Jan 13, 2008 - 04:05:24 CST
(This is the first of two columns Clay Jenkinson is writing about the January 2008 National Geographic article on North Dakota. You can find the article at http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/2008-01/emptied-north-dakota/bowden-text.html.)We need to take a deep breath. The furor over the January issue of National Geographic is almost as silly as the article it contains on rural decline in North Dakota. The article, written by Charles Bowden with photographs by Eugene Richards, is melodramatic and arguably biased. It lacks balance and context. But the central premise is irrefutable. Rural North Dakota is being abandoned.
This can hardly be called news.
"The Emptied Prairie" belongs to a journalistic genre known as the "dying town story." In this case, it is more of a "dying state story," which is one reason why folks here are all stirred up. Dying town stories are a staple of Great Plains journalism. They are expected to have a kind of haunting elegiac feel and to emphasize words like "windswept," "forlorn," "stark" and, above all, "vanished." In this regard, "The Emptied Prairie" does not disappoint.
It's a formula. Find the last guy in the last cafe, the old man walking along the railroad tracks, the crib in the abandoned farmhouse with a wind-bleached doll lying on its side.
I was really glad to see one of my closest friends, Patti Perry of Marmarth, quoted in the article. I feel certain she'll whup Bowden if he ever dares to turn up again in Marmarth's delightful Pastime restaurant. Not that she would disagree with his thesis, but I can hear her saying, "Geez, stop wringing your hands and talking about tragedy and saying asinine stuff like 'something in the earth and the sky mutinied against the settlers.'"
The actual argument thesis of Bowden's article is that although the overall population of North Dakota is stable, the rural districts are undergoing rapid and seemingly irreversible depopulation. Who can refute this? Divide County, population 2,092 in 2006, down 8.4 percent since 2000. Billings County, population 829, down 6.6 percent. Slope County, population 713, down 7 percent. Bowman County, 2,991, down 7.7 percent. Golden Valley County, 1,691, down 12.1 percent. Adams County, 2,332, down 10.1 percent. Hettinger County, 2,564, down 5.6 percent. Dunn County, 3,443, down 4.4 percent. Burke County, 1,947, down 13.2 percent. Renville County, 2,425, down 7.1 percent.
Very bad, but listen to this. Stark County (home of Dickinson), 22,167, down 2.1 percent. Ward County (home of Minot), 55,207, down 6 percent. Williams County (home of Williston), 19,456, down 1.5 percent.
Half of the population of North Dakota now lives east of Carrington. Almost 40 percent of the North Dakota population now lives east of Interstate 29. Bismarck, Mandan, Minot, Grand Forks and, above all, Fargo, are thriving. The villages, especially those west of the Missouri River, are "drying up and blowing away," as Bowden might put it. Our towns are struggling. We've become an urban state, a vast landscape punctuated by thriving "city states," with an increasingly abandoned countryside. And the great migration is not nearly over.
I do regard this phenomenon as a very sad thing. I believe North Dakota was a better place when our population was more evenly diffused across the landscape, when the towns had vibrant business districts, when people shopped locally, when farms were defined by the number of acres rather than the number of sections they encompassed. I believe that something essential in the North Dakota character is being lost - forever - as our agrarian, our small town, heritage ebbs away. I worry about what North Dakota will be when we have filtered our lives through Best Buy, Bed Bath & Beyond and Starbucks as thoroughly as everyone else in America.
Easy for me to say. I live in Bismarck, not Epping. I shop at Best Buy. Most North Dakotans, indeed most of my friends, are far less nostalgic for the heritage of North Dakota than I am. A few of them declare - with some acerbity - good riddance to all that. What Bowden failed to realize is that even those North Dakotans who lament what has passed and is still to pass, have largely come to terms with it. That's why they are annoyed by his pose of mawkish bewilderment.
Here's why Bowden's article upsets us. First, nobody can deny that tens of thousands of North Dakotans have departed for more promising places in the past half-century, but for most of those who are still here, things never have been so good. We have more money, better jobs, better and more reliable vehicles, greater comfort, greater mobility, dramatically more variety in our food and almost infinitely better access to the fruits of life as Americans define their pursuit of happiness. Hey, Charles Bowden, don't rain on our parade. The irony of this, of course, is that the amenities boom in North Dakota is largely an urban phenomenon, made possible by the abandonment of those farmhouses Richards loves to photograph.
Second, this is a time of unprecedented prosperity in North Dakota. If we were experiencing rural depopulation and economic depression at the same time, we might lose more sleep. But as long as good times continue, North Dakotans seem willing to find a way to deal with the demographics.
Third, it offends us when people like Bowden assume that rural depopulation is inevitably a sign of failure, broken dreams and "abandoned human desire." Maybe it's a sign of good sense and intelligent life-planning. It offends us, too, when people like Bowden suggest that those who still live here are yokels who are too stupid to join the parade, to get their jalopies on Route 66 in search of a better life. Contrary to Bowden's suggestion, the suicide rate in North Dakota is comparatively low.
Most of us like it here.
Here's some consolation. A misguided article in National Geographic is not going to change the nation's perception of North Dakota. No couple in Tampa or Portland with the moving van full is going to pause at the onramp and say, "Gee, honey, now that we've read this article, maybe we should rethink our plan to become new North Dakota pioneers."
Patti, get your gloves on and whup him.
n Next week: Did our pioneers really believe that rain follows the plow?
(Clay Jenkinson is the Theodore Roosevelt scholar-in-residence at Dickinson State University. He lives in Bismarck. Contact Jenkison at Jeffysage@;aol.com.)
Paul wrote on Jan 19, 2008 6:54 PM:
Boomerang wrote on Jan 15, 2008 8:52 PM:
NDGEEGEE wrote on Jan 14, 2008 3:42 PM:
I had alway given a gift of NG to my father and if he were still living,he would be sorely disappointed that someone has painted a sorry picture of his beloved state.
Unfortunately one who has not grown up in the state can not understand the lure
of always going home .
"
Allen wrote on Jan 14, 2008 9:09 AM:
Have you been out in the country lately there Clay? "...the amenities boom in North Dakota is largely an urban phenomenon..." You apparently don't recognize the difference in farmsteads. Perhaps you should dust off one of those history books with pics of those old abandoned farmsteads when they were occupied.
I grew up with distant relatives that did not have running water in the 1970s. Those are the farmsteads that have been abandoned and since replaced, although not on a one-for-one basis. The modern amenities of running water, electricity, plumbing, satellite TV, and computers have been added to the landscape many years ago. "
IwannagobacktoND wrote on Jan 14, 2008 8:45 AM:
I live in TX now and the ghost towns are here too, the only difference is that people still live in the "abandoned" houses. "
Jennifer wrote on Jan 13, 2008 11:16 PM:
Edward wrote on Jan 13, 2008 2:18 PM:
Larry wrote on Jan 13, 2008 11:16 AM:
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