THE SCENERY ALONG THE WAY

Much farther to the south, he could see, shimmering in the distance, Lake Sakakawea, which took its name from one of the most influential women in American history, Sakakawea, Sacagawea, or Sacajawea, as she is known in most other parts of the country. The name meant ‘Bird Woman’ in the Shoshone Indian language. She had been honored as well by the US Mint which placed her likeness on a dollar coin. A member of the Shoshone tribe, she was still a teenager, but already had a husband, French Canadian fur trapper Toussaint Charbonneau, and a son, when she joined up with the Lewis and Clark Expedition in 1804 near the site where now stands the dam that created the lake from a portion of the Missouri River. Garrison Dam, for the site of Lewis and Clark’s garrison. Sakakawea became an integral part of the expedition, contributing her talents as guide and interpreter. It was certainly a stroke of luck that Lewis and Clark met her, for without her help, the expedition would have been doomed to certain failure. This was country steeped in Lewis and Clark history–in fact the highway that ran between the Ranch Park and the lake was named Highway1804 in honor of the year that the great explorers entered what is now North Dakota. On the opposite side of the lake, there is a Highway 1806, named for the year of their return journey eastward...

From Ranch Park, Chapter 3, “On Safari–North Dakota Style” as Will Nickerson takes in the scenery from his vantage point on the tractor seat as he takes Jenine’s camp group on a Ranch Safari hayride.

Although my stories are fiction–all the characters are made up–and there are no such places as Dakota Ranch Park and New Oslo, ND, I want them to be true to the overall areas where they take place. I wanted especially to capture the spirit of North Dakota in Ranch Park–so of course some of the reality of the state had to come into play. Lake Sakakawea, North Dakota’s Great Lake, is one such place, and I treat it and the history associated with it with as much accuracy as possible. By incorporating the reality of North Dakota into the novel, I hope to make the story more realistic–and show readers what this great state is all about. North Dakotans can take pride in the state–and maybe, perhaps, non-North Dakota readers can be persuaded to consider it for their next vacation. There are, in fact, places I’ve wanted to go after reading about them in fiction. Ranch Park is a murder mystery–but it’s all set amid the sweeping backdrop of the prairies and Badlands of this truly magnificent state.

R. L. Anderson, author, Will Nickerson Mysteries


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