Aerial.America.S05E05.The.Dakotas
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00:00There's nothing like the story of the Dakotas, North and South, two very different states
00:09that forged their unique destinies out of one rugged territory, a land of open prairie,
00:17ancient badlands, and towering needles of stone.
00:22It was in the Dakotas that a legendary Native American woman named Sacajawea first set out
00:28to guide explorers across the American West.
00:30But it was also here that the U.S. government was found guilty of dishonorable dealings
00:37with one of America's great Native tribes, and where a horrifying massacre by the U.S.
00:42Army known as Wounded Knee is still remembered today.
00:48Both of these northern states have made their mark on history.
00:52One healed the soul of a future American president with its colorful hills.
00:58The other immortalized him in stone with a monument to American democracy.
01:03But while there may be a lot that these two states share, there's also a lot they don't.
01:09In South Dakota, corn is king.
01:12But in the North, wheat rules, along with a thriving yellow plant called canola.
01:19The Dakotas may be two of the least populated states in the nation, but today thousands
01:24are pouring in.
01:25Some come on intimidating steeds and take over entire towns.
01:30Others crowd into giant man camps to drill for black gold, leading NASA scientists to
01:36wonder about clusters of strange new lights on the prairie.
01:40There's no end to what one can discover up here on the northern Great Plains in the lands
01:46known as the Dakotas.
02:16In 1883, a train wound its way through these rugged badlands in North Dakota.
02:33On board was a 24-year-old state assemblyman from New York who'd come here to hunt bison.
02:39His name was Theodore Roosevelt.
02:42Out on the prairie, the future president only managed to kill one bison, but ended up falling
02:49in love with the beauty of this wild western land.
02:53By the time he headed back to New York, he'd bought a major interest in a local ranch and
02:58ordered this small cabin to be built for him to live in when he returned.
03:03He was moved here to the town of Medora and restored in 1959.
03:16A few months later, the cabin provided a much-needed refuge to Roosevelt after his wife and mother
03:22both died on Valentine's Day, 1884.
03:26Over the next few years, the restorative power of the region's fertile river valleys and
03:32rocky hills drew him back again and again.
03:36To give himself more room to roam, he bought an 8-mile stretch along the banks of the Little
03:41Missouri River for $400, a place called Elkhorn Ranch.
03:47Today, the ranch house is gone.
03:51It was during his visits here that he found the solace he needed and developed the conservationist
03:56values that shaped the rest of his life.
03:59I would not have been president, he later said, had it not been for my experience in North Dakota.
04:07Roosevelt last visited North Dakota in 1918, but people here have never forgotten the impact
04:15their state had on their former president, which is why every summer evening, the hills
04:20outside of Medora come alive when the lights go up at the Burning Hills Amphitheater for
04:26a high-energy, country-style jamboree that celebrates the legacy of President Theodore
04:32Roosevelt and his love of these North Dakota hills.
04:37Musicals about Roosevelt's time here have been a staple in Medora since 1958.
04:43This latest version includes stories of Teddy punching out a drunk in a Dakota bar and going
04:48on a bear hunt.
04:52Now, anyone can enjoy this landscape here at Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which
05:02lies on land where he once herded cattle.
05:05Each year, over 600,000 people visit the park to hike and enjoy the same natural beauty
05:11that once healed the soul of America's 26th president.
05:16Today, the park lies in the southwestern corner of North Dakota, but when Roosevelt stayed
05:22here, the states of North Dakota and South Dakota didn't yet exist.
05:27Roosevelt first knew this land only as the Dakota Territory.
05:35It lay in a region that President Thomas Jefferson had bought from the French in 1803 as part
05:40of the Louisiana Purchase.
05:43Back then, no one in Washington even knew what was out here, or in much of the rest
05:47of the land beyond it to the west, right up to the Pacific Ocean.
05:52So Jefferson sent a corps of explorers under the command of Meriwether Lewis and William
05:57Clark to travel up the Missouri River to find out.
06:01Their mission was to survey and map the vast wilderness along the river's banks and to
06:06find a new route to the Pacific Ocean.
06:09It wasn't an easy trip from the start.
06:13A replica of the keelboat they used is now on display here in the North Dakota capital
06:17of Bismarck.
06:20When there was wind, they sailed the boat upriver against the Missouri's currents.
