I got gout. Of all things, after a long winter in which I survived two spine surgeries to relieve pressure from a herniated disc on my sciatic nerve, I woke up one morning in early March with excruciating pain in the big toe on my left foot. My first thought was an ingrown toenail, so I went to my doctor …
The North Dakota State Water Commission has violated state law more than 600 times in recent years, by issuing permits for industrial use of water (read: fracking oil wells) from the Little Missouri State Scenic River. Employees there claim they didn’t know they weren’t supposed to do that. I believe them. But that’s no excuse. More on that in a …
Jason Halek wandered in and out of Bismarck on Wednesday. He wasn’t all that excited about being here, and I’m pretty sure he didn’t stick around to visit with old friends, instead likely heading back to Texas to sell some more used cars. For a couple more months. I wrote about Halek last month, after his lawyer negotiated a plea agreement …
I need to clarify a few things and bring you up to date on the ongoing saga of the proposed new bridge across the Little Missouri River north of Medora, N.D. The bridge is a project — if completed — could be an environmental disaster for the North Dakota Bad Lands. That’s why I keep writing about it. To review, …
When was the last time someone called you a dipshit? I swear, I hadn’t heard that word in 20 years, or maybe 30 or 40, until this week, when somebody called me that in a comment at the bottom of my blog. I remember it as a word we used back in the 1950s or ’60s, to describe someone we …
In the early 1990s, a group of 17 conservation organizations, as diverse as the National Wildlife Federation, the Bismarck-Mandan Bird Club, the North Dakota Wildlife Society and the Fargo-Moorhead Audubon Society, gathered under a symbolic big tent and produced a document outlining the dangers facing the North Dakota Bad Lands and offering a plan to protect some of North Dakota’s …
OK, at first it was just a sly hint, a trickle of wishfulness, but it’s become a pretty serious subject of open discussion now, both on social media and on the street: How long do you think Trump will last as president? Some say he’s going to commit an apparently impeachable offense, and Congress will go after him. If that’s …
In high school we called him “Slick.” He was handsome, swarthy, athletic, a bit of a rebel, with slicked back hair and cool clothes. He was Fonzie before Fonzie was invented. He didn’t seem to mind the nickname Slick back then, but after we all grew up and moved away and fought in wars and married and then came back …
A thousand trucks a day. That’s what Billings County Commission Chairman Jim Arthaud bragged to the Dickinson Press one day, a number of years ago, when he was asked how many vehicles would use a new bridge over the Little Missouri River north of Medora, N.D. A lot of water has flowed beneath that proposed bridge since 2012, the last …
The engineering firm drafting the Environmental Impact Statement for Billings County’s request to put a new bridge across the Little Missouri River north of Medora, N.D., has determined the best place to put the bridge is just 17 miles north of Medora, about a third of the way — as the crow flies — between the two current bridges near …
An apology to my readers. I was born with a weak spine. Literally but not figuratively — I hope. So, I’ve had these recurring back problems since I reached middle age. They’re usually fixable, but it takes some time, and I’m in one of those time periods right now. The doctors started working on it in early February, and they …
I think I’m just going to rerun this column from the Unheralded.Fish website from two years ago about this time of the year in every odd-numbered year from now on. Nothing seems to change. Why should I spend a bunch of time writing something new? Nobody seems to be paying any attention anyway. JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — …
A few of you might remember a big dust-up about five years ago over the State Land Board’s decision to offer, for lease, the right to drill for oil on the west side of one of southwest North Dakota’s major landmarks, Bullion Butte. The butte and some of the acreage around it are owned by the U.S. Forest Service, and the …
I’ve spent a lot of nights sleeping within spitting distance of the Little Missouri River. God willing, I’ll spend a lot more. I’m pretty sure I’ve slept there in every month on the calendar. Some nights — and some months — were better than others. I’ve slept there alone, I’ve slept there with canoeing buddies, I’ve slept there with wives, …
Today, for the 44th or 45th time (you do the math — I was an English major), Americans woke up with a different president than the one they awakened with the day before. I’ve lived during the terms of 13 of them, about a third, depending on who’s counting. I can actually remember 12 of them; I was 5 when Gen. …
