The Sacred, the Profane, and the Bully Pulpit

In May of 2020, at the height of our COVID isolation, I went deeper in. I walked into the North Dakota Badlands with a friend.

At the time, I was still serving on Minot’s City Council. Beyond the uncertainty of the early pandemic, it had been a rough recent run in that role. We killed projects I was passionate about, advanced others I thought were crazy, and oh yea, we also fired our City Manager after a difficult external investigation.

If you’re wondering, elected public service isn’t always glamorous; sometimes it downright sucks. The spring of 2020 qualifies the latter. So, in an attempt to capture my mental state at that moment, let’s just say it was cluttered.

Now, if you’re not familiar, the Maah Daah Hey trail starts about 40 miles South of Medora and winds its way to the Teddy Roosevelt National Park’s North Unit. All told, it’s nearly 150 miles of hiking. Our plan was to complete it all in seven days; that’s the time we felt we could be off the grid given our leadership roles; my hiking partner was my friend Shannon who was also on Minot’s City Council at the time. 

We started on May 7th from the Burning Coal Vein Campground. The temperature was about 35; the wind was about 40. What I remember about the first seven miles was the relentless noise. It was old-jeep-with-the-top-and-doors-off loud. Yes, doors, too. There was no escape. I also remember the spray of the sand. When it lifts off the trail and hits you in the face at 40 mph, it leaves a mark in your memory and a grit in your teeth.

The seven miles is notable because that was the first road crossing. We sat there and had our lunch. We rested, watered, ate, talked a little, thought about what was ahead, and geared up. We had miles to make if we were going to hit our 20 mile-per-day goal.

It was in that next section – as we hiked up toward the Kinley Plateau –  that it happened. Perhaps the wind abated, perhaps we were more sheltered, perhaps it was the steady climb – I have no idea why it started then. But that’s when it happened.

I started swearing.

I understand that sentence may not hit you too hard, but I wanted to ease you in. Had you been there on the trail with us, it would have sounded something like, “Holy fuck, look at that fucking blue bird over fucking there. That’s not a fucking prairie bird. Fuck. That’s fucking cool.” 

This went on for some time; hours it seemed, certainly miles. Every sentence. Every other word or there about – yep, that word.

Now, if you don’t know me well, I’ll share that I’m a sailor. I also have a fondness for beer. Swearing is not a new phenomenon for me. This was different. Trust me when I tell you – there was something more than profanity coming out of me that day.

It was toxicity. It was stress. It was release. It was catharsis. And it was the Badlands – I believe –  that triggered it. The solitude, the steps, the beauty, the wilderness, the nothingness – it all combined. And out it came. Spewing.

If you’ve never had an experience like it, I recommend it – just do it with one of your less-judgmental friends 🙂

That day we finished close to twenty miles. We crossed three roads. We didn’t see another person or even a notable man-made structure.

The next day was another eighteen miles of unmarred western landscape, another eighteen miles of brilliant nothingness.

On that third morning, we finally saw other hikers. They were better equipped and headed South; I wanted to trade packs. We said our trail hellos and walked on. That conversation put a crack in the remoteness of the experience. The oil development we hiked past a few miles later shattered it. Round a bend and there it is, not even a pitching wedge off the path.

It was a stark reminder of what’s knocking at the door.

I’ll also say this and –  I think anyone would do the same – when you walk out of where we were, out of that pristine wilderness, and you see the derrick pumping, you can’t help but ask if we’re doing enough to protect what’s left.

That brings us to why I’m sharing this story. Last month, the Maah Daah Hey trail was put forward by a group of North Dakota organizations for consideration as a National Monument.

The reaction was predictable. The papers, airwaves and etherverse – especially from the powers that be, were quickly filled with those shouting “environmentalist!”

It’s too bad. The first thing we lose when we start shouting names at each other is the ability to have a meaningful discussion.  And look, I get it. Name calling is politically expedient these days. Why discuss when all you have to do is label someone something negative and move on?

The answer is this: the Maah Daah Hey National Monument is worthy of an earnest discussion. And when we fail to consider a question fully or fairly, especially one that has merit, we lose. Those that come after us lose, too. 

And that’s what the Maah Daah Hey National Monument is about. It’s about leaving behind a little of what was left to us.

Teddy Roosevelt is widely celebrated as the conservation president. The areas we walked through are the same plateaus, coulees, and buttes he crossed the first time he visited North Dakota late in the summer of 1883.

On that same trip, Teddy was billeted in the shack of Gregor Lang and his 16-year old son Lincoln. Later in life, Lincoln would say this of that trip and meeting a young Roosevelt:

“Clearly I recall his wild enthusiasm over the Bad Lands … It had taken root in the congenial soil of his consciousness, like an ineradicable, creeping plant, as it were, to thrive and permeate it thereafter, causing him more and more to think in the broad gauge terms for nature – of the real earth.” 

Towards the end of his Presidency, Teddy gave a speech in Fargo where he famously shared, “I would not have been President had it not been for my experience in North Dakota.” It is a quote we modern North Dakotans still cherish.

Today, my friend Shannon is the Executive Director of the Badlands Conservation Alliance. They’re one of those “Environmentalist” groups that dared put forth the Maah Daah Hey National Monument proposal. That’s what happens in the Badlands; they change you. They help you see what’s important.

Today, if you’re reading this, I’m glad you came along. But I wrote it for an audience of one. It’s a moonshot that he’ll see it, but if he does, here goes.

Dear President Biden:
Teddy gave you the Antiquities Act because he understood that conservation would rarely survive a political process. Your pen and your pulpit are bully. Just fucking do it.
Respectfully,
Josh Wolsky, Minot, North Dakota