The Sheyenne River valley is a cool place. The look of fall is in the air...
We then went to Ft Ransom, and looked for the many archeology oddities found nearby. Pyramid Hill, a mound of conflicting origin, overlooking the Sheyenne River, much like Pilot Mound overlooks the end of the Pembina River to the rest almost straight north in Manitoba. I have my theories but that is beyond this blog.
The Black Viking sits on top, a rather recent addition to an ancient mound. It all
started when Snorri and Bjarne--Snorri Thorfinnson and Bjarne Ness, two old
cronies in Fort Ransom--decided they would put their little town on the map
with a Viking monument. They were inspired both by Snorri’s discovery of Norse
mooring stones along the Sheyenne River and by the example of Elmer Peterson of
Jamestown College, whose World’s Largest Buffalo not only put Jimtown on the
map but also lured Republican hopeful Nelson A. Rockefeller out for the dedication
in 1960. Snorri and Bjarne started sculpting classes with Professor Peterson,
the master of concrete, and planned to fashion the great Viking themselves.
They wanted to place it atop the conical hill overlooking town from the south,
an elevation Snorri thought surely was an Indian burial mound. That was when
the dream began to unravel, for Bjarne got cancer, and died, and
Snorri’s enthusiasm flagged.
Somehow,
then, as the story goes, a Vietnam veteran named Bill Woell, down and out and living in a tipi, made connections with
Snorri and other men of the Fort Ransom Commercial Club, and he offered to
sculpt them a Viking. He did the work in a farm building down by Leonard,
fashioning the figure of pipe, steel mesh, and a sort of burlap-mache.
One afternoon in the early 1970s, a helicopter lowered the Black Viking into
place.
It was not exactly what the Nordic stalwarts of Fort Ransom had in mind. The Black Viking was downright demonic. He was, of course, black, and way too slender to be stolid. His spear was like a trident, his horned helmet like horns, and his eyes, they glared vacantly. “We wanted a Viking,” a local woman observed, “but not that kind.” The subsequent physical deterioration of the Black Viking testifies to the not-so-benign neglect by the community for a stunning piece of outsider art. They now have a turn out and a sign below him.
We could not locate the mooring stone or the Writing Rock, sigh, a missed opportunity
We also went past the Scenic Theater in Lisbon ND, the oldest continuously operated movie theater in the United States. It began operating in 1911. "Where the Crawdads sing" is currently playing, should anyone get up this way. It is a one of a kind place worth visiting.
We saw the 1910 built Sargeant County courthouse in Forman, ND, to add to me nascent collection of County Courthouse photos. The maroon trim is quite nice and considering this sits in a town of 450 people, and in a small county, its upkeep is good to see.
Plus a more recent one in Lisbon, for Ransom County, This one looks very much 1930s and upon looking it up, I was not surprised to see the building date at 1937.
I decided to not photograph birds today. I watched but somehow felt I was intruding and could not press the shutter, the same held true for butterflies but I snapped a couple of photos anyways. There were a few Gray Hairstreaks about.
and so diminutive Dainty Yellow butterflies hanging on in the rapidly browning of fall
Saw some western plains garter snake subspecies of the common garter snake, many were out on the roads
Our picnic would have been better had not someone forgot to pack the bread
