Palaces on the Prairie takes you on a journey through the past to experience the hope, struggle, victory and sometimes defeat of Midwestern communities - large and small - as they fought to survive the difficult times during the late 1800s and early 1900s. After being promised paradise, many settlers were surprised to find their situation so difficult, but eventually they realized that perhaps railroad officials and land agents had fibbed a bit about the waiting Garden of Eden. By that time, of course, there was nothing to do but turn the liars into prophets One of the fascinating ways community leaders went about that daunting task was to construct palaces - some gigantic, others more modest - decorated with the grains or minerals that would best promote the businesses and products of their region. This book tells the story behind 34 of those palaces built in 24 towns and cities throughout North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Missouri, and Texas. Some were short-lived while others stood for years, but all provided excitement and a sense of accomplishment for those involved.

Palaces on the Prairie

Rod Evans

North Dakota State University Press

In the early evening of Thursday, June 20, 1957, a tornado struck the city of Fargo, ND. When it was done, ten people lay dead (three more would later die from their injuries), a city was devastated and countless lives would never be the same again. In this evocative and moving elegy of the storm and it's victims, Parlsey, and Associate Poet Laureate of North Dakota, weaves a heartbreaking story of loss, poverty, pain, faith, and ultimately, renewal, and gives voice to those victims who, before now, were unable to speak for themselves. This is the story of the resilience and fortitude of the people who survived the storm and those who did not.

Fargo, 1957

Literature & Fiction

Jamie Parsley

Poetry

Two of North Dakota's most avid hikers, Susan Wefald and her dog Sandy, share their notes on 50 of North Dakota's best day hikes. Armchair and seasoned hikers alike will enjoy exploring North Dakota's diverse landscape with Susan and Sandy. Learn the locations of spectacular vistas. Try one of Susan's picnic lunches. Expand neighborhood strolls into the great outdoors. Bring your dog! Contents 1. Missouri River 2. Turtle Mountains 3. Sheyenne River Valley 4. Little Missouri River Badlands 5. Prairie Rivers of the Northeast 6. Lake Sakakawea 7. Confluence of the Missouri & Yellowstone Rivers 8. National Wildlife Refuges and Other Scenic Locations Susan Wefald states, "In each hike description I've included local history, information on the natural environment and practical trail advice. Maps and directions to trailheads are provided for all spectacular hikes. Information on the lengths and elevation change of trails will help you decide whether or not a particular hike is the right one for you. All the hikes in this book can be completed in one day - many in an hour or so. Motorized vehicles are forbidden on all but one of these trails."

Spectacular North Dakota Hikes: Bring the Dog

Sports & Outdoors

Susan Wefald

Hiking & Camping

At age 95, Federal Judge Myron Bright looks back on a life that leaves a legacy of not only fighting for justice, but advocating, often as a lone voice, against injustice. His legal and judicial work has been highlighted by his compassion for individuals who have been treated unfairly. His personal stories begin with growing up in a northern Minnesota ethnic melting pot. Myron Bright continues to serve on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, which has ruled on cases that touch some of the most significant issues in American history. Judge Bright has provided the heart for many of those rulings through is influence on the opinion-making process and speaking out with oral and written dissent.

Goodbye Mike, Hello Judge: My Journey for Justice

History

Myron H. Bright

Americas

The scope of the poets in this collection is as broad as the landscape itself, including work by Heid E. Erdrich, Mark Vinz, Debra Marquart, Ed Bok Lee, Tim Murphy, and North Dakota's Poet Laureate, Larry Woiwode.
Some are poets descended from indigenous inhabitants of the High Plains. Others are descendants of thos who immigrated here from Germany, Russia, or the Scandinavian countries in the nineteenth century, or more recently from other parts of the country and world. They write about the historical struggles of settlement and assimilation, and more contemporary versions of those struggles in the Bakken oil patch in the western part of the state. Some write about North Dakota from the rural settings they have known and loved for a lifetime, others from the distant vantages of nostalgia or escape, and still others from the point of view of transplants coming to terms with their new home. The poets here include seasoned and emerging voices, women and men, old and young, those from the ranching and oil-flared badlands west of the Missouri, and from the flood-prone river valley farmlands of the east.
The poems in this book ache for home. They ache to be at home. In reflecting those who ache in this great expanse, these poems are about what connects us together as humans, poems that sing to each other across lines and pages and space, demonstrating that, as poet Thomas McGrath asserts in his Letter to an Imaginary Friend, North Dakota is everywhere.

