LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Red Oak House Garden Notes And Badlands Wanderings 2024
TR Birthday Shenanigans: I Wander the Northern Badlands Solo
Unheralded
Unheralded
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — The Bridge That Should’ve Come Down
This is a story of a tragic, ironic, almost unbelievable twist of fate. Some of you remember I wrote a series of stories, beginning in July 2017, about an illegal bridge across the Little Missouri State Scenic River west of the Killdeer Mountains, built by a fellow named Wylie Bice, a wealthy rancher with his pockets full of oil boom …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Does The Governor’s Office Have A “Slush Fund?” Well, Not Really …
When residents of Billings County in western North Dakota, home to the Bad Lands and Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Medora, head to their mailboxes sometime this week or next, they’re going to find a letter from their county commissioners. That’s unusual. About the only time county government sends you a letter is with your property tax bill. But this …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — A Big Day In The Bad Lands
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 …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Summer Solstice in the Badlands (& Elsewhere)
Spent a lot of years in a classroom or office, sometimes with no window. Have attempted to spend as much of the Summer Solstice outdoors. Here’s to more trips around the sun!
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Badlands Expedition, June 9-11, 2023
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. …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — 23 Crossings
As you’ve driven down Interstate 94 to Medora, N.D., for the past dozen or so years, you’ve seen a couple of yellow signs just inside the park boundary fence a few miles east of Medora that say, “Land for Sale.” Until I found out the story behind them, they gave me some pause. Hmmm. The park is selling off part …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — $20,000 An Acre!
At about 9:15 Tuesday morning, in the Billings County Courthouse in Medora, N.D., Billings County commissioners voted to go into executive session and told the general public attending the meeting to leave the room. Well, two of the three commissioners — Steve Klym and Lester Iverson — voted to do that. A third, Dean Rodne, voted against the motion to …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — How About A Job In The Bad Lands?
Do you know some young person just starting or just ready to start a professional career in North Dakota? Someone who’s a good communicator — maybe a journalism degree) — and is interested in the outdoors (especially North Dakota’s Bad Lands)? Well, I’ve got an idea for them. I’ve been a member of an organization for more than 20 years …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Here We Go Again; The ‘Bridge To Nowhere’ Is Back
Elections, as they say, have consequences. What’s been going on in Billings County, North Dakota, elections has been pretty consequential. Billings County is an important place. It’s home to the Bad Lands, Medora and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. And the Little Missouri State Scenic River. More about elections in a minute. You’ve been reading here for more than 10 years …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Signing Off
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 …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Kendley Plateau: ‘The Heart of the Badlands’
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 …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Twin Buttes: Wilderness And Maybe A Few Sharptails
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 …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Attorneys General — Good Guys And Bad Guys
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 …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Bad Lands Updates: Drew Wrigley, Meridian Energy Group, Land For Sale
Drew Wrigley: Case Closed As I write this Friday, it has been exactly 10 years and 27 days since four western North Dakota counties — Billings, Slope, McKenzie and Golden Valley — filed a lawsuit to try to get access to section line roads inside four parcels of land being protected by the U.S. Forest Service, the federal agency that …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — An Explosion Of Scoria Lilies In The Badlands: Rain Makes All The Difference
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.
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — A Victory For The Bad Lands
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 …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Bullion Butte Badlands Conservation Alliance Hike
May 28, 2022 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/-Fiuq4xEDPI
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Bullion Butte: The Mother Ship
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 …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Another Not-So-Little Win For The Bad Lands
I’m sitting in my office on a clear, crisp, Saturday morning (I know it’s clear because the sun is shining in my eyes through my office window, and I know it’s cold because I went out looking for three or four days’ issues of the Bismarck Tribune in the snow, to no avail) reading a 17-page decision handed down by …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — The Little Missouri Bridge: Let The People Decide?
The folks out in Billings County in the North Dakota Bad Lands might get a chance to vote this fall on whether they want their county commissioners to use their power of eminent domain to condemn some of their neighbor’s land to build a bridge over the Little Missouri State Scenic River and roads connecting it to state highways. Or …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — The Landscape Endures (The Photo Location, Final Clue)
The rock shown in my photo is no longer there but the landscape endures.