06:25When the wind died, they had to use paddles and poles to push the boat up the river, or
06:30get out and pull it along the shore using ropes.
06:36In late August, they arrived in the region that would later become the Dakota Territory.
06:45But after four more weeks of arduous travel, the harsh Dakota winter brought their progress
06:49to a halt.
06:50They chose a spot near a string of native villages to wait the winter out.
06:57Today, the site of those villages can still be spotted from the air.
07:02These round patterns in the earth are actually the foundations of homes once built by members
07:08of the Hidatsa, Mandan, and Arikara tribes.
07:12On top, they used earth and grass to create snug earth lodges like these that have been
07:17reconstructed here at the Knife River Indian Villages National Historic Site.
07:27To wait out the coming winter, Lewis and Clark built a temporary home of their own,
07:32a triangle-shaped stockade that they named Fort Mandan.
07:36Today, this reconstruction shows what it probably looked like.
07:41But they found more than shelter while living within the fort's walls.
07:45They also found two valuable new recruits for their team, a French trapper named Toussaint
07:50Charbonneau and his Shoshone wife, Sacagawea.
07:56The couple helped Lewis and Clark to communicate with the Indians nearby.
08:00First, English was translated into French, then the French was translated into one of
08:06the Indian languages, and then that was all done in reverse.
08:11When spring finally arrived and the explorers continued on up the Missouri River, Charbonneau
08:15and Sacagawea joined them as translators and guides.
08:19Sacagawea, with her baby strapped to her back, would go on to play an essential role in the
08:25expedition's success and to win fame as the most admired Native American woman since Pocahontas.
08:35On August 14, 1806, the explorers stopped again here at the Mandan Villages on their
08:41return journey east.
08:44Sacagawea's French husband was given land and $500 as payment for his help during the
08:49expedition, but Sacagawea received nothing in return.
08:54They later moved south to live at this trading post called Fort Manuel in what's now South
08:59Dakota.
09:02It was here on December 22, 1812, soon after giving birth to her daughter Lisette, that
09:08Sacagawea died.
09:10She was just 25 years old.
09:13Less than a year after her death, William Clark adopted both of Sacagawea's children.
09:19In a letter to Charbonneau, he wrote,
09:21You're a woman who accompanied you that long, dangerous, and fatiguing route to the Pacific
09:25Ocean and back, deserved a greater reward for her attention and services on that route
09:30that we had in our power to give her.
09:34Had Sacagawea lived longer, she would have seen rapid and irreversible change sweep across
09:43this region.
09:46Lewis and Clark's journals had described the abundant wildlife that they'd seen along the
09:50upper Missouri River, and soon, fur trappers and traders were heading west to scour the
09:56region's rivers and streams.
09:59Their search for furred creatures of all kinds kicked off the transformation of this then
10:04wild land into the two Dakotas that we know today.
10:11When Lewis and Clark traveled up the Missouri River through what's now South Dakota, they
10:16never set eyes on one of America's most impressive landscapes, a place where rugged cliffs rise
10:24up through the prairie, like the spiny skeletons of giant ancient creatures.
10:33Members of the Sioux were the first to name these formations. They called them Makosika,
10:38or Land Bad.
10:40Today, people travel to South Dakota's Badlands from around the world just to see these cliffs
10:47eroded out of the soft soil deposits on the prairie floor.
10:53Deposits laid down over 28 million years ago are still being worn away by wind and water
10:58at an average rate of an inch a year, making it one of the fastest eroding landscapes on
11:03Earth.
11:06Flying over this strangely seductive but desolate landscape, it's easy to see why the Sioux
11:12called them what they did, and why French fur trappers who arrived here in the early
11:171800s noted that this part of what's now South Dakota was a bad land to travel through.
11:24But that didn't stop them from coming.
11:28Many trappers and traders came here hoping to get rich, and some succeeded. One even
11:34became the richest man in America.
11:38His name was John Jacob Astor. In 1828, he received permission to build a trading post
11:45here on the banks of the Missouri River.
11:49Astor's American Fur Company was soon open for business here at Fort Union. This is a
11:55reconstruction of the original fort, which was built to impress the Native people Astor
12:00hoped to trade with. Over the next four decades, members of the Assiniboine, Crow, Blackfeet
12:06and other tribes came to the post to trade with Astor's men.
