On my first full day in North Dakota for the Potholes and Prairies Birding Festival, I took a field trip which toured much of the Arrowwood National Wildlife Refuge. Arrowwood sits in the valley of the James River, which, given the slow current of the James, is a surprisingly broad eroded depression in the high prairie, giving the impression of actual hills at its boundary if you look east or west. This is a view up the valley to the north…and the valley bottom itself is even flatter than the rolling prairies that surround it. The Refuge contains several larger bodies of water where the James has been dammed. The largest by far is Arrowwood Lake. What you see in the relative distance in this image is Mud Lake, the second largest on the refuge. The lush green growth along the road has its own story: a year to the day before this image was taken, all this was under 10 feet of water as the James River flooded for the second time in 2 years. Looking to the east or west you can easily see the “high water line” where this green growth meets the more subdued prairie grasses.

That evening, also at Arrowwood, I met a British film-maker, Freddie, who was on assignment to produce a trailer for birding show to pitch to National Geographic Channel. He had flown direct from London and, after a frustrating day stranded at the Chicago Airport, had continued to Fargo, where he rented a car and drove to Carrington across the prairies. He was now a day into his North Dakota experience, and was simply, as he put it, “blown away.” (Apt considering the 20 mph wind blowing around the edges of the new Arrowwood Visitor Center where we were standing, or trying to stand.) Nothing in his considerable experience of the world (he is a trekker and has traveled extensively) had prepared him for the Potholes and Prairies country of the the Dakotas…the sweep of the rolling landscape, the vastness of the sky, the isolated farms with their shelter belts dotting the prairie. He kept using the word “unimaginable” and I can identify. That was my impression of the place when I first visited it the mid 80’s. Unimaginable.

This image catches, I think, just a bit of that unimaginable grandeur. The people (fellow birders who had wandered away from the bus) and the road give it scale. The storm clouds moving over (and away…it cleared a few hours later) provide the drama. And the unbroken, wide horizon stretches the eye and the mind to vast dimensions.

Canon SX40HS. Program with iContrast and –1/3EV exposure compensation.  24mm equivalent field of view. f4 @ 1/1000 @ ISO 100. Processed in Lightroom for intensity, clarity, and sharpness.