It is now three years since I began writing my column in the Bismarck Tribune. That's 156 columns or approximately 187,200 words. Somehow that gives me a sense of productivity. I write therefore I am. Life is a blur. I cannot remember what I did in May 2007, or two weeks ago for that matter, but I have in a little stack 156 columns that somehow recreate the procession of the weeks.

This year, I confess, I missed my deadline twice, but not by much, and I always wore a hair shirt for a day or two afterward. I pride myself in meeting the weekly deadline. I do it out of respect for Ken Rogers, who invited me to write this column and then graciously yielded his Sunday space to it. And I do it because I don't ever want to feel, "boo hoo, I have to meet my deadline, whatever will I write about?" When that happens, I will say farewell.

It may sound odd, but writing this column is the most satisfying thing I have ever done professionally. It is not in any way lucrative, but I care not. The Tribune and you have given me the opportunity to process my life as a North Dakota returnee through you. In a way this column is a weekly love letter to North Dakota. The best decision I ever made was to move home. I will never leave. I feel more alive here and more true to my values here than I have ever felt anywhere else. It's a privilege to be able to share my observations, and to try to make sense of North Dakota by talking to it every week. Writing this column has helped me to clarify my thoughts and emotions about this place. Thank you.

I continue to write too many words per week, as some of the bloggers like to point out. They are right, I am wrong, and I periodically resolve to study brevity. But it's what Mark Twain said of smoking: "Oh it's easy to quit smoking. Heck, I've quit 20 or 30 times." I'm going to give a shorter word count another run.

There are people who say I have been away too long, or I should never have returned home, that I am out of touch with the spirit of North Dakota. This actually hurts my feelings, but I realize too that I chose to expose myself to strangers in this way, so I have little right to feel hurt.

I have respect for many different types of North Dakotan, and I believe that there are very few cut-and-dried stories or clear-cut decisions. I try always to see the other side of the issue at hand because I believe most people are earnest and authentic in their views, and I should not regard mine as wiser. That would be stupid. I believe what I believe but I am seldom wedded to it.

Still, I feel very strongly about some issues. The lands we love so much here are in some peril. The Badlands are changing and fast. You have to get off the paved roads to see this. That's one reason why not enough North Dakotans are concerned yet about what is happening north and south of Medora. You have to drive the gravel roads of the Badlands to see the alarming impacts, particularly of oil development.

Here are my big concerns as I enter my fourth year of writing these columns:

1. How can we channelize this oil, coal, wind, ethanol, and biodiesel boom so that it helps us prosper and contributes to America's energy needs, and yet does not devastate our landscapes or make undue demands on our groundwater supply or disrupt our community social structure in negative ways? We all know that these are considerations that deserve a great deal of attention, and yet we are not having an honest statewide conversation about this. Why not?

2. How can we plan the future of the Little Missouri River Valley in a way that gives special weight to the long-term beauty of the place, its lovely eerie magnetism, it's out-there-aloneness? How can we make sure that what we love most about the Badlands is still the dominant characteristic a hundred years from now? I am against putting up a bridge or tossing a low water crossing in the Little Missouri River anywhere near the Elkhorn Ranch. I am not altogether against a proper bridge located out of noise range, though I lament that we have reached that threshold of convenience or necessity.

3. I fear that we are going to pass these two knuckleheaded revenue initiatives and condemn ourselves to mediocrity as we enter the 21st century. We are blessed to have a big budget surplus. This is not a time to lock it up. Give it back to the people, or to spread it around among worthy state institutions. Our Legislature needs to talk this through in a creative and mutually respectful way and forge a wise strategy for using the surplus as an investment in our 21st century future. That's what democracy is about. We are at a crossroads in North Dakota history. The 21st century character of North Dakota will be determined by this legislative session or the next.

4. I fear that we are going to let the Red River Valley make a raid on the Missouri River. They are bent on having a pipeline from Bismarck to Fargo, and while we go about our business the backers are moving that project forward. I think it would be a profound mistake to send the waters of the Missouri River to Fargo, not only because that would just give our most successful city (and valley) our blessing to dominate the rest of us much more dramatically and forever, but also because I think this is the era of restoration of the industrially compromised Missouri, not further degradation. Historically we have treated the Missouri with great arrogance. We need to take a humbler path hereafter and that begins with saying no to the Red River water grab.

5. I worry, too, about the future of family agriculture and our small towns and villages. I think we must not shrug off their decline or demise as something inevitable and not capable of human adjustment.

Whenever I need to renew my own spirit, I get out onto buttes, or along the Missouri River ridges, or into the Badlands or the Killdeer Mountains. That always makes me think we live in paradise, if we stay rooted to the soil and don't sell our unique birthright for a mess of profit.

Thank you for reading me. You have no idea how much it pleases me to meet someone on the street who says he or she read a column I had written about X. I appreciate your e-mails even when you think I am full of beans. I love the idea that in some very small way these columns help shape the conversations you are having. That is what I most want from this weekly labor of love.

(Clay Jenkinson is the director of the Dakota Institute. He also is the Theodore Roosevelt Scholar-in-residence at Dickinson State University. He lives in Bismarck. Contact Clay at Jeffysage@aol.com.)