Back in simpler times, when I worked with Tourism Director Joe Satrom in Bismarck, one of our main objectives for bringing tourist dollars into North Dakota was to persuade the media to write about North Dakota, that “large, rectangular blank spot in the nation’s mind,” as native Eric Sevareid memorably put it. To write about North Dakota, that is, without …
Note: This post has been updated from its original version because of some additional information provided to me by the North Dakota Health Department. Thanks to Inspector Bill Suess for that. Out in the Oil Patch, when a pipeline leaks, or a tank overflows, or a valve is accidentally left open, and something (mostly oil and toxic salt water) spills …
I’ve written a two-part series about winter camping at the Elkhorn Ranch Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park for Dakota Country magazine. Here’s the first part. The Elkhorn Ranch Unit of Theodore Roosevelt National Park is a tiny 218-acre island in a vast million acre sea of Bad Lands, broken prairies, scoria roads, cattle ranches and oil development. The fact that even …
I’d be lying if I said James W. Foley was one of my favorite poets. Hokey might be the best word to describe him (but kind of wonderfully hokey). Foley, North Dakota’s longtime Poet Laureate — way before current Laureate Larry Woiwode — has been dead 75 years now, but there’s a renewed interest in his work, as evidenced by a series …
UPDATE: On Sunday afternoon, not long after I had written this article, the Corps of Engineers announced it would not issue an easement for Energy Transfer Partners to drill on Corps land, effectively putting a stop to completion of the pipeline until a full Environmental Impact Statement is prepared, seeking the best route for the pipeline. The Tribe won this …
Setting aside protests for a while, let’s look at a planning effort that’s being done right. Here’s an article I wrote for this month’s Dakota Country magazine. Is it too much for North Dakota citizens to expect that they should be provided a reasonable forecast of the environmental effects of 20,000 to 50,000 oil wells on our western landscape? Hmm. …
The most consistent argument made by North Dakota regulators and the owners of the Dakota Access Pipeline against the protest actions of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and their allies is that the Tribe entered the pipeline approval process too late. They should have made their feelings known earlier in the process. In mid-November, just a couple of weeks ago, …
Note: I generally don’t re-post old articles because unlike things published in newspapers, blog posts don’t get used for fish cleaning, they just hang out in archives deep in the bowels of the Internet, accessible forever if you look hard enough. But it’s been 15 years and a day since the Thanksgiving I’m writing about below, so I though I’d …
What I can read into the Corps of Engineers’ announcement Monday on the Dakota Access Pipeline is that the project will not move forward as long as Barack Obama is Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Army. Well, good for him. Now then, it might be time for Standing Rock Tribal Chairman David Archambault II to send the Water Protectors/Protesters home. Today. And tomorrow. …
Here’s what I think of the election. We got all dressed up to go to the ball, and we ended up at a rodeo. Now, there’s nothing wrong with a good rodeo. A good rodeo can be very entertaining. There’s a bunch of guys and even a few gals out in the arena who don’t look like us, wearing some …
This year, as in most election years, I found a stack of notes to myself on my desk about things I thought I might write a blog about, but never got around to it because pheasant season opened, or the fish started biting, or the ducks were migrating, or Lillian’s “Things to Do In The Fall” list got a bit …
“All the Republicans are going to win.” “All the ballot measures are going to lose.” No, that’s not my election prediction for 2016 (although it’s pretty close). Those were my election predictions on my blog for 2014, written two years ago this week, just before the 2014 election. (You can go back and look at them here and here, if you want to.) …
A couple of months ago, I wrote about the new oil refinery proposed by Meridian Energy Group, to be built just east of Medora, N.D., within three miles of Theodore Roosevelt National Park. I wanted to wait with a follow-up until Meridian had actually submitted an application for an air quality permit, detailing what kind of steps the company was going to …
Pipelines leak. If North Dakota didn’t have such an awful reputation for not enforcing its environmental regulations in the Oil Patch, maybe we wouldn’t have a few thousand people camped out along the Cannonball River protesting the mother of all North Dakota pipelines, Dakota Access. Pipelines have been leaking oil and dangerous fracking saltwater all over western North Dakota for …
