Glaze 2014 Summer Job: Prairie Potholes, Pelicans, and People

5/13/14

We woke up to clear skies, but the wind was still blowing and the temperature outside was 30 degrees with the wind chill factor. We saw a farmer on the news bemoaning the wet fields. He said that they are very late planting their crops this year and that the land must be totally dry for three days before they can sow the seeds. He said if it doesn’t dry up soon, they will be forced to plant different crops and will need to work around the clock.

We left Fargo at 7:30 a.m. and headed west on I-94. After traveling about an hour, the land turned into rolling hills and we started seeing lots of ponds. We saw what looked like a flock of white pelicans floating on one of the ponds and decided we had lost our minds. Are there white pelicans and why are they in North Dakota? It turns out we were not seeing things. The ponds are called Prairie Potholes and are in an area of the northern Great Plains that contains thousands of these shallow wetlands. The potholes are the result of glacier activity which ended approximately 10,000 years ago. The depressions fill with water in the spring, creating wetlands which range in duration from temporary to semi-permanent. The potholes are an important habitat for migratory waterfowl and other wildlife, supporting more than 50% of North America’s migratory waterfowl including the white pelican. The white pelican can measure six feet from bill to tail, weighs up to twenty pounds, and has a wingspan of up to nine and a half feet long. They migrate to the Gulf Coast of Louisiana and Mississippi for the winter.

The land was dotted with wind farms and at Dickinson, ND we started seeing oil wells. Just past Dickinson, we stopped in South Heart, ND to visit our nephew, Austin Glaze. Austin’s step father is a truck driver in the oil industry, and Austin and his sister moved in with him this past New Year’s Eve in the middle of a very cold winter. The kids have lived in Florida all their lives, so the cold was a shock to their systems. They live in a very nice duplex in a new neighborhood that it still teaming with construction. Matt (Austin’s dad) decided to rent the duplex at $3000 per month instead of the house across the street that was renting for $5000 per month. Julie (Austin’s sister) in in tenth grade at the local South Heart School which has about 300 students from grades K-12. You can see the school from their house.

Matt was off from work today but had gone to run some errands, so we took Austin to lunch at the only restaurant in town. We had to unload some suitcases at the house, and then Cindy crawled in the back and Austin squeezed himself into the front seat of the Mustang. Thank goodness we only had to drive a few blocks. When we returned to the house, Matt was back and we visited with him for a while. He told us that the oil companies have been issued 500 permits to drill new wells in the area. They can drill one well in about 45 days at a cost of approximately ten million dollars, and it takes three years to pay for itself. They are also building a new refinery in nearby Dickinson. (When driving through Dickinson, we saw several brand new extended stay hotels advertising vacancies for $600 per week.) Austin has been applying for jobs in the oil industry and hopes he will get hired soon. Meanwhile, he is supposed to start work soon at a small grocery store in Dickinson.

After a nice visit, we left Austin’s house about 2:00 p.m. and continued west on I-94. We stopped at a rest stop in the Theodore Roosevelt National Park at the edge of the Badlands. Theodore Roosevelt first visited the Badlands in 1883 and became alarmed by the damage that was being done to the land and its wildlife. When he became Present in 1901, he pursued his interest in natural history by establishing the U.S. Forest Service, proclaimed 18 national monuments, established five national parks and 51 wildlife refuges. Roosevelt was later honored with this national park that honors the memory of him as a great conservationist. We walked out to the Painted Canyon overlook and saw a panorama of broken topography in its colorful hues. We also saw a small herd of bison and poopy evidence of their presence all around the visitor’s center.

We arrived in Miles City, Montana at about 4:45 p.m. and called it quits for the day.