12:14In a typical year, 25,000 buffalo hides and more than $100,000 in goods passed through
12:21the fort, a fortune in those days, and enough to help make John Jacob Astor America's first
12:28multimillionaire.
12:32Fur trappers and traders were the first real pioneers to establish roots in the Dakotas,
12:36and it wasn't long before others followed, curious to find out what the vast open spaces
12:42of the northern Great Plains had to offer.
12:48And then, on March 21, 1861, Congress created the vast new Dakota Territory. Initially,
12:56it included part of what is now Montana and Wyoming. But in 1863, it was reduced to cover
13:03only the area that would go on to become North and South Dakota. The tiny river town of Yankton,
13:10which now lies in South Dakota, was chosen to serve as the new territorial capital.
13:19The new territorial government's home was modest, a small white clapboard building which
13:24has since been reconstructed. It was inside these walls that the Dakota legislature soon
13:30voted to found a college for the new territory. That college is now the University of South
13:35Dakota, located 25 miles away in the town of Vermillion.
13:42Since there was no actual initial funding for the college, it took 20 years before the
13:47first classes were held. The oldest building on campus today is Old Main, which was an
13:53impressive sight on the prairie in 1893 when it was built. But the university may be most
13:58famous today for its former student, NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw. The reporter graduated
14:04from USD after dropping out of the University of Iowa. The campus is also home to the National
14:10Music Museum. Inside are more than 14,000 musical instruments from all over the world,
14:17as well as compositions by a South Dakota farmer named Elmer Lyle Carey, who performed
14:22at the inauguration of President William Taft in Washington, D.C. when he was just 17.
14:28When locals in Vermillion asked Carey where he learned to play so well, he answered,
14:32out in the country, about seven miles north. That's because Carey's family was part of a
14:38great wave of settlers that started arriving just a year after the territory was formed.
14:47In 1862, Congress passed the Homestead Act, which opened up the Dakota Territory and other
14:52regions of the West for settlement. Homesteaders were offered 160 acres of land for free as
14:59long as they farmed it successfully for five years. A flood of settlers took up the offer,
15:05and soon the empty Dakota prairie was dotted with simple farms as more and more homesteaders
15:10staked their claims and tried to hold on for the five years it took to keep their land.
15:16In this nearly treeless region, they built houses with whatever they could find.
15:22Many used prairie sod itself for walls and ceilings.
15:27But settling on land that was already home to native tribes like the Sioux came at a price.
15:33As more and more settlers fanned out across the region, conflicts with the tribes flared,
15:38across the territory and beyond.
15:43In the middle of the 1800s, white settlers were moving on to what's now North and South Dakota
15:51and claiming land as their own. So, in the summer of 1857, members of the region's native
15:58tribes gathered here on a sacred mountain they called Bear Butte and resolved to resist
16:04what they saw as an invasion. Over the next decade, the tribes would fight ferocious battles
16:11against the U.S. government and many would die trying to defend their lands and protect
16:16their way of life. One of those conflicts started in 1866 and was known as Red Cloud's War.
16:24It's been called one of the most successful wars against the U.S. government ever fought
16:29by an Indian nation. After two years of fighting, the Sioux Nation won the great victory
16:35its people had fought and died for. The U.S. government admitted defeat and promised
16:40the Sioux that their lands would be protected from settlement forever.
16:45This historic treaty was signed here at Fort Laramie, just across the Dakota border,
16:50in what's now Wyoming.
16:53In 1868, the Laramie Treaty guaranteed the Sioux permanent rights to 25 million acres
16:59of Dakota territory, west of the Missouri River. The U.S. government promised these
17:04Sioux lands would be set apart for the absolute and undisturbed use and occupation of the Indians.
17:11But just a few years later, gold was discovered in the Black Hills, inside the treaty area.
17:21It's estimated that 10,000 illegal settlers arrived here over the next two years.
17:27They established mining camps like this one, called Deadwood, which became famous for the
17:32bars, gambling dens, and bordellos that soon sprang up here to cater to the miners.
17:40At first, the U.S. Army tried to stop the trespassers and abide by the treaty.
17:45But when Sioux outrage over the violations reignited the Indian Wars, the Army switched
17:50to protecting the settlers instead.