Last year, when I was getting ready for my 50-year class reunion of the 1965 graduating class from Hettinger (N.D.) High School, I dug through boxes of keepsakes downstairs and found my senior class yearbook. It was actually an expanded edition of the Hettinger Hi-Lites, our high school newspaper, but it was the same format as a yearbook, slick paper …
There was a discussion at my table Saturday night about whether Indians in North Dakota have gained or lost respect as a result of the Dakota Access Pipeline controversy. There was no consensus. But what I do know is that important voices are rising in support of Tribal actions (although not so much in support of Tribal agitators), and there is …
America’s best journalist — ever — Seymour Hersh, and North Dakota’s best journalist — ever — Mike Jacobs, will share a stage with the publisher and editor of America’s first “national newspaper” — Ben Franklin — at the North Dakota Humanities Council’s “GameChanger Ideas Festival” on Saturday in Bismarck. It may be the most distinguished panel of writers gathered anywhere in …
I’ve tried to follow the events at Standing Rock pretty closely, and I’ve written about it a few times. Let me repeat what I said earlier: I think we need to build this pipeline because it is the safest way to move our oil, and it is the only pipeline project on the table right now. Do I wish we …
Today I am 69. It is a meaningless birthday, in a world and time when numbers that don’t end in zero or five are of little consequence. But it is significant in that I am still here. Males in my family don’t generally live this long. I kind of wish I had planned a little better. But I am grateful to still …
Note: This story has been updated since it was originally posted Friday evening. Late Friday, North Dakota’s governor, Jack Dalrymple, declared that a state of emergency existed in south-central North Dakota, due to a large gathering, in temporary campgrounds, of opponents of the placement of the Dakota Access Pipeline under the Missouri River on the edge of the Standing Rock …
Here’s how Darrell Dorgan described the events on North Dakota Highway 1806 south of Mandan this afternoon: “One hundred and forty years ago, the Sioux took down Custer and the 7th Cavalry. Today, the Sioux took down the North Dakota Highway Patrol. But this time, the Highway Patrol was smart enough to get the hell out of there before anybody got killed. …
(NOTE: I started writing this story back in March, when I learned about former U.S. Senate candidate Duane Sand’s lawsuit against Job Service North Dakota. I finished writing about that lawsuit then — and posted the story — but never finished the financial end of the story of Duane’s campaign. Well, here it is. It’s pretty long, and I was going …
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 …
Dear Readers: I first wrote of James Henrikson in January 2014, not long after the murder for hire of Doug Carlile, a crime for which he was recently sentenced to life in prison. I summarized the entire 2½ years in an article for Dakota Country magazine, which should be in the mail and in stores today. For those of you …
By most measures, Dick Dobson should be about 150 years old. He’s got some hard miles on him, but at 81, he’s still got his memory and his health, and at that age, you can’t ask for much more. For those of you who don’t remember him, Dobson is the former editor and publisher of the Minot Daily News, and …
WTF? Nobody — not me, not you, not Doug Burgum — could have predicted that outcome. Some predicted a Burgum win. Not me, although I had this nagging feeling every time I saw Ed Schafer on TV that maybe, just maybe, it could happen. But too many times I have predicted an election outcome because I wanted that outcome, not because I …
Well, high praise from Pat Finken on Monday, in the form of an email from the Brighter Future Fund. Finken’s superpac, Brighter Future Fund (yeah, right) is a big supporter of Wayne Stenehjem. Finked created his superpac in 2012 with money from the North Dakota Republican Party and a bunch of big GOP donors like Jim Roers, Steve Scheel and Jim Arthaud …
It was late afternoon on an dreary late October day in 1990. I was stopped at the Fifth Street railroad crossing in downtown Bismarck, waiting for a train to go by on the tracks in front of me. I looked to my left and there, in the car beside me, was Ed Schafer. He spotted me about the same time. He …
This will be the shortest blog post I’ve ever written. (Cheering, clapping of hands!) So short you can probably read it at a stoplight on your way to work (but don’t comment — that would be illegal). Today is Tuesday, June 7, 2016, the day North Dakota Democrats will hold their presidential preference caucuses. I’ve already written about that here, back …