The Official Newspaper for Foster County
The Official Newspaper for Foster County
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Everyone who is aware of North Dakota’s history knows that Pembina is a unique community for several reasons. Most notably, it was the first place in our state that was settled and that was in 1797. It wasn’t part of the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, but was, at that time, a part of Canada called Prince Rupert’s Land. A fur trading company called the North West Company set up a fort on the north side of the confluence of the Red and Pembina Rivers and that today is the community of Pembina. If yo...
For the first time in the past three years, the Canadian Pacific Railway’s actual Holiday Train is returning to the steel rail across the U.S. and Canada. Because of Covid 19, the past two years have been virtual holiday trains that quite frankly didn’t hold a candle to the real thing. So it’s been announced, the performers have been named and the schedules released. Once again, the train will make six stops in North Dakota As Holiday Train public affairs points out, the concerts are free....
The Sunday before that incredible football game between the Minnesota Vikings and Buffalo Bills, I listened to the national anthem and something occurred to me that made me think of an interesting moment that happened several years ago. I was in Winnipeg on business and there happened to be a football game in town that night so I thought I’d stick around and catch the Winnipeg Blue Bombers against the Sacramento Gold Miners. The Sacramento team was the first Canadian Football League team in t...
When we think of boxing, I’ll bet the first thing that enters your mind is Virgil Hill. And for those who may be fairly new to North Dakota, Virgil Hill grew up in Grand Forks, earned a silver medal in the 1984 Olympics and had a very successful professional career. Hill is the “Roger Maris” of the boxing world and since the summer of 1984, there have been a lot of people who have taken up boxing thanks to Virgil Hill’s success. Anyone who has an interest in boxing can find a club in which t...
When people say they did something on their bucket list it usually means going to Hawaii, buying a BMW or running in the Boston Marathon. For me, one of those bucket list items has been much different. It was implementing a radio wave propa-gation phenomenon called passive reflection, sometimes referred to as passive reception. In most cases this is done in radar, microwave and sometimes TV in the mountain west. I decided to do it with FM radio because my situation is such that passive...
As we find ourselves at the end of October and into early November, the growing season has ended and nearly all farmers’ markets have ceased across the state. It’s always a bittersweet day when you attend your last farmers’ market. You’re sad that you won’t be coming back next week, but happy that you’ll be able get a much deserved break. Most of the general population believes that farmers’ market vendors turn off a switch at the end of the season, but that couldn’t be further from the truth....
Most of us know about LaMoure because we’ve either been there or we’re familiar with Loboes sports teams, namely football and volleyball, in recent state tournaments. LaMoure is just like any other small-town county seat in North Dakota. Its economy is based on farming. In fact, R.D. Offutt, synonymous with John Deere, got its start in Lisbon and LaMoure in the late ‘70s. LaMoure has a good school system, a strong Main Street and other attractions like nearby Lake LaMoure and it’s about 100 mile...
In recent years there’s been a lot of bickering about the dumbest things often resulting in long-term animosity among co-workers, married couples, friends and even students. Believe it or not, there are people, in North Dakota, who will argue with you about what kind of tires you should put on your vehicle or whether Italian food is any good. Some of it is just mind boggling. But instead of all that, maybe we should focus on the positive, the glass is half full as it were. And one sterling examp...
This is a continuation from last week about driving on North Dakota’s highways. We have 13 scenic byways and backways and each one of them affords unique natural beauty of its region. Three routes are along the Canadian border, seven are in western North Dakota and three are in the east. A byway is a paved road and a backway is a gravel road. Tourism numbers them so we’ll start with No. 1. Chan SanSan Scenic Backway: South and east of Jamestown, starting in Adrian, this backway highlights the...
Most of us love North Dakota because of the sunsets, fishing, hunting and open roads. I love the open roads. We may not have the longest open road opportunities, but we are certainly up there toward the top. You can look at a map of the state and find long, straight highways just about everywhere. In my opinion, there is nothing better than getting out on the highway, turning up the car stereo and rolling down the hardball. For the past 22 years, I’ve been a 52-mile-per-day commuter, either t...
It isn’t easy to stay in business for 100 years, especially given that in the past century, any business to survive that long had to endure the Great Depression in the 1930s. But there are two businesses that have daily impact on many North Dakota residents and both businesses are radio stations. One of them is CHAB in Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and the other is WDAY in Fargo. WDAY was the first radio station to go on the air in North Dakota on May 22, 1922. CHAB, originally called 10AB, p...
For the past several days the news has been dominated by the loss of Queen Elizabeth II and rightfully so. She was probably the best known person on the face of the earth. And while some people believe it has been overdone, there are plenty of Americans, plenty of North Dakotans, who have been mourning the queen just as the British have been doing. You have to admit, 70 years on the throne is a remarkable achievement, one that quite possibly will never be duplicated. What struck me was the day...
Now that harvest is in full swing, a lot of things come to mind, but there is one thing I doubt many people think about and that is the loss of the old, wooden elevators, sometimes called prairie skyscrapers. On Sunday, we made a trip to Bismarck to purchase a lawn mower and went through the community of Coleharbor. There are, of course, two of the original structures still standing tall against a backdrop of canola, barley and wheat. These prairie icons are quickly disappearing. There are...