North Dakota is Everywhere: An Anthology of Contemporary North Dakota Poets

Rhoda Janzen

Aaron Poochigian

Tim Murphy

Robert King

Madelyne Camrud

Debra Marquart

Mark Vinz

Richard, Watson

Ed Bok Lee

Larry Woiwode

Heidi Czerwiec

Heid E. Erdrich

Dale Jacobson

Denise Lajimodiere

Lisa Linrud-Marcis

David R. Solheim

North Dakota's Geologic Legacy is a finalist in the Nature category for the 2016 Midwest Book Awards. North Dakota's Geologic Legacy is the story of the landscape why it looks like it does and how it formed. The book is designed for the physical and the armchair traveler. Most of the features portrayed can be seen from the road. The shape of the land, the geologic materials, the processes that shaped them, the length of time involved in their formation all of these comprise a fascinating puzzle. North Dakota has a split geologic personality: rugged, erosional badlands and buttes in the southwest, formed during tens of millions of years, juxtaposed with a much younger, rolling landscape shaped by glaciers to the east and north. Separating the two styles of geology is the Missouri River, itself unsure of its own geology, a combination of the young, the very old, and time in between. Geology's influence transcends the mere appearance of the land. It once helped people settling the state decide where to live. Now, early in the 21st century, geology s challenge is to help us wisely develop our vast mineral and energy resources and deal with climate change and other environmental issues. More than 150 full color photographs, maps, and charts Contents 
Foreword 
Preface 
Introduction 
Ch. 1: Geologic Origins of North Dakota s Landforms 
Ch. 2: The Missouri Plateau 
Ch. 3: The Missouri River Valley 
Ch. 4: The Glaciated Plains and the Missouri Coteau 
Ch. 5: Other Geologic Features 
Ch. 6: The Devils Lake Basin 
Ch. 7: The Red River Valley 
Ch. 8: the Effect of Geology on the Human Environment 
Ch. 9: North Dakota s Energy Resources 
Epilogue 
Acknowledgements 
Appendix A: Ice Age Chronology 
Appendix B: Glossary 
Notes 
Sources and Recommended Reading 
Compilation of Pertinent Resources 
Index

North Dakota's Geologic Legacy

Science & Math

John P. Bluemle

Earth Sciences

Ryan Christiansen's tale of a twelve-year-old who answers an ad saying, 'Boy Wanted,' takes the reader to the disturbed depths of the abandoned and vulnerable, those immobilized by the fear that their own behavior is what made a predator behave badly.  When Alvi's father, a failed auctioneer in Red River, North Dakota, becomes tangled up in bootlegging and leaves town during the Great Depression, Alvi and his mother find themselves in dire straits. Hiring himself out for work, Alvi helps an old man build a ski jump along the river. Alvi learns about his Norwegian antecedents and ski jumps and the young girl, Rose, and other things less welcomed.

Boy Wanted

Ryan Christiansen

Literary

Over the course of two summers, five young friends traversed North Dakota by foot, starting at the Montana border near Beach and finishing in Fargo. Their more-than-400-mile trek is an exploration of backroads, small towns, wildlife, and terrain, a deliberately unhasty quest in search of what it means to be from North Dakota.

The Walk Across North Dakota

Travel

Jeremy Bold

Tyler Bold

Gwendolyn Hoberg

Richard Hoberg

Bruce Ringstrom

Specialty Travel

A Moment with Strangers embraces the brief encounter, sometimes with other people, sometimes with landscape, weather, or history. W. Scott Olsen's collection of travel essays and photos represents moments in North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, New Zealand, France, and more. W. Scott Olsen is infuriatingly gifted. He traverses the world with the 0sensibility that we all wish we had: patient, alert, funny, and awed by genuine splendor, vast and small. His pictures and their stories are poetry without pretense. This is a book to savor. Evan Osnos, author of Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China, winner of the National Book Award Olsen is not a great photographer, but A Moment with Strangers is filled with wonderful pictures, illuminated by the writer s infectious curiosity. He ferrets out the secrets of cameras and clouds, gets cursed by the con artists of Paris, finds mortality in the Gallery of Clocks and Watches in the British Museum, and takes us to Paradise. There is not much more you can ask of a companion on a mid-life journey. Except maybe a motorcycle. Neal Conan, now a news analyst for Hawaii Public Radio, former senior host of NPR's Talk of the Nation A Moment with Strangers is a sweet, simple idea brilliantly realized. Like me, you may find yourself glancing through this book long after you thought you 'finished' it. Tim Cahill, author of Jaguars Ripped My Flesh and Hold the Enlightenment Like the combination of prose and haiku in Basho s haibun, Olsen's essays blend urgent, observant prose with thoughtful, reflective photographs. The photographs never merely illustrate the essays; the essays never merely explain the images; sometimes essays are entirely composed of photos. Throughout the book, words and images are equally essential, equally engaging . . . As [Olsen] wrestles to understand what s before his eyes, we readers absorb his compulsion and feel the urge to look more closely, more intently at whatever we see, wherever we are. We come away inclined to more fully inhabit moments with strangers. Robert Root, author of Happenstance and Postscripts: Retrospections on Time and Place In this admirable collection of essays and photographs, Olsen addresses the question central to most good literature how do we live, how do we respond to the things that matter to us? Whether tracking a storm or blizzard in the Midwest, watching a group of kite fliers in India, or eating at a wonderful diner in Montana after fighting fires there, Olsen follows the path of intense curiosity to moments of illumination and wonder. This book has something to teach us all. Doug Whynott, author of The Sugar Season and A Unit of Water, A Unit of Time. Contents 1. Prologue: A Moment s Dance 2. Chasing Clouds 3. A Day in Paradise 4. Such Hope 5. Nine Variations on the Idea of Street Music 6. The Band 7. Whales, Trains, and Tea 8. India Air 9. Shutter Speed 10. Chasing Fire 11. Grace 12. What Hope 13. Notes toward a Philosophy of Breakfast 14. Late-Night Thoughts on the Wanting of a Motorcycle 15. Crossing Dakota: A Road-Trip Photo-Essay 16. To Catch a Blizzard 17. Dancing with Thieves 18. L Espérance 19. Postcard to Jules Verne 20. Pas de Deux 21. On Seeing Greenland 22. Epilogue: The Chase, Once More

A Moment with Strangers

W. Scott Olsen

Prairie Mosaic: An Ethnic Atlas of Rural North Dakota, 2nd Edition, is a reprint of our classic 1983 edition with an added twenty-page photo gallery and a new introduction by University Distinguished Professor Thomas D. Isern.

Prairie Mosaic: An Ethnic Atlas of Rural North Dakota

Thomas D. Isern

William C. Sherman

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