17:53In 1877, the U.S. government violated the treaty again when it carved the Black Hills
17:59out of the Laramie Treaty area. Soon, many in the South were pushing for statehood and
18:05to open more of the Sioux lands up for settlement.
18:08They saw no reason why the Indians needed so much space of their own.
18:13In 1889, many Native Americans were forced off their legally guaranteed land and onto
18:19much smaller reservations, like the one here at Pine Ridge.
18:23One of those was Chief Sitting Bull, who died here at Pine Ridge in 1890 from gunshot wounds
18:30while in federal custody.
18:33But there was another dark chapter of the Sioux story that was yet to come.
18:38At the time of Sitting Bull's killing, a spiritual movement called the Ghost Dance was sweeping
18:43the reservations and stirring a revival of Native culture and pride.
18:49The U.S. government feared these dances would inspire a new wave of Indian Wars, so when
18:54word spread that a Ghost Dance was going to take place here at the Pine Ridge reservation,
18:58the U.S. Army was sent in to stop it.
19:01On December 29, 1890, by a creek known as Wounded Knee, the Sioux chief spotted elk
19:08and his people surrendered peacefully to the U.S. Army.
19:12But when the troops moved in to disarm the Indians, a shot was fired, and then hundreds more.
19:20By the time the killing had ended, spotted elk and up to 300 Sioux had been massacred.
19:27Today, they rest together in a mass grave here at the Wounded Knee site,
19:33including the women and children who made up at least half of those killed,
19:37innocent victims of the last military action in America's epic Indian Wars.
19:44It took almost a century for the Sioux Nation to get its day in court.
19:49In 1980, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the Black Hills and the rest of the Sioux land
19:54defined in the Laramie Treaty had indeed been stolen by the U.S. government
19:59in what the court called a ripe and rank case of dishonorable dealing.
20:04The government was ordered to pay the Sioux more than $100 million to make up for the loss of the lands,
20:10but the Sioux voted to turn the money down.
20:13As of 2014, those funds still lay in a government coffer worth, thanks to interest, almost a billion dollars.
20:22The tribe still claims that no amount of money would be able to compensate them
20:26for the loss of their sacred Black Hills and the rest of their homelands.
20:35One way that more and more settlers were arriving in the Dakota Territory in the late 19th century was by train.
20:43The railroad was the era's most transformative technology.
20:48Wherever trains went, change came along for the ride.
20:53The Dakota Territory was no exception.
20:57Trains first reached what's now North Dakota in 1872
21:03when a locomotive made its way into the town of Fargo.
21:09The owners of the Northern Pacific Railroad had founded the town just the year before
21:13on a spot they deemed best for a river crossing.
21:18Rail traffic quickly transformed this patch of wilderness into a bustling town
21:22that's now North Dakota's biggest city.
21:26By the time this railroad station opened in 1920,
21:29trains were bringing thousands of Norwegian immigrants to town.
21:34They created a unique Scandinavian-American culture here, in North Dakota and across the northern Great Plains.
21:41A culture that was brought to life in the Coen Brothers' movie Fargo, starring Frances McDormand,
21:47and winner of two Academy Awards.
21:51Despite being named for this North Dakota city,
21:54most of the film actually takes place just over the border in Minnesota.
22:00After trains rolled into Fargo, the railroad men pushed their tracks west across North Dakota,
22:06while creating some impressive engineering wonders to overcome the obstacles along the way.
22:13Obstacles like this gorge known as Gasman Coulee.
22:19Keeping the trains above the flood-prone gorge required building a bridge 1792 feet long
22:25and 117 feet tall at its highest point.
22:30This steel version was built in 1899, replacing an 1887 wooden trestle lost to a tornado.
22:38Up to 40 freight trains still use it every day.
22:42Some say when one crosses over, you can hear the rumble from a quarter of a mile away.
22:48In 1872, the Northern Pacific Railroad reached the Missouri River at a spot known as Missouri Crossing.
22:56The railroad men renamed the tiny town Bismarck after German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck,
23:01hoping to attract German investors in their railway.
23:05Trains arriving here brought in prospectors heading to gold mines in the Black Hills.
23:09And in 1883, the growing town was made the territorial capital, to the dismay of many in Yankton.
23:18But plans for statehood were already underway.
23:21And on November 2, 1889, the Dakota Territory was finally divided into two separate states,
23:28when President Benjamin Harrison signed legislation admitting both North Dakota and South Dakota into the Union.