Some locals in the Carpio area still talk about an explosion on a nearby farm that happened 100 years ago on Aug. 31. This was no ordinary explosion like you would think. It wasn’t gasoline and it wasn’t spontaneous combustion. This bomb went boom when 500 pounds of steam in a threshing crew boiler caused the boiler to blow up, sending debris all over the neighborhood and killing two men working on the boiler. According to an account in the Aug. 31, 1922 edition of the Renville County Far...
A woman with four young children stopped by the farmers’ market last week and she said they had just moved to North Dakota from Louisiana. “From hurricanes to blizzards,” she said. But, she seemed happy to be in Minot and her kids were relaxed and appeared to be having fun. As our conversation continued, she asked myself and my intern what there is to do around here? Of course, our answers centered around the usual things to do; high school sports, fishing on the lakes, traveling to touri...
If you don’t know or understand French, let me clarify what this headline means. Simply put, it’s “stop the sugar.” As mentioned in the past, this weekly column is mostly about events happening in North Dakota, or the surrounding states or provinces. This week I feel compelled to write about sugar, or “sucre” in French. A few nights ago after packing products for the farmers’ market, I had some odd shaped cucumbers left over so I decided to make a cucumber salad since these cucumbers did...
A kidnapping that was solved last week received little attention in the U.S. media, but had possible implications for North Dakota and Montana. It certainly did in South Dakota because that is where two children, a brother and sister were found safe. A man named Benjamin Moore, a known sex offender who has served prison time in Canada, and his common law wife, kidnapped 7-year-old Luna Potts and her 8-year-old brother Hunter in Shaunavon, Saskatchewan, a small town of 1,600 near Swift Current...
What happens when a group of 20 somethings with nothing to do get together? They have a party. That’s what a group of us in Edgeley did on March 16, 1981. But this was no ordinary party. Yes, it was 41 years ago, but I still think about this party a lot and all the positive energy that made it a success. The first unusual thing about our party was that it was held on a Monday night and it was limited to a guest list of 10. You can about imagine the reactions when everyone found out we were h...
Normally I don’t complain in this space because I see enough of that on Facebook, and quite frankly, it’s disgusting. However, last week the North Dakota State Fair was held in Minot, as it has for many years in late July. People come to the state fair from all over the Upper Great Plains and western Canada to enjoy the various aspects of what North Dakota has to offer. Unfortunately, when most of these people come to Minot, their first impression is construction. Streets are torn up, some str...
I was driving down a city street minding my own business when I came upon a semi-trailer in the right lane of traffic. I didn’t see a blinker so I assumed he was turning right since he was in the right lane and what not. With that in mind, I pulled up next to him in the left lane. All of a sudden this knucklehead decides to turn left before I could dart out of the way. I couldn’t back up because there were vehicles right behind me wanting to turn left. As a result, the right side of my veh...
Get out and see the lakes… Manitoba used to have a motto, “100,000 lakes” and Minnesota had a motto “10,000 lakes. North Dakota doesn’t have that many lakes, but the ones we do have are incredible. Driving by Lake Tschida on the way home from Rapid City, Monday, made me think of the wonderful lakes we have across the state. After more thought I decided to present what i think are the top 10 lakes in North Dakota. 1.) I don’t think there is any doubt in anyone’s mind that Lake Sakakawea top...
I needed to have some service work done on my truck so I took it to the Ford dealership in Minot. And since there is a McDonald’s across the street, I thought I would hang out there while having a cup of coffee. So myself and an elderly lady are waiting for our orders and suddenly someone yells out “257.” The elderly lady steps forward to take her order and asks the assistant manager why her order took so long. The assistant manager immediately went into a rant about the restaurant being short...
There was a rumor floating around a couple of weeks ago that the Edgeley Mail newspaper was shuttered. On Monday the official word came that yes, the weekly newspaper serving the community of Edgeley in LaMoure County, has shut its doors for the last time. The North Dakota Newspaper Association publishes the NDNA Bulletin and the latest issue discusses the loss of yet another North Dakota newspaper. The owner of the Mail, Patty Wood Bartle, put the paper up for sale some months ago and...
I have a North Dakota map from the 1950s and I was looking at it to see if any highways have changed. Then I got a little curious about several small towns in Cavalier County that either no longer exist or are hanging on by a thread. Alsen, Calio, Clyde, Hannah, Wales, Loma, Nekoma, Easby, Calvin and Maida are all listed on the map. The sad thing is, every one of those communities has lost nearly its entire population in the past 70 years. Many of them moved to Langdon, many moved to Devils Lake...
We’re all complaining about the price of gas these days and we have every right to do that. The price has never been this high and it’s killing any pay raise we might have gotten this year. Gas prices will go up and down as most of us know and right now we’re in a quagmire. When are we going to get some relief? This is, however, not unprecedented. My first memory of gas going out of control was in 1973. That’s when Saudi Arabia declared an oil embargo and it hit the United States, Canada,...
