Do you know what they say about trees in North Dakota?
No. What?
If you've seen one, you've seen 'em both!
I spent the first 26 years of my life in North Dakota and enjoyed most of my time there. I worked hard, played hard and never thought too much about trees until I started traveling. When I mentioned I was from ND, folks would eventually ask about how flat it was and if we had any trees. I assured them that yes we had trees, quite a few trees, and some quite large old cottonwood trees too.
I remember one trip where I was traveling with a group of elderly Minnesotans to a site in western ND. Our tour bus made a stop at a scenic rest area and museum between Bismarck and Minot.
This was one of MANY bathroom breaks this bus had to make. What would normally be a 7 hour trip, turned into a 12 hour odyssey across the prairie. This is because apparently the "Greatest Generation" I was traveling with simply could not use the restroom in the tour bus. This is the same generation that sacrificed so much for their country during the war effort. They survived the Great Depression and then built this country back up to greatness. They worked incredibly hard and sacrificed so much to make sure their families would have a better future. Yet I'm sure they all used an outhouse or other outdoor toilet at some point in their lives. They probably even used pages from a Sears catalog or a corn husk to wipe with! But they simply refused to use the clean, sanitary restroom on the tour bus. Instead, they preferred to stop the bus every 60 miles or so to use a public restroom. AARGH!!! Oh! Sorry. Back to the trees...
During our lovely stop in North Dakota, I noticed several of the men gathered around an old dugout canoe that the Native Americans had made. And next to it was a giant cottonwood log. I remember how amazed they were at the size of the log and how they had never seen a tree that big in Minnesota. I thought to myself, "Exactly, that's because Paul Bunyan and Babe took care of them years ago!"
Long Lake, Turtle Mountains, North Dakota
(Photo by J. Bluemle)
While we're on the subject of logging, let me tell you about my visit with a logging company in northern Minnesota in about 2001. The owner and I were chatting about the logging industry and business in general when I asked him where his crews were working this season. He said North Dakota. Yes, NORTH DAKOTA! Apparently he was able to get a great deal on standing timber in the Turtle Mountains (Yes, MOUNTAINS) of ND. He was able to send his crews to ND, harvest high quality logs and ship them back to Minnesota's paper mills cheaper than harvesting lumber in northern MN.
So what did you learn about North Dakota today? Well, it has trees! Granted, throughout most of the state the trees are located in shelter belts*. But there are areas of forest in the north central part of the state and large numbers of trees along most river valleys.
*Shelter belts are rows of trees planted around farmsteads and at the edges of fields to protect farms, stop soil erosion caused by the wind and to collect snow in the winter for improved soil moisture in the spring.
