Monday, July 9, 2012

Flying from Minneapolis to Devil's Lake in a 19-seater (with five passengers), I flew over what looked like flat terrain dotted with a thousand lakes. This really is big sky country. Our medical school students picked up Amitha, a pediatrician, and me, and we rattled along the Devil's Lake road, which is in the process of being repaved.

The road requires repaving due to the serious flooding problems here. The lake isn't fed by rivers and streams. Rather, it is a basin created who knows how long ago by a glacier. Water flows down from the region--as far North as Canada, and from surrounding prairie--and then has no outlet. Since 1993, there have been floods. 2009 and 2011 were particularly wet years, and you can see the evidence in submerged trees and telephone poles. The county has to keep building up the roads and the levees to contain the lake and allow travel.

Flooding has robbed the Spirit Lake Nation of some territory. The hillier parts of the country that I saw around the water tower are spectacularly beautiful. It's rural and green.

The only native industry on the lake that I have seen is the Spirit Lake Casino, which provides some income to the Nation. The other industry I see here is fishing. There are huge fish in the great big lake, and it is known for walleye, a type of perch.


Other sights: bison and prairie dogs on Sully's Hill.

Here is the entrance to where we are staying at Fort Totten Inn, our "gated" community.

As for the class, we had our introductions today: eight students enrolled. Three are interested in nursing, one in hospital administration, and two just-graduated high school kids who just don't know what they want to do. Two are the completely silent type. I am hoping they all stick with the class and that the possibility of a health care career takes them by storm.