Bowden plows fields of scorn

Award-winning author Charles Bowden, who wrote the National Geographic article “The Emptied Prairie” about North Dakota’s dismal hopes, visited our state last week and offended our good nature once again.

Let me start by saying, Bowden offered some thought-provoking observations about geography and the errors humans are making in an effort to defy the natural limitations of our earth. I’m glad I heard him speak and have been contemplating many of his points.

But his lecture provided little context for the “Emptied Prairie” piece. And his defensive attitude – calling those like the Governor who object to the article “dishonest” and “illiterate” because “even a 10 year old in Arkansas” can understand it -- discredits him as a writer.

The record created by this story needs to be corrected in two ways.

First, from the minute the article appeared and North Dakotans cried foul, Bowden and Geographic editors have insisted that “The Emptied Prairie” was not about North Dakota. The photos for the story came first and Bowden crafted his story around them. It was supposed to be a piece about abandoned buildings.

Perhaps. But in its published form, the article is very much a commentary on life in North Dakota. Bowden’s impressive credentials obviously haven’t earned him any manners, but he should realize that when he specifically names a place 25 times in one article, his observations will paint a very strong picture about that place and the people who live there.

A publication with the reputation of National Geographic ought to be honest enough to admit the article went far beyond an exploration of abandoned buildings.

Second, the core premise of the article is wrong. He concludes that in most places, “abandoned buildings are a sign of change and shifting economic opportunities.” But on the “High Plains” (like North Dakota) “they always mean that something in the earth and sky mutinied against the settlers.”

Bowden said homesteaders believed rain would follow the plow, “but learned better.”

The message of these poetic statements is that the land, the geography here, is unsuitable for farming or habitation in general. The fact that North Dakota is the top producer of 16 different agriculture commodities is apparently just a pesky, dismissible little detail.

The decline of North Dakota’s small towns and the abandoned buildings that remain are most certainly the result of shifting economic opportunities, just like the rest of the country. My own family is an example of this.

My dad grew up on a small grain farm near Ryder, N.D., an hour southwest of Minot. As the oldest son of six children, he spent his childhood toiling on that land and dreamed of farming himself someday. But his father had other plans.

Despite having only a sixth-grade education, my grandpa recognized the changing economics of farming. In less than 20 years, he saw his own operation grow from 160 acres worked entirely by horse-drawn equipment, to 800 acres farmed by fully automated tractors and combines.

He boarded my dad on a train to UND saying, “Get an education Duane. You can always farm, but no one can ever take your education away from you.”

My dad and countless other farm kids never returned to the farm, but that same land is still in production. And so is my dad. He has remained in North Dakota his entire life, creating a successful career and raising a happy family here.

North Dakotans are proof that you can certainly live a prosperous life in this state. You just can’t make it on a 160-acre parcel of land like the original settlers thought. Economic opportunities changed that plan.

This isn’t the dramatic story penned by Bowden of a land dominated by suicides, emptiness and unfulfilled dreams caused by a relentless, unlivable geography. But it is the truth.

Any 10-year-old can understand that.