A Visit to Prairie Country

Our recent vacation included visiting Minnesota and North Dakota.  People who have never been to that part of the country might be surprised by the differences in plant species and general environment. 

For instance, Fargo, North Dakota, is much further north than Boston.  Fargo's latitude is 46.8772 degrees north, while Boston's is 42.3581 degrees north.  The most remarkable impact created by this difference in the summer is the day length.  It does not get dark in Fargo until ten o'clock at night.  I felt like a little kid going to bed before it was dark out (clearly I am not a party animal).

Despite how far north it is, Fargo can get really hot, and hot early in the year.  I have been told that Fargo experiences "continental weather".  In other words, there are no large bodies of water or mountain ranges nearby to moderate the atmosphere.

As you probably already know, Fargo gets really cold in the winter.  Weeks of negative 40 degree Fahrenheit temperatures were not uncommon this past winter.

This last point leads to an ecological system that is quite different from the one found in Boston.   For instance, I have never seen a rhododendron or azalea in either North Dakota or Minneapolis.  I could be wrong, but I do not think they can survive the brutal winters.

More importantly, tall grass prairie used to dominate the landscape.  Most of the prairie is gone - plowed under or paved over, starting with the arrival of Europeans.

Heroic efforts are being made to restore tall grass prairies.  I am most familiar with the robust program at Carleton College in Northfield, Minnesota (cows, colleges and contentment).  The Cowling Arboretum,  started in the 1920's, is an 880 acre parcel of land on the campus where the natural habitat is slowly being restored.  My husband went on a tour of the "arb" when our daughter was a student there, and was told that the space is slowly being planted with native prairie grasses.  The only catch, and it is a big one, is that it is very difficult to find native plants.  Someone came up with the idea of locating seeds along train tracks because this land has not been paved or plowed.   The idea is working, slowly.

You many have heard about the strange weather in the Midwest this summer.  There has been lots of rain, and Minnesota was hit particularly hard.  We visited Minnehaha state park outside of Minneapolis, to see the falls and the trails.

The water was rushing frantically on its way to the Mississippi River, no doubt fueled by all of the rain.  Walking along the river, we were lucky to see several snowy egrets (we saw them on the drive from Fargo to Minneapolis as well, in marshy areas.)

Driving around Minneapolis, I was impressed by how many areas were flooded, days after the rains had departed.

Now the Midwest is experiencing colder than average temperatures.  It has been a strange summer.