Wednesday, August 15, 2018
We are camped just outside Theodore Roosevelt National Park, in Medora, North Dakota. This National Park is divided into 3 sections: the north section, the south section and the Elkhorn Ranch section. We stayed in the campground of the north section Monday night. A lot of national parks have campgrounds, but most of the parks do not have campgrounds with hookups (i.e. water, electric and sewer). Since we have batteries, some solar, and are self-contained, we can go a few days without hookups without a problem. This campground also had no phone service, so we were really off the grid.
As we drove into the campground, this bison greeted us.
We were delighted to see him and hoped it was a good omen for our visit. But he was the first and last animal we saw in the north section of the park.
Our campsite was a pull-thru, meaning we didn’t have to back into the space, making parking easier. Steve positioned the trailer so this was the view out our back window.
Not our prettiest view, but it’s always nice to not be looking at other trailers. What you can’t see is the Little Missouri River that’s about 25 yards away. It’s about 8 foot lower, so we couldn’t see it from the trailer.
Theodore Roosevelt National Park was created to honor President Theodore Roosevelt, who was the first president to champion conservation. He originally came out here in the fall of 1883 on a hunting trip and fell in love with this strange area. He bought a ranch and invested in cattle. He then returned to his home in New York for the winter. (The ranger who gave us a tour of his cabin told us that “nobody wants to be here in the winter.”) Unfortunately, on February 14,1884, Roosevelt lost both his wife (kidney failure after childbirth) and his mother (typhoid fever). He returned to Montana to mourn and heal. He bought and built his second ranch, Elkhorn, which is part of the park today. He got out of the cattle business when the winter of 1886-87 wiped out most of his cattle.
But his experiences in Montana influenced him for the rest of his life. Wikipedia states “Roosevelt established the United States Forest Service, signed into law the creation of five National Parks, and signed the 1906 Antiquities Act, under which he proclaimed 18 new U.S. National Monuments. He also established the first 51 bird reserves, four game preserves, and 150 National Forests, including Shoshone National Forest, the nation's first. The area of the United States that he placed under public protection totals approximately 230,000,000 acres (930,000 km2).[143]
Roosevelt extensively used executive orders on a number of occasions to protect forest and wildlife lands during his tenure as President.[144] By the end of his second term in office, Roosevelt used executive orders to establish 150 million acres of reserved forestry land.”
Shortly after his death in 1919, sites were looked at for a park site. The Civilian Conservation Corps had camps in both of the current park sites and built structures, roads and trails still in use today. After years of various designations, (Roosevelt Recreation Demonstration Area, then Theodore Roosevelt National Wildlife Refuge among others), it officially became a national park in 1978. It is the only national park named after an individual.
The park has the geography usually described as badlands, surrounding the valley created by the Little Missouri River. Most of the time, I felt like I was driving through a Star Wars set.
The pictures really don’t do justice to the strangeness of the landscape, all surrounding a lazy river bordered by cottonwood trees and grassy pastures.
We’re off to explore the south section.
Deb
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