 As
anyone with a minimal knowledge of U.S. geography knows, there are two
Dakotas. North Dakota and South Dakota are, appropriately enough, adjacent
to one another. They have a common border stretching for several hundred
miles. Both are largely rural, with innumerable farms and ranches. Both
straddle the geocultural line between Midwest and West. Both have Badlands.
Yet they are vastly different places.
South
Dakota is more varied in terms of its terrain, thanks to the Black Hills
-- real mountains that top out above 7000 feet. Its badlands are
starker, more fantastic, than their counterparts to the North, and have
an almost otherworldly look and feel to them. North Dakota is somewhat
gentler. Like its neighbor, it's flat as a pancake in the east, where the
Red River Valley cuts a fertile swath on its northward journey. (Yes, northward.
This Red River flows into Canada!) West of this is rolling prairie, seemingly
endless grassy bluffs with scattered lakes and sloughs. Even further west
the land gets rougher, with steep buttes and rugged canyons. The North
Dakota badlands are a little greener than their southern cousins, a little
less bizarre looking. North Dakota has no real mountains, and its highest
point, White Butte, is picturesque and vaguely forbidding looking but hardly
alpine in its dimensions.
Other
physical differences exist. Being farther north, North Dakota is colder.
It also gets slightly more snow (though not nearly so much as states farther
east, where the Lake Effect boosts snowfall significantly). These are minor
differences, though. Both states are cold and snowy enough to make winter
a beautiful, if sometimes perilous, season.
In
terms of tourist attractions, South Dakota wins hands down. The Black Hills,
being real mountains, draw real crowds. Among the Black Hills are such
sites as Mount Rushmore (and the nearby Crazy Horse-in-progress), Wind
Cave and Jewel Cave, and the famous wild west towns of Lead and Deadwood.
Nearby is Hot Springs, an unpretentious little town that nonetheless has
-- you guessed it -- hot springs. Not far to the east are Badlands National
Park and Wounded Knee. Further east is the home of beloved children's author
Laura Ingalls Wilder. Still further east is Sioux Falls, not exactly a
metropolis but with a six-digit population. North Dakota, by contrast,
has no big cities (Fargo, at around 70,000, is the largest), no children's
literature icons, no geothermal baths, no public caves, no dynamite-sculpted
cliffs. But Theodore Roosevelt National Park and the badlands it protects
teem with wildlife, and Medora is a genuine western town with historic
significance. Other historic sites, such as Fort Abraham Lincoln and Fort
Union, are well worth a visit, as is the International Peace Garden. |