23:36It's said he shuffled the papers so no one would ever know which state was admitted first.
23:42Initially, South Dakotans couldn't decide on a location for their new capital.
23:47After 14 years of debate and three statewide votes,
23:51the central railroad town of Pierre finally came out on top, as some had long expected.
23:57The city fathers urged the state to hurry up and build a capital building,
24:02no one could ever again think of moving the government away.
24:06Construction of the capital began the very next year, and was completed by 1910.
24:12The total cost of the building was less than a million dollars.
24:16But South Dakota got a lot of bang for its buck.
24:19A copper-covered dome, massive rotunda, Corinthian columns, and rusticated granite and Bedford limestone walls.
24:27With its completion, Pierre's place as South Dakota's capital would never be challenged again.
24:36But across the border, legislators in the new North Dakota capital of Bismarck decided to do something completely different.
24:44Build a state capital that looked like it belonged in modern America, and not in ancient Rome.
24:52The result was this Art Deco tower, designed by architects Holabird and Root,
24:56that might have looked more at home in New York City's Rockefeller Center than here on the Great Plains,
25:01where at 242 feet, it's still the tallest building in the state.
25:07In the 19th century, the Dakota Territory was invaded by settlers and gold miners,
25:12searching for treasure on land that wasn't theirs.
25:15But today, every August, another thundering horde descends on this part of South Dakota
25:21to take over a little town during one of the biggest biker rallies in the world.
25:30Every July, more than half a million bikers from across North America roar into South Dakota.
25:37They arrive on intimidating steeds and lay claim to the streets, sidewalks, and bars of the little South Dakota town of Sturgis.
25:47This annual invasion started back in 1938, when a local mechanic named Pappy Hoyle and his wife Pearl
25:54formed the Jack Pine Gypsies Motorcycle Club and launched a motorcycle race.
26:00It quickly grew.
26:03Racing is still part of the scene today, but most of the action has shifted to Sturgis' main street,
26:08and slowed down quite a bit, because it's hard to show off a Harley if you're going too fast.
26:15Sturgis' normal population is about 6,700, and so having 500,000 bikers ride into town
26:22means that getting a hotel room here during the rally is pretty much impossible.
26:27Back in Pearl Hoyle's day, bikers used to camp out in her living room, or park their RVs in her yard.
26:34Today, most stay in huge campground playgrounds outside town that offer comforts Pearl and her guests never dreamed of,
26:41like hundreds of RV hookups, and their own stages and comedy clubs.
26:49Here at the Broken Spoke Saloon Campground, bikers can even ride right in the front door to grab a martini,
26:54buy some lingerie, or get a tattoo.
26:57Or they can head over to take a dip in what's billed as the largest biker's swimming pool in the world.
27:04During the rally, these adult playgrounds are Sturgis' party central.
27:09But some of the more adventurous bikers head out for a chance to wind through one of the great landscapes of the American West,
27:16the granite spires of South Dakota's Black Hills.
27:20But in the early 20th century, there were very few good roads, which meant it was hard to get here at all.
27:29That's why South Dakota state historian Dwayne Robinson wanted to build a monument that could lure tourists to this wondrous landscape.
27:39When he saw this group of now-famous granite spires, known as the Needles,
27:44he imagined using them to carve giant portraits of heroes of the American West.
27:48Heroes like Lewis and Clark, Buffalo Bill Cody, and the great Sioux chief Red Cloud,
27:54who had fought and died to keep the Black Hills off-limits to miners, settlers, and even the kind of tourists Robinson hoped to attract.
28:02But when Danish-American sculptor Gutzon Borglum saw the Needles,
28:06he wasn't convinced they would be suitable for large-scale carvings,
28:09and told Robinson he feared they would end up looking like misplaced totem poles.
28:13But he soon found another location just a few miles away that he thought would be perfect.
28:19A giant wall of solid granite, big enough for multiple carved portraits, each up to six stories tall.
28:27There was, he declared, no piece of granite comparable to it in the United States.
28:32He also thought that a national tribute to U.S. presidents would be more appealing than heroes of the West.
28:37Soon, President Calvin Coolidge and others were helping secure federal funding.
28:41It took more than 14 years for Borglum and 400 workers to blast and chisel this world-famous quartet of former presidents.
