In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

1 River Flying The Sheyenne River Imagine winter on the northern prairie. January cold. Deep hard snow. Blizzard one day—winds that can freeze your breath before it leaves your body—bright clear sky the next. Now imagine a small airplane low in the sky, white wings in a steep bank to the left over the intersection of two frozen rivers. Riparian trees, mostly oak and elm, outline the river course, every brown limb and branch defined against the snow and ice like a fine pencil sketch on a planetary scale. Where the wind has blown the snow away, the rivers shine as if the sun were inside the ice. —————————————————— Here is a truth, perhaps a secret, about the northern prairie. Winter is the most beautiful season. Beautiful in the way hoarfrost hangs from trees. Beautiful in the way snow can fall so gently you believe, for more than just a moment , you’ve entered a place both sacred and deep. Beautiful in the way that cold air can kill you fast. Beautiful in the way that sun dogs in the morning can make it seem like three suns ignite the horizon. Beautiful in the hard contrasts of winter light, every shape a crisp edge. Beautiful in the way that clear sky on a midwinter night is so quiet you swear you can hear the radio voices of stars. Beautiful in the way that every story is about staying alive, and beautiful in the way that people smile when they tell them. Earlier this morning, a full moon shaded from white to yellow and then amber as it set. Yellow last night at rising. Bright crystal white at midnight. 2 Prairie Sky Yellow at setting. At sunrise, the temperature was eighteen degrees below zero. The windchill was minus thirty-eight. —————————————————— Two thousand feet above the ground, I level the airplane wings. This is where the Sheyenne River meets the Red River of the North, and I want to follow the Sheyenne. Upriver, I think. Always upriver. Upriver is toward what came before us, before here, before now. Upriver is history rushing at us. Downriver is water I’ve already seen. Not history. Just the past. I want to match the river turns and meanders, to feel the press of every river bend in my back and chest. There is a love between the airplane and the boat or ship—the captain of one nods to the pilot of the other. Currents and tide are winds and pressure. I want to put this airplane’s shadow on the river ice and go exploring. The whole prairie is frozen. But if you live here, you learn early the lesson that snow and ice can jump and dance. Drifts can build and disappear, sometimes migrate across the landscape. A few inches of new snow can blow into a wall that’s taller than a home. The frozen river roils underneath the ice. I want to see the Dakota snowfields that will melt into this river. We already know a disaster is coming. This has been a hard winter. The ground was wet and full last fall when the frosts came, and the snowfall has been consistent, full of water. We already know the rivers will flood. We’ve been here before: 1997, 2009. Countless other years that did not make the national evening news. Sandbag walls to protect people’s homes. Diversions cut into the earth to protect the towns. This January day, however, I want to see the frozen world. I want to fly in the fat smooth air, to see the prairie at a truer scale, to fill my eyes with the size of this place. —————————————————— It’s almost like ballet. Preflight. Starting. Warm-up. The voices from the control tower—the instructions. Taxiing. The rush down the runway. Airborne . There are names for every move. The run-up. Position and hold. Every move needs to be learned, practiced, made so familiar you feel the patterns in every other thing you do. It’s technical, yes. But there is a grace to getting metal and bone into the sky. This morning at the airport, the automated weather announcement gives a clue about the depth of this season. “Temperature minus two three, dew point minus two eight, altimeter three zero two five. . . . Notice to airmen, Runway One-Three/Three-One closed, Runway Niner/Two-Seven PAPI lights out of service, airport signs are obscured . . .” We’ve just had that much snow. “Fargo...

Share