November 15, 2001

Plains Folk: A North Dakota Travel Guide

Tom Isern, Professor of History
North Dakota State University

The problem with the travel guides published by the big producers of such books, like Fodor or Lonely Planet, is one of scale and audience. They describe whole countries or continents for mainstream readers. They do not descend to the level of detail needed by independent travelers of sparsely populated regions such as the plains.

A modest publisher of more specialized travel books, though–Side Roads, of Takoma Park, Maryland–has issued a wonderful new guide to western North Dakota. It’s called Borderlands of the Sky, and its author is Kidron Casey (pen name, so don’t look for it in the phone book), of Minot.

Borderlands of the Sky is obviously written by a resident, one who writes frankly and affectionately of her home country. "Severe winter storms bring modern-day traffic to a standstill," Casey admits, "and the delivery of essential services then becomes a real problem." That’s not exactly sugar-coating things for the genteel traveler. She speaks candidly of tensions between white and tribal communities. She says of small towns, "Today, there are clear winners and losers in the western North Dakota hometown survival movement, but there are also towns in transition with undetermined futures." That ambivalence is a pretty accurate reflection of regional attitude.

On the other hand, the affectionate side, she writes, "Small-town folks in North Dakota tend to be particularly trusting, often leaving their cars unlocked and engines running while shopping during the winter. . . . The small towns are not without their problems, but the sense of community is strong, and the desire to sustain that social environment guides many family and town decisions." That rings true, too. Casey’s book has credibility.

It also has plenty of local color that will make good armchair reading and serve independent travelers well on the road. Casey divides western North Dakota into a number of localities, some of them determined by an urban center (Minot, Bismarck), others by geography or culture ("Sakakawea Country," "The Land of Lawrence Welk," "The Far Southwest," and so on). Each locality gets a section that not only sketches in well-known attractions but also adds details not ordinarily considered points of interest.

In Dickinson, for instance, Casey guides visitors to the Dakota Dinosaur Museum, of course, but she also thinks travelers should experience sale day (Thursday) at the Stockman’s Livestock Exchange. In such judgments she is right on the money. Travelers today want to see real things.

Errors or misleading statements are almost nonexistent in Borderlands (the suggestion that prairie dogs were killed off by hunters being one). Small delights decorate page after page. Here are the stories of Berthold Imhoff, the itinerant artist who adorned churches of the northern plains with murals; of the Fairview Railroad Bridge, which local residents adapted to automotive use by laying planks between the rails; of the Paul Broste Rock Museum, that great monument to idiosyncratic obsession in Parshall; and of the Valley Inn Café, Carpio’s culinary co-op. Casey makes western North Dakota sound like a place you would want to explore and maybe even live.

She also writes with greater depth about larger regional issues. There is a sound section discussing the ecological importance of prairie potholes, for instance. The section on Lake Sakakawea not only outlines recreational opportunities but also relates the unhappy displacement of Indian and white residents by rising waters. The section on the Little Missouri National Grasslands does not shrink from the conflict over road building, petroleum exploration, cattle grazing, and environmental activism.

The book lacks a conclusion, which is a shame, because someone ought to say why such a book as Borderlands is important. So I’ll do that. This is not just a utilitarian reference for the driving public. It is an attitude adjuster for the thinking public. Kidron Casey’s book says that western North Dakota is a place invested with story and identity, not an empty landscape. Every part of the plains should be so fortunate as to be so treated.

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Source: Tom Isern, (701) 799-2941, tom@plainsfolk.com 
Editor: Gary Moran, (701) 231-7865, gmoran@ndsuext.nodak.edu 

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