1. Left from Arnegard on a graded road 2 m.; L. here to LAKE PESHECK, 3 m., formed by impounded creek waters. It is surrounded by fine trees, and is fast becoming a summer recreation point. The lake was recently stocked with 1,500 trout.
2. Right from Arnegard on a dirt road to the northern entrance of the NORTH ROOSEVELT REGIONAL STATE PARK, 14 m. (see North Roosevelt Regional State Park).
WATFORD CITY, 117.5 m. (2,082 alt., 769 pop.), was named for a town in Canada. Because of lack of facilities at Schafer, the neighboring county seat, Watford City is actually, if not legally, the seat of the county government. Many of the county officers and employees live here, and county and Federal agencies have offices in the city.
The town is the terminus of a G. N. Ry. branch line, and the trade center of the "Island Empire" county, so called because the Missouri on the N. and E., the Yellowstone on the W., and the Little Missouri on the S. almost surround it with water. At the W. A. Jacobson law office is a private Museum (open weekdays 9-5), a collection of stones, gems, fossils, Indian artifacts, coins, woods, and other articles of interest, including a Bible printed in 1535. A tourist camp is one-half mile E. on ND 23, a graveled highway.
Left from Watford City on ND 23 is SCHAFER, 4 m. (1,950 alt., 100 pop.), seat of McKenzie County, in the little Cherry Creek valley (see Tour 10). Its white frame buildings and dingy log huts cluster about the frame courthouse which is an object of long-standing contention with Watford City. The town is named for Charles Shafer (1850-1930), an early rancher of the region, whose son George Shafer (1888-) served as Governor of the State from 1929-32. On the Shafer homestead S. of the town along the creek are the Schafer Springs, near which are excellent camping grounds. The springs have a flow of nearly 6,000 gal. per hour, a flow which has not diminished during recent years of subnormal rainfall.
A slight curve at 130.5 m. reveals a spectacular view. The grassy plateau ends abruptly, and below, as though a huge, careless knife had slashed into the prairie, lies a confusion of endless gray-, ocher-, slate-, and red-layered buttes, through which winds a maze of ragged ravines and coulees. In the distance the meandering LITTLE MISSOURI RIVER looks hardly capable of producing the strange BADLANDS which it and its tributaries have carved out of the earth. The red of the scoria-topped buttes, the myriad hues of the strata laid down ages ago by successive prehistoric seas, and the brilliant green of the spruce and cedar trees clinging to the steep hillsides form a startling, almost weird, picture.
Like miniatures at the bottom of the valley are the silvery steel of the ROOSEVELT BRIDGE and the drab, squat, frame buildings of a permanent CCC camp. In 3 m. the tortuous, twisting highway drops 600 ft. (drive carefully) to reach the CCC camp and the main entrance to the North Roosevelt Regional State Park at 133.5 m. (see North Roosevelt Regional State Park).
After crossing the river and its wide flood plain the highway climbs through the Badlands to emerge upon the prairie at 137 m. In the distance (L) at 143 m. are the Killdeer Mountains (see Side Tour 8D).
At 151 m. the highway rounds a grass-covered prominence to enter GRASSY BUTTE (2,300 alt., 40 pop.), a little town founded in 1913 and named for the neighboring butte, which has long been a landmark in the region. Although there are many similarly shaped elevations in the vicinity, Grassy Butte is the only one not bare of vegetation. Ten Russian laborers first homesteaded in the Grassy Butte region, forming the nucleus of the present-day farming population. The old post office building still stands, a typical frontier log structure. In the early days of the town, when there were buildings on only one side of the main street, it was a local jest that Grassy Butte had the widest main street in the country, "from McKenzie County to the Atlantic seaboard."
The people who inhabit the area surrounding Grassy Butte are Little Russians or Ukrainians. They preserve many of their Old Country customs, and retain their Greek Catholic religious allegiance, though a difference of opinion has resulted in a schism.