Thursday, June 25, 8 a.m.-1 p.m. (time subject to change)

The Bakken Oil Boom came at western North Dakota like a tsunami. The people and government of the state were not prepared for one of the most significant "gold rushes" in modern American history. The state of North Dakota scrambled to ease the pressure on the villages, towns, and small cities in the Bakken zone, not always with complete success. For most North Dakotans, the economic benefits of the boom outweighed the frustrations, the dust, the congestion, and the influx of tens of thousands of men between the ages of 18 and 50, many from economically depressed regions of the United States. Unfortunately, the Bakken oil lies underneath some of the most beautiful landscapes on the Great Plains, particularly the Little Missouri National Grasslands and Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The conservation community has worked hard to try to protect these sensitive and extraordinarily beautiful buttes, badlands, rolling plains, and (in some cases) Native American sacred sites.

Clay Jenkinson, tour host, has just completed a book on the identity and future of North Dakota, one chapter of which is entitled, "Capitalism on Crack: The Bakken Oil Boom." In that chapter, Clay attempts to provide a balanced account of what happened, what it signifies, and what it reveals about the character of the people of North Dakota. Join the conversation on this tour.

*Tour registration (fee TBD) will include bus transportation and lunch

Saturday, June 27, 12:30-5:30 p.m. (time subject to change)

Theodore Roosevelt established two ranches in the badlands of western North Dakota: one called the Maltese Cross seven miles south of the Northern Pacific Railroad (1883) and the other called the Elkhorn, 35 miles north of the village of Medora, North Dakota (1884). The Maltese Cross (Chimney Butte) Ranch had already been named by the time he invested in it. He named his second ranch the Elkhorn after he found the horns of two male elk interlocked at the site. The elk had been butting heads in a struggle for primacy when their horns became locked. Unable to extricate themselves, the elk died of starvation. This appealed to Roosevelt, who regarded life as a Darwinian struggle.

At the Elkhorn Roosevelt ranched and played cowboy, went on long solo horseback rides, often for days at a time, and hunted for elk, mule deer, white tail deer, and other quadrupeds. He also grieved for his mother and his first wife Alice, who died in New York City on Valentine’s Day 1884.

Because Roosevelt later became the most important presidential conservationist in American history, and some of his ideas about conservation of animals and habitat found their first expression during the badlands years (1883-1887), many historians regard the Elkhorn as a conservation shrine. It is certainly a shrine to Theodore Roosevelt.

Clay Jenkinson, host of this tour, is a historian and first-person interpreter of Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Jefferson, and others. He is the Theodore Roosevelt Humanities Scholar at Dickinson State University, and he inspired and continues to drive the development of the Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library.

*Tour registration (fee TBD) will include bus transportation and lunch