It took me almost 60 years to return to Hawaii, but I finally can say I have. Home from a 31-day trip to Hawaii, California, New Mexico and Arizona, we’ve spent the better part of two days unpacking and catching up on mail. After four states, 10 flights, four rental cars and a whole bunch of hotel rooms, I don’t …
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.
Fort Collins, Co., photographer Jeff Olson recently spent some time traveling around Rocky Mountain National Park near Estes, Colo., with his wife, Joanne Plager Burke Olson. The 415-square-mile park spans the Continental Divide and encompasses protected mountains, forests and alpine tundra. It’s known for the Trail Ridge Road and the Old Fall River Road, drives that pass aspen trees and rivers. …
My monthly column in Dakota Country magazine is dedicated to conservation and the protection of our western North Dakota public lands, especially the Little Missouri National Grasslands and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I’ve been traveling this winter, and I’m going to share some thoughts on public lands and national parks this month. But first … In the January issue of …
My article on the Island Scrub Jay appeared in this Thursday morning’s Bismarck Tribune. Here is it below, with my photographs, including one of the Island Scrub Jay. There are much better photographs of the jay by professional photographs easily found in a simple Google search, so do check that out if you are interested. Having birded for decades, one …
Most people associate the Potomac River with Washington, D.C., but perhaps some other most spectacular scenery along that waterway is at Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historical Park in the District of Columbia and the states of Maryland and West Virginia. Photographer Jeff Olson recently spent some time in the national park, on the Maryland side of the Potomac. The park was …
The other day, our Steinbeck cultural tour made the journey from Monterey, Calif., to Pinnacles National Park. There is no clear and obvious Steinbeck connection, except that the National Park is part of the Gabilan Mountain system, and that range marked the eastern boundary of the Salinas River Valley, sacred to Steinbeck and the source location of several of his …
Alexandria, Va., photographer Jeff Olson recently took part in a tour of Yosemite National Park in California. Yosemite is located in the Sierra Nevada Mountains and is famed for its giant, ancient sequoia trees, and for Tunnel View, the iconic vista of towering Bridalveil Fall and the granite cliffs of El Capitan and Half Dome. Here are some of the images Jeff captured.
It’s not important whether you see a refinery stack from the highest point in Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s South Unit. What’s important is what comes out of that stack. Meridian Energy’s publicity stunt the other night, hoisting a weather balloon from the site of its proposed refinery just three miles from the park and proving that it couldn’t be seen from …