My December 2024 Letter to the Editors of North Dakota newspapers Yes, the president can designate a national monument with the stroke of a pen, using the Antiquities Act. Thank you, Theodore Roosevelt, for creating that act. Famously, TR arrived on a train and lived and ranched in the North Dakota Badlands. (Later his wife, Edith, and his sister would …
TR Birthday Shenanigans: I Wander the Northern Badlands Solo
That’s the title of a storied 1969 movie starring Jane Fonda. The first time I saw it was the first time I fell in love with Jane Fonda. God, she was hot. I was a lad of barely 20, and she was 10 years older than me, but I’ve been in love with her from a distance ever since. No …
Forty-mile-per-hour winds drove a pouring rain sideways outside the Billings County Courthouse in Medora, N.D., this past Thursday afternoon, washing the Bad Lands dust from a dozen or more cars and pickups (mostly pickups) parked on the streets outside. Inside, another storm was brewing, this one going on behind closed doors, as a handful of drivers of those vehicles waited …
Red-headed Woodpecker (nesting) in a dead cottonwood at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park North Unit group site. Bull snake spotted slithering down the tree, no doubt having made an attempt to eat eggs or fledglings. House Wren. Bobolink. Common Yellowthroat. Field Sparrow. Sprague’s Pipit. Prairie Falcon. Rock Wren. Spotted Towhee. Lazuli Bunting. Yellow-breasted Chat. Red-eyed Vireo. American Robin. Grasshopper Sparrow. …
Photographer Dave Bruner captured some beautiful landscape images on a recent visit to the North Dakota Badlands along with his wife, Sheila. For more photographs of Dave Bruner, to go Dave Bruner Photography or www.flickr.com/photos/davebrunerphotography/.
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner and his wife, Sheila, went out to the North Dakota Badlands a couple of weeks ago in the hopes of photographing some nice winter scenes and capturing the wildlife in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park in this setting. He was extremely fortunate to capture some beautiful images of the buffalo (bison), elk, deer and wild …
As of today I have signed off as a contributor to my favorite magazine, Dakota Country. I’m old, and I’m tired of a lifetime of deadlines. Today, Jan.1, 2023 — it’s gonna take some time to get used to typing that number and getting it right on checks — is the first time in almost 10 years I haven’t sent …
This article is reprinted from the December issue of Dakota Country magazine, on newstands and in the mail this week. I wish I could tell you there’s a lot to see on Kendley Plateau, south of Medora, N.D. I wish I could, but I can’t, because there’s not much to see there. Mostly Bad Lands, prairie grass, sagebrush and scattered …
“The Badlands Call” By Clell Gannon Land of a thousand voices Beckoning unto me, Land of the zigzag valleys Shadowed in history. Land of a thousand coulees, Pastures without the bars, Land of a weird beauty Under a million stars. WildDakotaWoman will be on hiatus until sometime in 2023.
When I was a kid in Slope County, North Dakota, the rattlesnakes on our place were abundant. The snakes slithered their way from the den on the rocky hills surrounding our place to Deep Creek, back and forth, on a route that frequently took them through our yard. My late mother could kill rattlesnakes with the best of them. Mother …
This article first appeared in the November, 2022 issue of Dakota Country magazine. Long ago, way back in the 1970s, I lived in Dickinson, in western North Dakota, and was a writer and editor for The Dickinson Press. My regular working hours were 2 p.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday. I was a recently returned Vietnam veteran who needed …
I don’t even need a map. Just point me west. It wasn’t until the next day, after I was home again, that I realized that — serendipitously — my retreat had taken place on President Theodore Roosevelt’s birthday. What I knew was that I needed to go. Go. Go. Go. Away to the Badlands. So I went. To the northern …
This article is reprinted from the October 2022 issue of Dakota Country magazine.) OK, I know, I know, I’m not supposed to speak ill of the dead. But I’m going to a little, this month, and then I’m going to offer some praise for the living. And no, it’s not dead critters or fish like you’ll read about elsewhere in …
There’s something almost magical about stepping onto the prairie and knowing that it’s possible — even likely — that you’re the first person who has ever put their foot down on that spot. Ever. One of the places you can do that is on the Long X Divide, near the extreme north end of the North Dakota Badlands. Long X …
I’m home from the Badlands of North Dakota. Rain makes all the difference. In my lifetime, I’ve seen it this green, but not for a good long while. After these years of drought, the wildflowers are exploding. I don’t remember seeing so many scoria lilies (10-petal blazing star, aka Mentzelia Decapetala in the southern Badlands before). Oh and Lazuli Buntings everywhere.
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner and his wife, Sheila, went out to the Badlands in western North Dakota this past week to hike around the area, take in the Medora Musical and do some photography. “The area was so nice and green due to the timely rains this year. The wildflowers were out in full bloom and gave the landscape …
I know, I’ve written about this legal battle in this space before, but it’s such good news — for now, at least — that I just can’t quit sharing it. Below is an article that appears in the June issue of Dakota Country magazine, on the newstands and in the mail right now. By the way, if you aren’t a …
Bullion Butte: The Mother Ship (at least it is to me) Where do I start, I ask myself? How do I not make this dry and unreadable? How do I sort through my lifetime of memories of Bullion Butte and the files in our house? But start I will. I’ve written before about the buttes of southwest North Dakota and …
The rock shown in my photo is no longer there but the landscape endures.
