Artwalk 2019, which consisted of fourteen sculptures with names like Well Mannered, Hard Hat Jo, Farmer, When Pigs Fly the Wright Way, Pelican Ahoy, Cookie the Turtle, and When Wealth Was Pelts.

Well Mannered by Del Pettigrew (deceased)

Kangaroos by Dale Lewis

Phoenix by Paige (Frazee) Zempel

Endless Summer by Gregory Mendez

Hard Hat Jo by Lee Leuning & Sherri Treeby

Cookie the Turtle by Crysten Nesseth

mural lin Watertown, SD

sculpture in Watertown, SD

Farmer by Larry Starck

Nucleus II by Jeff Satter

I am always attracted to fading ads on buildings; they suggest a long-ago era that is vanishing over time.

Fading ads in Watertown, SD

At the Redlin Art Center, I saw a film about Terry Redlin (1937-2016). The artist originally planned to become a forest ranger, but he lost a leg in a motorcycle accident at age 15. He got a college scholarship for being disabled, so he decided to become an artist. He earned a degree from St. Paul School of Associated Arts in St. Paul, Minnesota and spent 25 years working in commercial art as a layout artist, graphic designer, illustrator and art director. Many of his paintings appeared on covers of magazines such as The Farmer.

The Redlin Art Center

sculpture of Terry Redlin

5th Annual Minnesota Wildlife Heritage Art Show

Redlin’s paintings are of outdoor themes and wildlife, often pictured in twilight. During the 1990s, he was named “America’s most popular artist” in annual gallery surveys conducted by U.S. Art Magazine.

He retired in 2007 after being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s (dementia). He died in Watertown in 2016 at the age of 78. The Redlin Art Center is dedicated to his works. It was built in 1997 for $10 million.

The focus of his paintings is on light, either natural or man-made. He loved wildlife, especially white-tailed deer and ducks. Also featured in his paintings are Midwest farms, family, friends, community, seasons, sunrise and sunset, snowy scenes, hunting and fishing outings, old cars, log cabins, fishing boats, and kite-flying.

painting by Terry Redlin

The paintings are beautifully rendered with great detail. He did a lot of individual paintings (over 160 are in the Redlin Art Gallery) but also some series: one is based on the lines from “America the Beautiful” and another, A Collection of Heartfelt Firsts, is based on his own life revolving around the same home.

O Beautiful for Spacious Skies (1990) was an attempt to express admiration for the pioneers who settled the country and to capture the sense of adventure and the grandeur of the immense western landscape.

O Beautiful for Spacious Skies (1990) from the “America the Beautiful” series

For Amber Waves of Grain (1990) was done to express admiration for the pioneers once they settled the land; it suggests a bright future. The scene, with waves of wild prairie grass, was inspired by a location near Redlin’s boyhood home in eastern South Dakota.

For Amber Waves of Grain (1990) from the “America the Beautiful” series

For Purple Mountain Majesties (1990) celebrates the leisure time after the hard work is done, in the shadows of the majestic Tetons.

For Purple Mountain Majesties (1990) from the “America the Beautiful” series

Above the Fruited Plain (1990) depicts the hard-working settlers who harvested a bountiful variety of food to feed a growing nation. “Here the farmer and his family haul to town a wagon overflowing with corn, baskets of apples and containers of milk.” Overhead, pigeons find their “home atop the grain elevator, a sturdy monument to the rich soil and the people who toil on it.”

Above the Fruited Plain (1990) from the “America the Beautiful” series

America! America! (1990) depicts the spirit of America with an isolated school house and the daily raising of the flag.

America! America! (1990) from the “America the Beautiful” series

An American Portrait: A Collection of Heartfelt Firsts depicts a series of “firsts” in the decades of a single family.

“His First Friend” – “Mother & Child Experience the Excitement and Happiness of a New Friend and Home” is the first of seven in An American Portrait, which depicts a journey through the life of a young American boy and his family. The story begins with the American dream of home ownership. Today, this young family is moving from the farm into town. They purchased a “fixer-upper.” As they unpack the truck, they are filled with promise. The young boy also meets his first friend, “Buddy,” his dog.

“His First Friend” – “Mother & Child Experience the Excitement and Happiness of a New Friend and Home” from the Firsts series by Terry Redlin

“His First Day” – “Mother & Child Experience the Difficulty of Leaving Home for the First Time” brings to life the smell of autumn. As the school bus pulls around the corner, Mom tries to comfort her young son. While the driver waits, she gently tries to coax him out of his Radio Flyer. With that first step onto the bus, he will leave, for the first time, the security of his home.

“His First Day” – “Mother & Child Experience the Difficulty of Leaving Home for the First Time” from the Firsts series by Terry Redlin

“His First Date” – “Mother & Child Both Experience the Tensions of Growing Up” shows Halloween, with the full moon rising and fog settling in. A visitor has decided to go along in “Daddy’s Caddy” while her Dad takes her brothers and sisters trick-or-treating. As the boy and girl sit side-by-side on the front porch, Mom knows this is the son’s “first date.” Keeping an eye on the two, Mom offers a tray of refreshments.

“His First Date” – “Mother & Child Both Experience the Tensions of Growing Up” in the Firsts series by Terry Redlin

“His First Graduation” – “Mother & Child Experience One of Life’s Great Achievements” shows the boy’s graduation from high school. The car out front is the “victory car” with the boy’s treasured teddy tied to the hood. The graduate will soon go off to college.

