North Dakota is bordered by Canada, Minnesota, South Dakota and Montana. The best time to visit North Dakota is at the end of May until October annually. The capitol city of North Dakota is named as Bismarck and this city is popular with the historical neighborhood named Cathedral District. This states is truly beautiful and a wonderful nature sites to visit, bison is the icon that representing them. They are easily being spotted all over the area.
The top highlights of visit should be the National Park call “Theodore Roosevelt.” The park has two huge areas, which is the South Unit and the North Unit. Two of them are separated by Roosevelt’s Elk horn right in-between. Besides the natural scenery, there are many activities offers in the park, visitors are allow to hike, camping and even driving through the entire park. Winding river, badlands and rolling hills made up the natural landscape of the national park. If the timing is right, visitors can see the herds of bison graze freely at the park. To fully blend with natural, it is great to camp at the campgrounds – Juniper and Cottonwood; which is situated on the Missouri River. The campgrounds stay open all year round and the rates are lower during the winter with limited facilities.
Without going to real Europe, visitors do enjoy a truly attractive Scandinavian Culture at Minot, North Dakota. The Heritage Park of Scandinavian offers the variety of Scandinavian Culture of Northern Europe including Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Denmark. These attractions including the replica buildings and icons of those countries, such as Danish Windmills, The Stave Church, Finnish Sauna, Swedish Dala Horse which is 25 feet in height, and the ancient home from Norway. Visitors can start touring the park from the Heritage Center. It is a hub for tourist information and also a souvenir shop with a variety of Scandinavian cultural gift and souvenir. Every year, the celebration of Scandinavian festival or known as Norsk Hostfest attracts many visitors to the continent. During the festival, it features high quality handcrafted art and other. Scandinavian performance which brings a different experience for the visitors.
The Dakota Zoo is located at Bismarck, along the Missouri River. Marc and Betty were the founder of the zoo, with the assistance of the dedicated volunteers. It was first opened in 1961 with just 15 acres of lands. It has successfully attracted more than 40,000 visitors in the year with 23 birds and 75 animals.
Now the zoo has expanded to 90 acres, catering 600 animals and 125 species, including birds, fish and reptiles. The number of visitors has increased to more than 150,000 visitors annually. The zoo provides a home to these animals such as grizzly bears, mountain lions, Whitetail Deer, river otters and Bengal Tigers. The discovery center provides a full series of learning materials about animals, including books and graphics. Also, the center offers a meeting room for small parties, which caters 75 people and the sound system can be arranged upon request.
Jamestown, North Dakota is popular with the biggest buffalo statue with the length of 46 feet and height of 26 feet. It weighs at sixty tons which is equally to 60 heads of grown buffaloes. The statue was built in year 1959 at the cost of $8,500. Besides the largest statue, there are herds of rare albino bison protected by the ND Buffalo Foundation. The bison wander freely at the protected grassland which is more than 200 acres from I-94 (North to South). Along the journey, visitors enjoys the view of live bison and the National Buffalo Museum. Also Frontier Village which is located next to it. Frontier Village was built in 1965, which is a replica of old western city with many facilities such as school house, jail house, church, wishing well, fire departments and train depot. There are gift and souvenir shop available with a wide selection of merchandises relate to North Dakota. The Buffalo Museum takes about 6,000 Square feet with the features of the history of Bison and the culture of the Natives. There are a ten thousand year old bison skull display, which is the main highlight of the museum. The visitors can also learn about the buffalo’s living and habitats.