Like many others, I had heard about the National Geographic article called "The Emptied Prairie" at the beginning of January. at the time, a Fargo televison station (KFYR-TV) covered the controversry and interveiwed a few people in the town of Mott, ND. Here is the news story and the video.

According to them, the National Geographic article shows North Dakota as being littered with ghost towns and empty houses, which they feel is not true. A new story came out, today that tells of an ever increasing population in the state that is unhappy with what the article had to say. Even Gov. Hoeven and his commerce commissioner are working on (and have now completed ) what is described as a "full-blown response", hoping to convince National Geographic to follow up with a second piece that "balances out" the damage caused, by highlighting cities and towns in the state that are not abandoned.

What I see from this reation to the article is that there are a lot of people in North Dakota that are trying to imagine that their state is something that it's simply "not". The fact is that this story was about "The Emptied Prairie". It was not about the growing cities around the state and the progress that they are making. It is about the towns that once had a population, an industry, a life, and how the people are leaving.

There was nothing that I could see in the story that was untrue. There are towns that are empty, where the people have left falling buildings and deteriorating roads to head for the more prosperous cities. You can find more than 8 photographers that have taken over 1,000 pictures of these abandoned buildings in North Dakota on Flickr, alone. North Dakota is largely a bone yard of wrecked, abandoned, rotting structures, and hopelessly cruel conditions. To deny that is to deny what North Dakota really is.

The Governor and others can argue that there are many cities in the state that are prosperous and growing. They can argue that the economy is doing well and that the state offers many opportunities and discoveries. They can say that, because they are right. What they are wrong about is the fact that they are deying that there are also places in the state that have been forgotten. There are places in the state of North Dakota that people are leaving from, and the people that do stay in them will stay there until they die. Once they are gone, there will be nothing left of them, just as has happened in many of the towns across the state.

Don't sit there in Fargo, Bismarck, Grand Forks, or even New Rockford or Watford City and try to tell people how the prairie isn't emptying. You are not "in" the prairie, so you don't see it. I'd love to hear from the people of Temple, Alamo, Appam, Hamlet, Arena, Marmon, Neuburg, Dawson, Crystal Springs, Berwick, Model, Flaxton, Cleveland, and also the many other towns that were mentioned in the National Geographic article. Of course, there's not many people in many of those towns that I "would" be able to hear from, since many are leaving or have already left. There's not even enough kids for some of the schools (like the one in Cleveland, ND) to remain open, because people are moving to the bigger cities.

The fact is that "North Dakota ghost towns speak of an irreversible decline." Sometimes the truth hurts some people. Trying to disagree with people from a national publication when they are telling the truth doesn't make any sense, at all. Show your North Dakota pride in some other way, rather than trying to disagree with an honest story about an honest subject. Take a step back and see who looks foolish, please.