Dakota Harvest Bakers - Grand Forks, ND

On our drive from Minot to the Peace Garden I was thanking that if we stopped at every place that I found interesting it would take us a really long time to get anywhere in this state. North Dakota is full of texture, from the drama of the badlands to the pastoral beauty of the rolling prairie to the dichotomy pumping oil wells as a backdrop to long abandoned homesteads. For every sign of demise there are signs of progress and a bright future. This place reeks of optimism which in many ways is understandable when much of your livelihood is derived from the land and often left to the whims of the ever unpredictable and changing weather.

With long drives between places, and Coop working on his ever developing skills as a car sleeper - The latest being that I am sure we had a conversation while he was asleep, I have had many opportunities to reflect on what I have seen and what I am seeing. This is a place with a great respect for it’s past. Nearly every town has some sort of museum that celebrates it origins. Some are small such as the post office museum in Grassy Butte. It is a plaster and wood timber building, barely tall enough to stand in with a sod roof. The amazing thing about it is it was in use until 1962. Some are larger such as the prairie village and museum in Rugby. In a lot of places it appears that everyone is poised for the tourism boom that will be coming at any moment. As you drive on both large roads and small there are an abundance of historical markers. some mark the grave of a homesteader, other mark a legendary crime and still others mark a bluff on a major cattle drive route. It is hard not to appreciate the respect they have for, and the dignity with which, they treat the past here.

A major feature as you drive through farmland and prairie, especially in the central and western parts of the state, are large piles of rocks dotting fields of wheat, or soy beans, or barley or flax. I thought that these were simply cairns built to honor people who had worked this land. As we drove through undeveloped land used as pasture that were littered with rocks I arrived at the answer. Most of North Dakota was covered by glaciers and much of it is a moraine or debris field. Before the fist settlers could even work the fields all of the rocks had to be removed. There are a lot of rocks and this one picture really brought home to me what a challenge it was to create a life here back in the 1800’s.

Something many of the roads in the state lack, and this is a state with some of the best roads that I have ever driven on including the fact that there is no traffic, are frequent highway signs giving the speed limit and what road you are on. They will be found at intersections but quite often intersections are few and far between. I cannot remember exactly where we were but I do remember that we were a long way from anywhere when off in the distance I saw a familiar blue sign. It was an adopt a highway sign and the next three miles were sponsored by a group who’s name I cannot remember. This is one of the cleanest places I have been and I am sure that this 3 mile stretch of road is just a little bit cleaner then the rest of the place.

Still to come... Our trip to the Scandinavian Heritage Center... Playing frisbee over the border at the International Peace Garden and getting stopped by US Customs and Immigration... Standing in the center of the continent... Touring North Dakota’s finest winery... Another Hawley connection... Camping on Devil’s Lake...

Stay tuned.

Posted by JW