“As we write this, America is engaged in an all-hands-on-deck effort to defeat a deadly pandemic and tackle the climate crisis. Our president has laid out a vision and a plan that will re-power America with clean energy, reduce greenhouse gas emissions at home and abroad, create millions of good-paying jobs and — importantly — conserve and restore the lands …
Photo was taken at Scoria Point Overlook, which has changed since I took the photo. (The sandstone rock in the photo is no longer there because the National Park Service has built a new sandstone wall.) Go there yourself people!
A Spring road trip to southwestern North Dakota counties and the Little Missouri National Grasslands: a Visual Essay, in no particular order. My very first in-person shopping at Roxie’s Smoke Shack. Jim is a celebrity there. We had some laughs and bought some stuff. Then I walked across state Highway 12 to mail a Marmarth postcard to my brother with …
Hundreds of bison, wild horses, three coyotes, one Northern Shrike, and some spectacular sunsets and sunrises. Reconnecting with friends and making new ones. RoughRider Hotel Theodore Roosevelt National Park
I haven’t written here lately because we went camping. For about three weeks. We went to the Pacific Northwest, seeking national parks and seafood. We found both. And we learned some things about camper trailers and “glamping.” Most importantly, camper trailers should be towed to a destination and parked for a few days. We spent too much time moving from …
This article appears in the July edition of Dakola Country magazine, which will be on the stands this week. I’m a camper. I started camping as a Boy Scout. My dad was scoutmaster for Troop 34 in Hettinger, N.D., and loved to take his Scouts to his favorite campsite, beside the Grand River just across the state line in South …
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. Yep. This one (above), put up just west of Mandan, N.D.,, en route to the Bad Lands, is the work of North Dakota’s Sierra Club organizer, Wayde Schafer. No more words needed.
(Reprinted from Dakota Country magazine, June 2021) Most years, the North Dakota Badlands, as I write this in early May, are changing color. As the ground warms, the winter’s snowmelt brings hints of green into the brown landscape of buffalo and crested wheat grass and little bluestem, and by the end of the month, as you’re reading this, the transition …
My spirit has been battered in this past year, like so many. I am blessed with a house and a garden and a loving family, yet life has kept me close to home and hearth with innumerable chores and obligations. My father died at the end of May and we buried him at the North Dakota Veterans Cemetery in July. …
If you agree that we should not throw up a bridge in the North Dakota Badlands within a few miles of Theodore Roosevelt’s Elkhorn Ranch Site, please write to Secretary Elaine Chou asap, and please share my letter to your network of friends. Talk about Last Best Places! The question we have to ask is — is absolutely everything for …
“(Commission chairman) Jim Arthaud and the Billings County commissioners have the fight of their lives ahead of them if they plan on using eminent domain to put a bridge across our land.” That was Sandy Short, wife of the late Con Short and daughter-in-law of former U.S. Congressman Don Short, in an interview with The Bismarck Tribune three years ago. …
“Milky Way Night In The Badlands,” that’s what Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner calls these images, taken from 11 p.m. to 3:30 a.m. one recent day in the North Dakota Badlands. He was fortunate to have no clouds in the sky with no wind and a clear cool night with no heat waves to get a nice view and these images …
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner titles this gallery of images “A River Runs Through It,” all taken at sunrise along the Little Missouri River in the North Dakota Badlands.
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner’s trip to the North Dakota Badlands this past week uncovered some landscapes, a train, snake and wild turkey.
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner was out in the North Dakota Badlands this past week for a few days hiking around taking photos and exploring different areas in Theodore Roosevelt National Park and other locations outside the park. Dave says these images looked best in the black-and-white format with all the structure and deep contrasts of the scene.
Grand Forks photographer did his part to keep up with social distancing last weekend, traveling to where the deer and the antelope play — Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the North Dakota Badlands. Not only did Russ capture images of those critters made famous in the song “Home on the Range,” he also managed to find a few other species …
January and February are a time when I turn to indoor chores and savor the fallow time of rest and restoration. I read books from the nearly toppling piles and I write. I shovel snow as needed and watch the winter birds from my office window while I write. This January and February have been anything but “normal,” whatever that …
It looks like Wylie Bice is going to have to write a check for $30,000 to the U.S. government and tuck away $100,000 in a bond bank somewhere as his penalty for building an illegal bridge on public land in the Bad Lands. (If you’re not familiar with this story, here’s the background.) Those are the numbers being floated around …
My family journeyed west earlier this week for a long-overdue wild Badlands day. Our first stop was to view the ongoing bison round-up at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The corrals were full of bison and from outside the fence, we watched the trailers being loaded, and we could hear the racket those massive beasts make when their bodies meet steel. …
When I was a boy growing up in southwest North Dakota, I used to tag along with my dad on his pheasant, grouse and deer hunting trips, mostly along the Cedar River in Adams and Grant counties. Dad was an optometrist in the small town of Hettinger, the county seat of Adams County, and many, if not most, of the …
Theodore Roosevelt National Park and environs around Medora in the North Dakota Badlands can offer some pretty spectacular viewing during the summer months, and these images from Grand Forks photographer Russ Hons provide the proof. (Check out more photos from Russ Hons here.)
I made a false start, but only by a couple of miles, doubled back to gather a few items, then drove south from Mandan, N.D. No destination in mind, but I reckoned I might get as far as Nebraska, certainly southern South Dakota. The great luxury of this sort of travel is that you don’t have to barrel through. I …
