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January 20, 2001 The Spaces in BetweenNorth Dakota and the Lonetree Wildlife Management Area
Harvey...Turtle Lake...Anamoose...Four Bears...Minot...Medora...McClusky... Where has Fermata been lately? Our 2001 travel schedule has paralleled the pattern set in 2000. Burlington (Vermont), Great Bend (Kansas) and Ridgeway (Pennsylvania) have (or will be) attended. Two of us are spending the latter half of January examining sites in the Texas High Plains, laboring on another installment of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department’s Great Texas Wildlife Trails. For a bonus we are throwing in four days in South Texas, hosting the winner of the Texas Birding Bonanza. Fermata has cornered the market on frequent flier miles, if we only had the time to use them. But we should return to the gazetteer that began this essay. Harvey...Turtle Lake...Anamoose...Four Bears...Minot...Medora...McClusky... The state? North Dakota, poster state for The Spaces in Between. Fermata has been engaged by the Garrison Diversion Conservancy District (Garrison) to develop a nature tourism strategy for the Lonetree Wildlife Management Area (Lonetree). Our partners in this effort are the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation (Bureau) and the North Dakota Game and Fish Department (State). The State manages Lonetree, and the Bureau and Garrison provide guidance and funding.
Once envisioned as a major reservoir in the Garrison Diversion system, Lonetree has been deauthorized by the Dakota Water Resources Act of 2000. Lonetree skirts the Missouri Coteau, and encompasses the headwaters of the Sheyenne River. Prairie potholes, seasonal wetlands and tall/mid-grass prairie dominate the 30,000 acres within the WMA. Lonetree is a wildlife viewers dream, and our intention is to capture that dream and transform ethereal vapors into a tangible nature tourism strategy. Hence our most recent trip to North Dakota. During the second week of January we worked from "kin to kain’t" (if you are not from Texas, a rough translation is to work from the time you "kin" see to the time you "kain’t) visiting with a medley of interests and representatives around the state. Public meetings were held in Harvey, Turtle Lake, McClusky and Anamoose. Accompanied by Maria Effertz-Hanson (who gamely sat though every Fermata presentation, and still laughed at our lame jokes), Dick McCabe and Warren Jamison of Garrison, we met with Bob Harms of Governor Hoeven’s staff, Department of Tourism Director Allan Stenehjem and Department of Economic Development and Finance Chief Operating Officer Linda Butts. Presentations included Marketplace (in Bismarck), Minot (at the Scandanavian Center), Four Bears (with representatives of the Three Affiliated Tribes) and the North Dakota Wildlife Federation. Between meetings and presentations we continued our exploration of North Dakota. How little most Americans know about this astonishing state! How little we knew when we began our wanderings there. For strategic planners, this offers both risk and reward. The risk relates to the absence of an image or concept of North Dakota as a tourism destination. North Dakota has heavily invested in promoting the Lewis and Clark Bicentennial, and certainly that will help in revealing North Dakota as a nature tourism destination (after all, the Corps of Discovery spent much of its time collecting and cataloguing the flora and fauna of the West). Will this be enough to elevate North Dakota in the eyes of U.S. travelers? We doubt it. First, other states are developing their own Lewis and Clark activities and facilities. North Dakota is not alone in having hosted these explorers (although we will note that they spent more time in North Dakota than in any of the other states along the route). Competition will be keen among the states for attracting Lewis and Clark aficionados. We also wonder if the states will be able to sustain the level of interest over the three-year celebration. Will travelers finally grow weary of Lewis and Clark festivals, welcome centers and sweatshirts? Finally, what will follow? Centenary celebrations have a finite life span. For example, what remains of the U.S. Bicentennial celebration of 1976 other than a few painted fire hydrants? The challenge for North Dakota will be to use the Lewis and Clark celebration to introduce travelers to the state, and ensure that they are exposed to the state’s natural and cultural riches. North Dakota must give travelers a reason to return. History is static and moribund unless enlivened. Nature is innately dynamic, shifting and mutating with every season, every day, every moment. Lewis and Clark come alive through nature, through an intimate interaction with the same plants and animals that the explorers first described to Thomas Jefferson and his fellow Americans clustered along the Eastern Seaboard. Today a traveler can hike along the Little Missouri River and experience an America little changed from the early 1800s. Even Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara culture thrives (albeit grossly altered from that experienced by the expedition as they wintered in Fort Mandan) in New Town and the Fort Berthold Reservation. The America of Lewis and Clark may still be found in North Dakota, including a Native American society that is impressive in its diversity as well as its progressive approach to the future. Keith Bear lives on the Fort Berthold Reservation, and we were honored to visit him during our meeting with the Three Affiliated Tribes. Keith is a Native American flutist, and he graciously gifted us with two of his CDs. Nature is woven throughout his music, and often he plays over a backdrop of Lark Buntings, Western Meadowlarks and the rustle of a summer breeze through cottonwood leaves. For Keith the relationship between man and nature is direct and unassuming, and is accepted as a simple fact, not an affectation. This relationship between man and nature is still apparent in North Dakota, barely hidden by the veneer of the modern world. One small scrape at the surface and nature is again revealed. North Dakota still holds what most of us have lost. We will continue with our thoughts on North Dakota in the next installment. Trip du Jour, January 20, 2000
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