“His First Graduation” – “Mother & Child Experience One of Life’s Great Achievements” in the Firsts series by Terry Redlin

“His First Homecoming” – “Mother & child Experience the Delight of an Unexpected Early Arrival” shows the son returning home from school while the neighborhood sleeps. His arrival is unexpected, and the young man reunites with his dog. His home awaits under the light of the full moon. Colorfully wrapped packages and a freshly cut evergreen will soon surprise his family.

“His First Homecoming” – “Mother & child Experience the Delight of an Unexpected Early Arrival” in the Firsts series by Terry Redlin

“His First Good-Bye” – “Mother and Child Experience One of Life’s Proudest Moments” shows an American flag hung motionless as the family says goodbye to the young man leaving for military duty. Although filled with a sense of pride, this day brings mixed emotions for the parents.

“His First Good-Bye” – “Mother and Child Experience One of Life’s Proudest Moments” in the Firsts series by Terry Redlin

“His Last Good-Bye” – “Mother & Father Forever Live in Pain with the Ultimate Loss” is the final painting in the series. The family has prepared a homecoming banner and has decorated the Christmas tree. At this moment, a representative from the Navy and a Chaplain walks up the snowy steps, bringing the devastating news that the son has been killed in the war.

This final painting was inspired by one of Terry Redlin’s personal experiences. It captures the memory of his brother-in-law and good friend, Charles Langenfeld. Charles, a Navy Hospital Corpsman, was killed in the Siege of Khe Sanh during the Vietnam War in 1968.

“His Last Good-Bye” – “Mother & Father Forever Live in Pain with the Ultimate Loss” in the Firsts series by Terry Redlin

After watching the movie about Terry Redlin, I met two friendly ladies, Kathleen and April. Easygoing Kathleen told me she was from Elk Point, South Dakota. She said she was near 70 years old and still worked cleaning offices. They asked me all kinds of questions about my travels and my blog and wanted to know my favorite place in the world. I couldn’t name just one, but said it might be Turkey or Greece.

Kathleen had been to the Redlin Gallery ten times and she said there was always something new to see. Her friend was visiting for the first time. April was on disability but looked younger. She wrote down my blog address.

In the lower level of the Redlin Art Center, I found a fun exhibit about Langenfeld’s Ice Cream and ice cream in general.

The Langenfeld family manufactured ice cream in Watertown and Mitchell, South Dakota and Marshall, Minnesota. In the early 1960s, the family consolidated the ice cream manufacturing at the Mitchell plant. The Langenfeld’s Ice Cream company closed its doors in 1966.

Terry Redlin married into the Langenfeld business. His wife Helene was from the Langenfeld family.

it’s Langenfeld’s Ice Cream

ice cream themed Valentines

Ice cream themed sheet music

Ice cream themed comics

Ice cream themed magazine covers

Popsicle and ice cream truck

Popsicle

Frosty-Freeze Ice Creamer

Langenfeld’s Ice Cream: A Watertown Product

milk bottles

1948 ice cream truck

ice cream accoutrements

ice cream dishes

*********

By 11:00, I was on the road in the rain, corn and green pastures all around. As I zipped past South Shore and Stockholm, it started pouring. I passed the Waubay National Wildlife Refuge and Aberdeen and then I was engulfed in both fog and rain. After Harford Beach State Park, I arrived in Sisseton, population 2,470.

Here, I stopped into the Joseph N. Nicollet Tower and Interpretive Center. It was pretty miserable when I arrived. I learned about the French mapmaker Joseph Nicollet, who explored the Coteau Des Prairies in the 1830s, and the Dakota Indians in the film “Dakota Encounters.” The film told of the French mapmaker’s quest to map the triangular area between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers in 1838 and 1839.

Joseph Nicholas Nicollet was born in 1786 in the alpine province of Savoy, France. His family was well established but had lost much when the French Revolutionary troops invaded Savoy in 1792. During the era of Napoleon, he was appointed professor and astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Paris where he soon made his reputation both in astronomy and what was then called “physical geography.”

In 1832, after his career was blocked by turbulent politics before the revolution of 1830, he suffered a loss of honors along with financial reverses. He sailed alone and penniless to the United States with the bold but unformed plan of mapping the great valley of the Mississippi River.

Although thirty years had passed since Lewis and Clark had reached the Pacific Ocean, the vast country beyond the Mississippi was still waiting to be mapped. When Nicollet arrived in Washington, he was sociable 46 years old, slight of build, and fond of music. With the support of the American Fur Company, he set off up the big river to Fort Snelling, Minnesota. From there, on July 29, 1836, he set out in a canoe, accompanied only by an Ojibway chief named Chagobay. He made computations at night and wrote poetically of his fondness for the Ojibway families. He spent the winter at Fort Snelling and recorded ceremonies to which no other white man had been admitted. He completed his map which corrected a serious error made by Zebulon Pike in 1805 that placed the mouth of the Crow Wing River too far to the west, making all western maps inaccurate.

On his return to Washington, he was appointed to lead the newly formed Corps of Topographical Engineers in an expedition to map the land between the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. He went on July 9, 1838, accompanied by John Charles Fremont as his assistant.

On July 11, 1839, Nicollet and Fremont set out on a second expedition from Fort Pierre (South Dakota) to Devils Lake (North Dakota). On September 11, 1839, Nicollet left the prairies with regret. Already an ill man, he died before his report to the Senate was published in 1843 (from a pamphlet at the Nicollet Tower & Interpretive Center).

I saw Nicollet’s large map and was shown our location on the Coteau des Prairies, a 2,000-foot-high plateau that rises above the prairie of South Dakota. Nicolett was the first mapmaker to show elevations and topography changes. He also showed great respect for the Native Americans he met on the expedition and his map included Native American names for rivers, lakes and other features that are still used today.