What is it about North Dakota and giant sculptures by the sides of their roads? Never thought I'd start a blog post that way but here we are...
Over the Memorial Day weekend this year, we headed out to North Dakota for a couple of nights. I figured three days in some wide open spaces with a little wildlife watching thrown in would be good for me over the long weekend. Plus I'd never been to North Dakota before and you know I'm focused on making it to all 50 states. After landing in Bismarck, I've got 46 in the books and just four to go. No idea how I'm getting Arkansas, Kansas, Nebraska and Oklahoma but that's a problem for another day.
Our must see list for the long weekend? Covering both parts of Theodore Roosevelt National Park looking for bison, wild horses, prairie dogs and whatever else we could find on four or two or six or no (rattlesnake!) legs and trying to find something cultural that was uniquely North Dakota. While we kept a keen eye out for culinary delicacies like tater tot hot dish and taco in a bag at lunch and dinner times, we made the decision pretty early on to spend the highbrow part of this trip checking out some giant statues of whatever we could find. I'm totally serious. It's a thing there somehow.
The centerpiece of our quest for massive works of folk art or whatever else really big and manmade that we could find by the sides of the roads was the Enchanted Highway, a 34 mile long stretch of road running north-south between Gladstone and Regent in the western part of the state. Since 1991, artist Gary Greff has been erecting huge installations on other people's land (he had permission) as a tribute to things that make life in North Dakota uniquely North Dakotan. And it totally works. Want to understand a little bit more about the state bounded by Minnesota, Montana and South Dakota? Spend an hour and a half or so making your way from Regent to Gladstone and stopping along the way.
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| Tin Family, Enchanted Highway, 1991. |
If you decided to make this pilgrimage of sorts, I'd recommend you start from Regent and head north. That's because if you go that way, you can pick up a brochure at the visitor's center at the south end which tells you a little something about each one of Gary's works along the way. We didn't necessarily plan it that way but that's how it worked out for us. We were headed to the Highway from Medora and we figured why not take the fastest way to get to Regent and go from there. If the fastest way had been riding down 102 Avenue SW (that's the name of the road that is the Enchanted Highway), we'd have seen everything twice, but our navigation app took us across rural North Dakota to get to the starting point. It worked for us.
Make it all the way from start to finish and you'll take in all seven of Gary's sculptures in place which include one devoted to the farmers that drive the economy of much of North Dakota; one tribute to Theodore Roosevelt who made North Dakota his spiritual home; and five others featuring wildlife found in the Peace Garden State, although one of the five is really a nod to the farming community of North Dakota also. They range in age from 27 years old (Tin Family, 1991) to the most recent in 2006 (Fisherman's Dream).
These things are absolutely enormous. Tin Pa of the Tin Family is 45 feet tall and supported by 16 telephone poles (presumably inside his body). He is easily bested by a 51 foot high Teddy Roosevelt on horseback, a 75 foot tall buck jumping over a fence and the entire Geese In Flight sculpture just north of I-94 which is a truly impressive 110 feet tall. Each sculpture is attached to the ground and stabilized by a network of cables and stays. The taller and more surface area in a work of art, the more cables necessary to keep it standing upright.
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| Teddy Rides Again, Enchanted Highway, 1993. |
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| The Deer Family, Enchanted Highway, 2002. |
Seeing all seven pieces in one car ride allows you the chance to compare each work and you can see the technical sophistication increasing as time goes by. Tin Family has zero cables anchoring Tin Pa, Tin Ma and Son; that's because the three family members, constructed primarily from used farming equipment, are standing up by fairly traditional methods, meaning gravity and some sort of long anchorage into the Earth, meaning the telephone poles referenced in the previous paragraph.
The next sculpture north of Tin Family, Teddy Rides Again, is stabilized by a number of cables, but Gary made the standing up part about as easy as he could make it by using well pipe with about zero surface area so there's relatively little to no wind force to resist. I say easy here meaning supporting a 9,000 pound welded work of art that stands five stories tall. You know...easy. It's only when you move on from Teddy Rides Again that you start to understand what Gary has learned along the way and how it's improved what he's made.
By the time you get to Fisherman's Dream, you understand how difficult Gary's later works are just simply to stay erect. The entire assemblage here include seven enormous fish, a variety of plant life and a fisherman in a row boat on a choppy water surface with a 70 foot long rainbow trout on the line. The fish are supported by the reeds and greenery "under the water" and are mostly perforated to allow the wind to pass right through them rather than having them act like sails in the gusts blowing across the very flat landscape. We felt some wind in late May. I can't imagine how forcefully the gales blow during a real storm. No deep foundations and mass in this panorama. It's all skill on the sculptor's part.
The next sculpture north of Tin Family, Teddy Rides Again, is stabilized by a number of cables, but Gary made the standing up part about as easy as he could make it by using well pipe with about zero surface area so there's relatively little to no wind force to resist. I say easy here meaning supporting a 9,000 pound welded work of art that stands five stories tall. You know...easy. It's only when you move on from Teddy Rides Again that you start to understand what Gary has learned along the way and how it's improved what he's made.