28:51George Washington came first.
28:53He was the first American to be elected president of the United States.
28:56He was the first American to be elected president of the United States.
28:59He was the first American to be elected president of the United States.
29:02Thomas Jefferson followed, in a spot to Washington's right,
29:06but unstable stone there forced Borglum to dynamite his original Jefferson,
29:10and move the third president to Washington's left.
29:13Jefferson's revised image received its dedication in 1912,
29:17when he was elected president of the United States.
29:20Jefferson's revised image received its dedication in 1912,
29:24when he was elected president of the United States.
29:28Jefferson's revised image received its dedication in 1912,
29:32when he was elected president of the United States.
29:34Lincoln came next, in a spot originally intended for a giant tablet inscribed with an inspirational text.
29:41Then, all hands turned to adding Teddy Roosevelt to the group.
29:45After Borglum died, his son Lincoln oversaw the carving of the final details.
29:50On October 31, 1941, just 14 years after work began,
29:56the monument was declared complete.
29:59Today, evidence of the enormous effort it took to do the job can still be seen here.
30:04When all was said and done, 800 million pounds of rock had been removed,
30:09from the fine chisel marks on the president's faces,
30:12to the orderly lines of scars left on the surrounding stone by dynamite and drills,
30:17to the enormous piles of rubble below.
30:20In 1959, the monument provided the setting for two of Hollywood's most infamous moments,
30:26in Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller, North by Northwest.
30:30In one key scene, Hitch has icy blonde Eva Marie St.
30:34pretend to shoot leading man Cary Grant in the visitor's center.
30:38Then, he sends Grant, St. and villain Martin Landau,
30:41on a deadly chase across the president's faces.
30:45Hitchcock was planning to shoot the second scene on the monument itself,
30:50but a journalist spilled news of the planned chase,
30:53and the National Park Service shut Hitchcock down,
30:56which is why the final scene was filmed on a Hollywood soundstage instead.
31:03But the Black Hills are also home to a Sioux monument as well.
31:08It was dreamed up by a group of Native Americans led by Henry Standing Bear,
31:12a chief of the Lakota Sioux tribe.
31:15He recruited Polish-American sculptor Korczak Julkowski,
31:19who finally started work on June 3, 1948.
31:23Julkowski chose to depict Crazy Horse on horseback, pointing to the horizon,
31:28but was only able to complete the head before he died in 1982,
31:33after working on the giant sculpture for almost half his life, for free.
31:40The sculptor turned down government funding for the project
31:43because of its violation of the Laramie Treaty,
31:46but admission fees and donations have enabled Julkowski's family to continue his work.
31:52More than a million people visit this site each year
31:55to see this larger-than-life portrait of America's great Indian chief,
31:59which is exactly what Henry Standing Bear was hoping for
32:02when he dreamt up this tribute in stone.
32:05My fellow chiefs and I would like the white man to know, he once said,
32:09that the red man has great heroes also.
32:14The Black Hills that Crazy Horse once knew have changed in ways that can never be reversed.
32:21And there's no better example of that change than this,
32:24the largest and deepest gold mine in the United States.
32:30It lies just 50 miles from Mount Rushmore and is known as Homestake Mine.
32:35This open pit is so deep and so wide,
32:38it looks like it was created by a giant Babylonian ziggurat
32:42that's been plunged upside down into the earth and then pulled back out.
32:47To get down to its base, 8,000 feet below,
32:50trucks once followed a road that spiraled down along the side of the mine itself.
32:56A group of California prospectors began digging on a 10-acre claim here in 1877,
33:01the year the U.S. government took the Black Hills back from the Sioux.
33:06Before it closed in 2002, the Homestake had yielded 39 million ounces of gold,
33:12making it the most successful gold mine in the U.S.
33:17But while gold may have triggered a mad rush into what's now South Dakota back in the 1800s,
33:23these days North Dakota is now experiencing a boom of its own.
33:28Thousands are flooding into the state to help tap treasure deep underground,
33:33and they're lighting up the prairie like never before.
33:41In 2012, NASA scientists began looking at new satellite images of North America taken at night.
33:50They knew the familiar bright lights of Atlanta, New York City, Chicago, and Minneapolis.
33:57But as their eyes moved west, they discovered a large cluster of light on the Great Plains,
34:03in a place where they knew there was almost nothing but farmland and prairie.
