Carrington to Canadian border, 241.5 m.
Soo Ry. roughly parallels entire route.
Graveled roadbed except 38 m. bituminous-surfaced between Velva and Foxholm.
Accommodations in principal towns.
US 52, pursuing a diagonal course northwest across the State, provides a direct route between the Canadian Rockies and the Middle West. It traverses a diversified farming area, and passes through the fertile Souris River valley and the treeless valley of the Des Lacs River. In the green panorama of spring the prairie grasslands, dotted with small grazing herds of white-faced Herefords or black and white Holsteins, alternate with tilled fields. By late summer tones of yellow dominate the landscape, which after the harvest is left a scarred, grimy tan.
At CARRINGTON, 0.0 m. (see Tour 2), is the junction with US 281 (see Tour 2).
At 9 m. on US 52 is the junction with ND 30, a graded dirt road.
Left on this road to the HAWKSNEST, 9 m., a high, flat-topped hill with well-timbered slopes rising 400 ft. above the surrounding plain. Near its top is a crystal-clear spring. It was named in 1873 by a party of surveyors who saw a great number of hawks swarm from the trees. On top of the hill is a large serpentine mound. After the coming of the white man the hill was a camping place for Sioux Indians traveling between Fort Totten and Fort Yates. They called the hill Huya Wayapa ahdi (where the eagle brings something home in his beak). According to Indian legend a large band of Sioux once camped near the hill but were unable to ascertain the whereabouts of a war party of Chippewa which they suspected to be near. One of the Sioux, however, observed that an eagle flying into the trees carried in its mouth what appeared to be a piece of meat cut with a knife. From the direction in which the eagle had flown the Sioux were able to find the enemy. The legend is silent on the outcome of the warriors' meeting.
Left from the Hawksnest 3 m. to CAMP KIMBALL HISTORIC SITE, where Sibley camped July 22 and 23, 1863. It was from this point that the expedition moved SW. to engage in the Battle of Big Mound (see Tour 8).
SYKESTON, 13 m. (1,233 alt., 327 pop.), a German community named for Richard Sykes, who platted the town in 1883, is on the banks of the Pipestem River and artificial Lake Hiawatha. Sykes Park provides good camping. Buffalo favored this vicinity as a grazing spot before the coming of settlers, but the semiannual hunting expeditions of the metis (see Side Tour 5A) destroyed many, and after the cattlemen arrived only an occasional specimen was sighted. The library of an Inverness, Scotland, home is adorned with the head of what was probably the last buffalo killed in this vicinity. A party of guests at the Sykes ranch in 1881, including Ewen Grant of Inverness, learned that a buffalo was grazing with the Sykes cattle, and in the exciting chase to bag the animal Grant had the good fortune to despatch him.