By the time you get to Fisherman's Dream, you understand how difficult Gary's later works are just simply to stay erect. The entire assemblage here include seven enormous fish, a variety of plant life and a fisherman in a row boat on a choppy water surface with a 70 foot long rainbow trout on the line. The fish are supported by the reeds and greenery "under the water" and are mostly perforated to allow the wind to pass right through them rather than having them act like sails in the gusts blowing across the very flat landscape. We felt some wind in late May. I can't imagine how forcefully the gales blow during a real storm. No deep foundations and mass in this panorama. It's all skill on the sculptor's part.
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| Fisherman's Dream, Enchanted Highway, 2006. |
Of the seven works, my two favorites are Pheasants On The Prairie (first favorite) and Grasshoppers In The Field (second favorite). Grasshoppers is a series of different sized grasshopper sculptures symbolizing the hardships that famers in the midwest endured to make ends meet for their families. There were infamous grasshopper plagues that descended upon North Dakota in the 1870s and again in the early 1930s. Grasshopper populations are typically kept in check in moist conditions because fungus in the soil destroys the insects' eggs. When there's no rain, there's no limits on these pests and their populations explode. The subsequent swarms generally devour everything they come across. I love the purpose and symbolism of this group of sculptures while also being grateful that I've never had to deal with a real mass of these creatures.
Pheasants On The Prairie, though, takes the top prize for me because to me it's the most impressive group of constructs along the Highway. The pheasant rooster, hen and chicks are all constructed of wire mesh (to allow the wind to pass through; I'm obsessed with the wind, I know) and painted to resemble real pheasants (albeit 60 foot long ones) which makes them the most colorful of all Gary Greff's works with the probable exception of the Tin Family. The pose of the parents compared to the babies who are busy scarfing down some seed on the ground is perfect. This stop was the most anticipated for me before we got started looking at these things in person and while they are less impressive right up close than they are from a short distance (kind of messy up close), they are still my favorite of the seven. Apparently pheasant hunting is a thing in Dakota.
The drive all the way along the Enchanted Highway is definitely worth making yourself. These labors of love are complex constructs and there's much that can only be truly checked out by stopping at each one along 102 Avenue SW and getting out of your car and walking around and through these and looking at them from as many different perspectives as you can. It's not difficult to do. There's a good sized parking lot next to each one that will likely seem grossly oversized for the traffic you'll encounter if it is a slow day like it was for us. We saw just two other cars pulled over doing what we were doing in the 90 minutes or so it took us from start to finish.
I've tried to capture each work in pictures for this post which are perhaps less traditional than other photographs I've seen online. In addition to the main sculptures themselves, there are wonderful little details or follies that Greff has added to enhance the experience of visiting in person. These include the stagecoach you can climb aboard in front of Teddy Roosevelt and the geese-themed and wheat sheave-looking fences at the perimeter of Grasshoppers In The Field and Geese In Flight. If you've got kids with you, they can ride the smallest grasshoppers at the Grasshoppers stop or check out the Maze of Enchantment at The Deer Family. The maze works for grown-up kids too, even if it's not especially challenging.
Pheasants On The Prairie, though, takes the top prize for me because to me it's the most impressive group of constructs along the Highway. The pheasant rooster, hen and chicks are all constructed of wire mesh (to allow the wind to pass through; I'm obsessed with the wind, I know) and painted to resemble real pheasants (albeit 60 foot long ones) which makes them the most colorful of all Gary Greff's works with the probable exception of the Tin Family. The pose of the parents compared to the babies who are busy scarfing down some seed on the ground is perfect. This stop was the most anticipated for me before we got started looking at these things in person and while they are less impressive right up close than they are from a short distance (kind of messy up close), they are still my favorite of the seven. Apparently pheasant hunting is a thing in Dakota.
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| Grasshoppers In The Field, Enchanted Highway, 1999. |
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| Pheasants On The Prairie, Enchanted Highway, 1996. |
I've tried to capture each work in pictures for this post which are perhaps less traditional than other photographs I've seen online. In addition to the main sculptures themselves, there are wonderful little details or follies that Greff has added to enhance the experience of visiting in person. These include the stagecoach you can climb aboard in front of Teddy Roosevelt and the geese-themed and wheat sheave-looking fences at the perimeter of Grasshoppers In The Field and Geese In Flight. If you've got kids with you, they can ride the smallest grasshoppers at the Grasshoppers stop or check out the Maze of Enchantment at The Deer Family. The maze works for grown-up kids too, even if it's not especially challenging.
If you make the trip from south to north and have enjoyed stopping off at the first six along the way, get ready for disappointment when you get to Geese In Flight. That's because the owners of the land, who purchased it after Gary had already worked out an indefinite lease with the prior owners, don't feel they need to honor the agreement they inherited when they purchased the property. I can't imagine anyone is doing their land any harm; some people are just out to spoil the fun of others I guess. If you want a good picture of this northernmost sculpture, you'll have to get one from the on or off ramp of I-94.
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| Geese In Flight, Enchanted Highway, 2001. Photo taken from the on ramp to eastbound I-94. |
Trust me, there's a lot more.