34:08The fact was, these weren't actually the lights of any one city or town.
34:15They were lights from housing and drilling equipment,
34:19and of gas flares from hundreds of new oil wells that dot North Dakota today.
34:25In 2013, the U.S. produced more oil domestically than it imported for the first time in nearly two decades.
34:33And the heart of America's 21st century oil boom happens to be right here in North Dakota.
34:40That's because the state sits right on top of one of the largest deposits of oil in the United States.
34:46It's known as the Bakken Shale Formation,
34:50a vast underground pool of oil that stretches across much of western North Dakota and up into Canada.
34:57The epicenter of the boom is the town of Williston.
35:03South Dakota may have had its own gold rush towns back in the 1800s, but now it's North Dakota's turn.
35:11Williston is a true 21st century boom town.
35:15Between 2000 and 2013, the town's population more than doubled,
35:20as oil production in the state went up more than 600 percent.
35:24Most of the newcomers are men who heard about the money to be made here,
35:29dropped everything, and rushed out to North Dakota to grab their share.
35:33Their mass arrival caused a housing crunch so tight that some apartments in Williston rent for as much as they would in New York City,
35:41leaving plenty of newcomers sleeping in their trucks.
35:46The solution? Prefab housing complexes and trailer parks that are known as man camps.
35:53Some of these complexes house up to eight men in a single trailer.
35:59And rules at some can be strict. No drugs, alcohol, visitors, or guns allowed.
36:04But many workers here don't have much free time anyway to do anything but sleep.
36:09They often work 80-hour weeks to earn their lucrative salaries of over $90,000 a year.
36:17But it's not just the flood of workers that's straining the region's infrastructure.
36:21The flood of oil is, too.
36:23The boom is so recent, there aren't enough pipelines yet to get the oil from the wells to the refineries.
36:29Trucks do the job instead.
36:32A single well can require 2,000 trips in its first year of operation alone, and thousands more after that.
36:39Which is why being a truck driver in the Bakken field is one of the easiest jobs to get.
36:45With their tanks full of crude oil, many of these drivers head here, to the Bakken Oil Express rail hub near Dickinson.
36:54They drive right into its six-bay truck center and storage facility,
36:58which can fill the tanker cars of an entire mile-long train to the gills with crude in just 12 hours.
37:04It's an amazing sight from the air.
37:06Giant loops of rail track feeding cars one after another into a loading shed
37:11so they can be filled with freshly pumped crude oil from the Bakken field.
37:16In 2013, this one facility could ship 200,000 barrels of oil a day out of North Dakota, worth roughly $20 million.
37:25And for every full oil train that leaves the state, another empty one rolls in, ready to be loaded.
37:32But the Bakken oil boom wouldn't have happened if not for a new and often controversial extraction technique.
37:38Ever since the 1950s, scientists here knew that the Bakken formation held billions of barrels of oil.
37:45But they didn't know how to get to it.
37:47That's because it was locked in layers of rock, deep underground.
37:52Once, a prehistoric sea covered this region.
37:56When it dried up 60 million years ago, it left behind carbon-rich layers of dead sea creatures in the sediment on its floor.
38:04Then, over time, heat and pressure from geological forces trapped that carbon between layers of shale, where it still is today.
38:14That's why oil companies use fracking technology to force the oil out of the shale.
38:21First, geologists identify a good place to drill.
38:25Then, workers clear a fracking pad and set up a rig.
38:30Next, they drill pipes two or more miles into the ground, right through the shale itself.
38:36Finally, they pump water, sand and chemicals down into the pipes under extremely high pressure, which actually fractures the shale and releases the oil.
38:47The oil flows freely up the pipes, but along with it comes natural gas.
38:53Without enough pipelines to carry that gas to refineries, the oil companies burn off about 30% of the gas instead.
39:01Many landowners claim the fracking chemicals and the gas flares are polluting their air and water.
39:08Landowners like Brenda and Richard Jorgensen, who own this farm east of Williston.
39:15Like many farmers here, the Jorgensens mainly own the surface rights, but not the mineral rights to their farm.
39:22Which is why an oil company was allowed to build this giant fracking pad just 700 feet from their house on a neighbor's land.
39:30One of 25 such pads within a two-mile radius.
39:34The family says their air has been polluted by chemicals used at the well and with toxic fumes from the flares.
