north-dakota

Would You Like to Die? Why Not Move to North Dakota?

Gabrielle Bluestone · 04/29/15 07:00PM

North Dakota. The great expanse. Sounds romantic, in that sun setting over a bison grazing on the prairie, Americana sort of way. Great place to visit; not such a great place to work—North Dakota is also full of oil and gas that ain’t gonna extract itself.

White Supremacists Tried to Take Over a Town: Here's the Documentary

Sarah Hedgecock · 02/04/14 03:21PM

Leith, North Dakota, was once a ghost town. But recently, there's been a population boom: white supremacists have begun moving into the small town in an effort to take it over. Now, No Weather Productions is making a documentary about the town, its people, and its new tenants.

Lacey Donohue · 11/27/13 12:13AM

[North Dakota resident George Loegering saw this large spinning ice circle in the Sheyenne River while out hunting on Saturday. Members of the National Weather Service said a combination of cold, dense air last weekend and an eddy in the river likely caused the large spinning circle of ice bits to form. Photo by George Loegering via AP]

"Oilfield Trash" and a Boom That Won't Last

Ken Layne · 10/08/13 11:18AM

People are strangers out here on the oil patch, and public conversation is terse and muted. You never know when an oil company manager or safety inspector or corporate spy is sniffing around. I learned after the first day in Williston, N.D., that my usual work uniform of an old sports coat and tie made me suspect. Leaving the tie at the motel helped, but not much.

Bakken Boom: Where the Buffalo Are Furloughed

Ken Layne · 10/07/13 10:02AM

Oil wells and sheet-metal buildings are hideous things, but America the Beautiful resumes as soon as you get past the last grim RV park and last signs of our shoddy civilization. The easiest way to refresh the soul is to look on the map for a big chunk of green: a national park or preserve or forest, or in the case of the Bakken, the Little Missouri National Grassland.

American Ugly: Bakken Shantytowns and Stucco Strip Malls

Ken Layne · 10/04/13 02:01PM

Boomtowns don't have to be ugly. San Francisco was built during the Gold Rush, as was Sacramento and dozens of still pretty towns in the Sierra Nevada. Virginia City, home to the Comstock Lode, quickly built up neighborhoods of ornate mansions and a main street that offered everything from Oscar Wilde lectures in the opera house to exotic prostitutes from Australia and China. But since the 1960s, when America lost its ability to see or create beauty, our endless boom and bust cycle produces nothing but garbage: garbage housing, garbage retail, garbage jobs and garbage products.

Boomtown Rats on the Lonesome Prairie

Ken Layne · 10/03/13 03:08PM

Ken Layne, Gawker's America correspondent, is inaugurating his occasional series of reports from the field with a trip to the boom-rich oil fields of North Dakota's Bakken formation, from where he will be filing dispatches all week.

North Dakota Inching Ever Closer to Being First State to Enact Personhood Abortion Law

Cord Jefferson · 03/22/13 03:52PM

The North Dakota House passed a bill this afternoon that would define life as beginning at conception, effectively moving one step closer to banning all abortion in the state without exception for rape or incest. Approved by the state Senate last month, the bill will now go to voters as a ballot initiative. This latest restrictive measure comes only a week after North Dakota legislators approved bills that would ban abortion beyond six weeks into pregnancy and ban abortion in the case of genetic abnormality, like Downs Syndrome.

Hamilton Nolan · 03/15/13 03:04PM

North Dakota legislators want to ban abortions after as little as six weeks of pregnancy.

Crazy Fools Want to Eliminate Property Taxes

Hamilton Nolan · 06/12/12 10:29AM

The key rule of responsible long term financial planning is: Whenever you build a financial surplus, even for a moment, immediately blow that surplus on a plan that will also eliminate a steady source of long term income. I was kidding! That is not actually a "good" rule of financial planning. But it is a craven political rule, and isn't that what's really important?

Grand Forks Olive Garden Receives Positive Review (UPDATE)

Emma Carmichael · 03/08/12 12:11PM

The recently-opened Olive Garden in Grand Forks, N.D., is off to a great start, according to Marilyn Hagerty, longtime food critic for the Grand Forks Herald. The restaurant "is the largest and most beautiful" in town and has been patronized by visitors "from out of town as well as people who live here," Hagerty reports in yesterday's positive review.