Want to see the world's largest buffalo? Head to Jamestown, North Dakota where you'll find one that's 26 feet high. And yes, I'm using "buffalo" because that's what folks in Jamestown call it, even though it really should be a bison.
Like big fish (other than Gary Greff's Fisherman's Dream)? Wahpeton has a 40 foot long catfish and Garrison has a 26 foot long walleye. How about turtles? If those are your thing, you have to pay a visit to Dunseith and Bottineau, where you'll find a regular turtle and one riding a snowmobile, respectively.
Viking? Pyramid Hill. Horse? Minot. World's largest sandhill crane? Steele. These things are everywhere. It's like an epidemic, only in a good way. I can't think of any place other than the United States where people would dare to do this sort of stuff and it's part of what makes this country so great. I'm not being facetious, here. I love it. Every single one of them.
We didn't make it to any of these other roadside sculptures, although we intended to make it to Steele to see the sandhill crane and would have if Delta had told us an hour or so earlier that we weren't making it out of Bismarck on time that afternoon (or Minneapolis for that matter that night). But I couldn't credibly write a blog post about oversized works of art along the highways of North Dakota and only visit the Enchanted Highway.
Enter Salem Sue.
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| Salem Sue. All 50 foot long of her. New Salem, North Dakota. |
Salem Sue is a cow. A Holstein cow, to be exact. She's 38 feet high, 50 feet long and can been seen for miles each way on your approach to New Salem, North Dakota from the east and west on I-94. She's been keeping watch over New Salem since 1974 when she was erected by the area dairy farmers at the low low price of $40,000. That's about $210,000 or so in today's dollars. I'm telling you: only in America would we find a town with 938 residents spending the equivalent of about a quarter of a million dollars on a 38 foot high cow. I love it.
The history of the Holstein breed of cow is a rich one around New Salem. They were introduced to the area around the turn of the twentieth century and the folks around town got so proud of their particular breed of cow that the local farmers organized in 1908 into the Holstein Circuit, a trade association and traveling show of sorts that was dedicated to the breeding and care of these animals and the milk, cream and butter they provided to the townspeople. The town is so focused on this breed of cattle that their high school teams are called the New Salem Holsteins. That's commitment, folks.
Like the Enchanted Highway, Salem Sue has a sculptor. His name was Dave Oswald. Unlike the Enchanted Highway, there's not much searching for meaning in this statue. Plain and simple, she's a Holstein cow. But she does have a theme song called Ballad of the Holstein, which is apparently set to the tune of "Joy To The World" which no scene along the Enchanted Highway has. You can pick up a copy of this ditty's lyrics and other fun facts about Sue and the town of New Salem at the Tesoro gas station just south of I-94 at Exit 127. Keep going south and hang a right to get to the top of Sue's hill. The view is pretty cool, although it's all pretty much dead flat.
The weather was gorgeous when we visited Salem Sue; not so much when we made our way from Tin Family to Geese In Flight. You can't have great weather all the time when you travel, I guess. Ultimately no matter what the weather, I'm a fan of any sort of large roadside sculpture. There's no other country on Earth that does stuff like this quite the way the United States does it. I know there are similar attractions all over America, including some we have passed in the last 18 months near Detroit, Michigan (giant tire) and on the road from Albuquerque to Roswell in New Mexico (giant gunslingers). Maybe I haven't looked hard enough but I don't think I've found a place that offers the variety and scope of these things offered by the State of North Dakota.
If you're a fan, go. If you don't much care one way or another and are in North Dakota, go anyway. You might find something you love. All I know that I'm not even halfway done with that state's roadside attractions. Curse that Delta flight! Could have had one more if I'd have known earlier. Oh well!
The history of the Holstein breed of cow is a rich one around New Salem. They were introduced to the area around the turn of the twentieth century and the folks around town got so proud of their particular breed of cow that the local farmers organized in 1908 into the Holstein Circuit, a trade association and traveling show of sorts that was dedicated to the breeding and care of these animals and the milk, cream and butter they provided to the townspeople. The town is so focused on this breed of cattle that their high school teams are called the New Salem Holsteins. That's commitment, folks.
Like the Enchanted Highway, Salem Sue has a sculptor. His name was Dave Oswald. Unlike the Enchanted Highway, there's not much searching for meaning in this statue. Plain and simple, she's a Holstein cow. But she does have a theme song called Ballad of the Holstein, which is apparently set to the tune of "Joy To The World" which no scene along the Enchanted Highway has. You can pick up a copy of this ditty's lyrics and other fun facts about Sue and the town of New Salem at the Tesoro gas station just south of I-94 at Exit 127. Keep going south and hang a right to get to the top of Sue's hill. The view is pretty cool, although it's all pretty much dead flat.
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| Udder-ly gorgeous view of the North Dakota landscape. Told you it was flat. |
If you're a fan, go. If you don't much care one way or another and are in North Dakota, go anyway. You might find something you love. All I know that I'm not even halfway done with that state's roadside attractions. Curse that Delta flight! Could have had one more if I'd have known earlier. Oh well!
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| Fence posts lining the drive to Geese In Flight, unfortunately blocked off right now to cars. |
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