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — America The Beautiful
“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 …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Scoria Point Overlook
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!
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Five Years Ago
Five years ago today, I took this picture with a cell phone. Any guesses as to the location?
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — Vernal Equinox Road Trip To Western North Dakota Counties: A Visual Essay
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 …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Big News For The Bad Lands
(This article first appeared in the February-March issue of Dakota Country magazine, which should be on the newstands now.) I’d like you to take five minutes to read about two nonprofit organizations that are doing important work for the North Dakota Bad Lands. Hey, it’s February. It’s cold outside. Get a cup of coffee and sit down. The two organizations …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Keeping Track Of Bridges And Refineries
A short update on a couple of things that I have written about recently. MERIDIAN ENERGY As I reported here earlier this summer, Meridian Energy Group’s Permit to Construct the Davis Refinery just three miles from Theodore Roosevelt National Park expired in June, three years after it was first issued by the North Dakota Department of Health (now the North …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Sometimes You Have To Go Camping To Get Good News
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 …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Camping 101, With Diversions
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 …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Thank You, Sierra Club
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.
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — It’s Going To Be A Long, Hot Summer In The Badlands
(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 …
LILLIAN CROOK: WildDakotaWoman — The Crooked Little Missouri River And Its Headwaters
The crooked Little Missouri River is in my bloodstream, deeply embedded in my psyche. I grew up working and playing on its banks in Slope County, North Dakota, and have canoed and kayaked almost every North Dakota mile of the river countless times, and frequently written about my explorations on my blog. My favorite stretches of the river are in …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Two More Bad Guys Going After Our Public Lands: Stenehjem And Hoeven
On Thursday, I wrote about the jerk who runs the Bureau of Land Management and his attack on the public land he “manages,” land he would like to turn over to the energy industry before he leaves office in January. Today, I want to talk about the other federal agency so important to North Dakota, the U.S. Forest Service, which …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Public Lands Under Attack In Trump’s Final Days
In their agony, deep in the death throes of the Trump administration, America’s public lands managers are scrambling to put their final stamp on the worst conservation, environmental and public lands record in our country’s history. At risk are millions of acres of wildlife habitat and pristine recreational areas across America’s West, including the last remaining undeveloped roadless areas in …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — A Tale Of Two Bridges (Continued)
I wrote in a recent edition of Dakota Country magazine about the continuing saga of a pair of bridges — one built, the other proposed — over the Little Missouri State Scenic River, part of the ongoing effort of politicians and captains of industry to industrialize the state’s only officially designated scenic river. It seems like there’s no end to …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — U.S. DOT To Billings County: Go Find Money For Your Bridge Somewhere Else
Score one for the Little Missouri State Scenic River. When U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao announced the recipients of a billion dollars worth of discretionary grants for infrastructure projects all over the United States this morning, including one in North Dakota, a $12.3 million grant to build a new bridge over the Little Missouri wasn’t among them. That’s the best …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Refinery Company’s Employees Sue For $600,000 In Unpaid Wages
A group of seven former and current (but likely to soon be former) employees of Meridian Energy Group, the California company that wants to build an oil refinery next to Theodore Roosevelt National Park in the North Dakota Bad Lands, has filed a lawsuit against Meridian seeking to recover more than $600,000 in unpaid wages, salaries and bonuses. The lawsuit …
CLAY JENKINSON: Future In Context — Is Absolutely Everything For Sale?
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 …
JIM FUGLIE: View From The Prairie — Quick Takes, Fast Tracks And The Destruction Of A Historic Ranch And A State Scenic River
“(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. …
DAVE BRUNER: Photo Gallery — Badlands Trip Series No. 4
“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 …
DAVE BRUNER: Photo Gallery — Badlands Trip Series No. 3
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.
DAVE BRUNER: Photo Gallery — Badlands Trip Series No. 2
Grand Forks photographer Dave Bruner’s trip to the North Dakota Badlands this past week uncovered some landscapes, a train, snake and wild turkey.