The photos on this page were taken in North and South Dakota, several of them in Theodore Roosevelt National Park. Pres. Roosevelt first visited the Badlands of North Dakota as a young man, in 1883. He fell in love with the area, bought an interest in a cattle ranch, and actively ranched there for several years. |
The Dakotas |
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Music: Before the Next Teardrop Falls Whispers - Home Old New Orleans Friday's Journal |
Later, as president, he developed a conservation program that deeply reflected his experiences in the West. During his time there, he became keenly aware of the need to conserve and protect natural resources. His time in North Dakota helped shape a conservation policy from which the nation still benefits today. |
I would not have been president had it not been for my experience in North Dakota. It was here that the romance of my life began. |
The farther one gets into the wilderness, the greater is the attraction of its lonely freedom. |
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Life is a great adventure...accept it in such a spirit. |
The time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil and the gas are exhausted, when the soils have still further impoverished and washed into the streams, polluting the rivers, denuding the fields and obstructing navigation. |
Nowhere, not even at sea, does a man feel more lonely than when riding over the far-reaching, seemingly never-ending plains. Their vastness and melancholy monotony have a riveting fascination. |
I recognize the right of this generation to develop the natural resources of our land; but I do not recognize the right to waste them, or to rob, by wasteful use, the generations that come after us. |
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are. |
After nightfall, the river gleams like running quicksilver and the moonbeams play over the plateaus. The Badlands seem to be stranger and wilder than ever, the silver rays turn the country into a kind of grim and marvelous fairyland. |
No one cares how much you know until they know how much you care. |
The quotes are all from Pres. Theodore Roosevelt. |