39:42When the gas flares blow out, the Jorgensens have smelled what they believe is hydrogen sulfide gas that is a known toxin produced by fracking sites.
39:51The controversies over this new form of oil extraction are likely to continue for years to come.
39:58Meanwhile, those who don't live in oil country have other things to think about.
40:04And sometimes, the Dakotas' empty prairies can have an unusual effect on people.
40:10People like Wayne Porter.
40:13In 1983, Porter decided to quit grazing sheep in this field along Interstate 90 outside the South Dakota town of Montrose and start filling it up with giant sculptures instead.
40:24Landlocked goldfish leaping through the grass, a giant butterfly perched on a towering finger, and more, all made by Porter himself.
40:34When he's done, he leaves them out here for passing motorists to enjoy.
40:40His masterpiece so far is this 25-ton, 60-foot tall metal bust of a bull that took him three years to complete.
40:49Porter brags it's as big as Mount Rushmore's presidential portraits, proof that thinking big comes natural in the Dakotas.
41:00And the biggest thinkers in both North and South Dakota might just be farmers.
41:06That's because they're responsible for more than 80 million acres of farmland in both states.
41:14Here in South Dakota, corn is king.
41:18Farmers here grow more than 600 million bushels of this one crop every year.
41:23And corn is much more than just a commodity here.
41:26It's a symbol of a way of life that's passed down through generations.
41:30And celebrated every year in the South Dakota farming town of Mitchell at the Corn Palace.
41:37It started in 1892 as a place for farmers to sell their produce and to promote the state's favorite crop.
41:45The elaborate murals on its walls are made from, not surprisingly, corn husks and are recreated fresh every year.
41:54But you won't find any corn palace in North Dakota.
41:58That's because up here, wheat rules.
42:03North Dakota grows more wheat than almost any other state.
42:07Along with more barley, flaxseed, and one of the most colorful crops there is, canola.
42:15Soar over northern North Dakota on any day in July, and oceans of canola stretch to the horizon.
42:21These yellow plants are actually a kind of rapeseed, which was developed over the border in Canada at the University of Manitoba.
42:29Canola is actually short for Canada Ola, or oil.
42:35And it thrives here in North Dakota, which alone produces a lot of oil.
42:40And it thrives here in North Dakota, which alone produces almost 90% of all canola grown in the U.S.
42:47Once it's pressed into oil, it's used for cooking, livestock feed, and biodiesel.
42:53It's considered to be a healthy oil, since it's low in saturated fats.
42:58Finding ways to keep these fields of gold thriving and maximizing production of canola and other crops for North Dakota farmers
43:06is the job of students and faculty alike at North Dakota State University in Fargo.
43:12It was founded as an agricultural college in 1890, the year after North Dakota became a state.
43:18Many know NDSU for its Fargo Dome, the home of the university's Bison football team, which has one of the best records in Division I football.
43:28It's known to be one of the loudest indoor arenas in the nation,
43:31thanks to its dome, which is said to amplify crowd noise, earning it the nickname, the Thunderdome.
43:37But the real heart of this campus lies here, in these greenhouses and fields,
43:42where NDSU researchers study everything from how deep in the ground seeds should be planted,
43:47to the best ways to store harvested crops, to the impacts of flooding and drought.
43:53Not to mention, the best ways to heat your barn and keep your cows warm when winter rolls around.
43:59Modern science that helps farmers across the Dakotas and the nation thrive.
44:05But with so much farmland to care for in North and South Dakota, it's not surprising that many farmers also get help from the sky.
44:14Every summer, crop dusters like this one can be seen buzzing fields across North and South Dakota,
44:24spraying pesticide and other ag chemicals to help farmers ward off bugs and other threats.
44:30These days, ag pilots use sophisticated tools to get the job done,
44:35like GPS technology that helps them make sure they don't miss any part of the field.
44:40Or spray a neighbor's crops by mistake, which can lead to harsh words and sometimes even nasty lawsuits.
44:49Ag pilots fly so low, they rarely need to be in touch with any control tower.
44:55And most do it because they simply love to fly.
45:03And who can blame them?
45:05There's nothing like soaring over the great landscapes of North and South Dakota,
45:11and discovering the beauty, stunning sights, and rich history of these two great plains states, all from the air.
45:41NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology