Kate's Roadside Attraction

for Jamestown and the Greater Walhalla areas

| The Pembina Gorge Area | Walhalla ND | Olga ND |
|  Jamestown ND (see below) | Other NoDak Links |
 

• Jamestown is the hometown of Pop Music Legend Miss Peggy Lee and Western Author Louis L'Amour. Stop by these sites to learn more. Any Darren Erstad, Shadoe Stevens or Lenus Carlson links? Please tell me if you know of any!
• For an insider's guide to Jamestown, stop over here for a visit. This is a NEW attraction for those not so fortunate to be able to get out and hit the Rendezvous Region on the weekends!
• One day, I just couldn't take the decor in one of the local coffee shops any longer. Stop by my History of North Dakota?? site to read about the nastiest mural in town.
• Are You a Jamestown Lifer?  Dare to take the quiz!

The Rendezvous Region 
of North Dakota

My home corner of NoDak is an area that lies around Walhalla, Cavalier, Concrete and Olga, towns that few have ever heard of. People rarely believe me when I say there are hills and trees in the part of the state I'm from, so I've gathered some information on this page below the photo of the sandslide in the fall.

Writeups on the area:

• The Landscape
• Historic Background of the Area
• Gingras Trading Post Historic Site
• Pioneer Heritage Center in Icelandic State Park
• Four Seasons of Recreation
• Frost Fire Mountain Ski Resort
• Christmas Tree Farms
• Tetrault Woods State Forest
• Frost Fire Mountain Summer Musical Theater
• Contact the North Dakota Tourism Office at 604 East Boulevard, Bismarck, ND 58505-0825 for print information.
• For a more artistic trip to the Pembina Hills, please read my most recent poetic endeavors (or endeavours, if you're Canadian).
• Please return me to Kate Stevenson's Homepage

The Rendezvous Region of North Dakota

• The Rendezvous Region is located in the northeast corner of the state, made up of parts of Pembina and Cavalier Counties and containing the spectacular Pembina Gorge, one of the largest woodland areas of North Dakota. It features steep, densely-forested valleys with various branches of the Pembina River winding, flowing and trickling below.
• This corner of North Dakota has a relatively long recorded history. In the early 1700's, the French Canadian explorer LaVerendrye visited the Pembina Gorge and described it in his journals. Years later, the area was a center of the fur trade of the early and mid-1800's. Fur trappers, traders and Native Americans chose the gorge area for their annual gatherings, or rendezvous, where they sold goods and traded for needed supplies.
• Visitors of today can relive the days of the rendezvous by visiting the Gingras Trading Post, erected in 1843 by Antoine Gingras and restored by the North Dakota State Historical Society. It is located near the site of the trading settlement of St. Joseph, three miles north of Walhalla and is open during the summer.
• In the late 1800's, the area attracted pioneers of northern European descent, among them Icelanders, Germans, Norwegians, Swedes and Scots. The Icelanders founded their own communities and maintained their language well into this century, founding the first Icelandic Lutheran Church in the United States in the tiny town of Mountain, the center of the Icelandic settlement.
• A record of the history and heritage of all the ethnic groups of the Pembina Gorge area is preserved in Pioneer Heritage Center located at the entrance to the Icelandic State Park west of Cavalier, at the Pembina Heritage Museum scheduled to open in 1996 and at historic sites throughout the region.
• Visitors to the region will find recreational opportunities for every season. In the fall, the area offers spectacular autumn colors, fall suppers in small towns such as the French community of Olga, and hunting. Winter activities in the region include ten runs of downhill skiing at Frost Fire Mountain near Walhalla, cross-country skiing on groomed trails in Icelandic State Park near Cavalier and snowmobiling on over three hundred and fifty miles of well-marked trails throughout the Pembina Gorge.
• For a special pre-Christmas outing, visitors can trek out to one of several Christmas tree farms, select their own tree, cut it themselves and enjoy the delight of a fresh native Christmas tree in the dark of winter. 
• In the spring and summer, visitors can hike in the Tetrault Woods State Forest near Walhalla or on the Gunlogson Arboretum Trails in Icelandic State Park, go fishing and canoeing on the branches of the Pembina River or go boating on the reservoirs of the area.
• In addition, people come from all over to attend the Frost Fire Summer Musical Theater in the Amphitheater at the ski resort in the Pembina Gorge during July and August. Throughout the year, the area is a delight for wildlife photographers, bird watchers and nature lovers.

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NOTES:
1) The name "Gingras" has two different pronounciatins in the area. Among the French and Metis, the name is pronounced something like "zhang-grah," and among the Germanic, Scots and Scandinavian peoples, the pronounciation has a hard "g," as in "Gidget" and has a more Anglo-American pronounciation.
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2) "Tetrault" is pronounced "taytro" by the locals. Most of the French Canadian names are still given their original French pronunciation in the area.
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Last updated on 06 September, 2002
Pembina Hills/stevenso@jc.edu