North Dakota's natural beauty is perhaps best encapsulated by our parks ecosystem. As director of our Parks and Recreation Department, Melissa Baker is responsible for taking care of these special places and making sure that visitors can enjoy the splendor of our state.
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| North Dakota's history is full of legendary people, and today North Dakota is a place where anyone can be legendary. | |
| Theodore Roosevelt, 26th President of the United States, once said, Far and away, the best prize that life offers is the chance to work hard at work worth doing. | |
| This is a show about people doing just that, for the people of the great state of North Dakota. | |
| Here's Mark Staples, a member of my team, to tell you more about today's episode. | |
| We're going to start off today's episode with some good news. | |
| It's spring. | |
| At least that's what the calendar says, so I'm holding on to that idea. | |
| As the sun stays out longer and longer each day, you're probably feeling a growing desire to get outside and enjoy the warming temperatures. | |
| Fortunately, North Dakota is a terrific place to enjoy the great outdoors. | |
| In all four seasons, I might add. | |
| With facilities around the state, North Dakota's Parks and Recreation Department is all about creating opportunities for everyone to experience our boundless natural beauty. | |
| On this episode, we sit down with the director of the department, Melissa Baker, to talk about what our park system offers and learn more about how they're working to improve your experience with our parks. | |
| Melissa has been in her position here in North Dakota for just about two years now, joining Team ND following her time as Chief of Operations for Montana State Parks. | |
| She's also worked in Wisconsin State Parks as an administrator and as an instructor at the University of Wisconsin and the University of Maine. | |
| Melissa has a PhD in forestry and conducted research on visitor experience at Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks. | |
| We're so glad to work alongside her to continuously improve our park system for the people of North Dakota and all who visit us. | |
| Let's get started. | |
| Here's Doug Burgum and Melissa Baker. | |
| Melissa, welcome and thanks for joining me on Work Worth Doing. | |
| Great to have you here and great to have you in North Dakota. | |
| We were so excited to recruit you from the state of Montana where you're working as Director of Operations, but thanks for coming east to North Dakota. | |
| We're so pleased to have your experience and your passion for parks and recreation here in North Dakota. | |
| Thank you, Governor. | |
| It is certainly my pleasure to be here. | |
| I'm looking forward to our conversation today and really happy to have made the transition to North Dakota. | |
| It has been really a satisfying change for me. | |
| Tell us about the spark. | |
| What was the thing that got you interested in a career in Parks and Recreation? | |
| Well, when I was in my undergraduate degree, I did some seasonal work in a Kentucky State Park, Columbus Belmont State Park. | |
| And in that job, I worked in the campground. | |
| I checked in campers and took care of facilities. | |
| And I just really enjoyed that work. | |
| It was a special place to be and to take care of. | |
| And then helping people enjoy it and being part of those family memories was just amazing. | |
| It was a lot of fun. | |
| And so that was the first time I had really thought about that being a career path when I took that job, and it opened up a whole world of possibility for me. | |
| And you've had an opportunity in your career to work both in state parks and in some beautiful national parks? | |
| I did, yes. | |
| I've worked in systems in research in Illinois, and in Kentucky I've worked in As a manager in Wisconsin, Montana, and now North Dakota, and I was able to do research in Yellowstone and Glacier National Parks as well. | |
| Two of the most beautiful places in the country, they're Glacier and Yellowstone. | |
| But we got some beautiful ones here in North Dakota. | |
| As you know, now you've had a chance to get settled in and get to all of the great areas we have across North Dakota. | |
| And tell us a little bit, when you think about North Dakota Parks, what comes to mind first for you? | |
| One of the things I think that comes to mind first for me about North Dakota state parks and recreation areas is just the variety that we have. | |
| We have areas where you can have experiences, educational experiences about history and culture. | |
| We have places where you can fish and hike and camp and we also have areas where you can get away from everyone on an off-highway vehicle or horseback riding. | |
| There's really no end to the opportunities that you have and you can have multiples of those in the same day and so there's something for the entire family at North Dakota Parks. | |
| And North Dakota Parks are really year-round. | |
| We're coming up kind of on the end of the winter season here, but from cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, snowmobiling, lots of activities during the winter. | |
| But I'm sure for your team, as you head into the summer season, this one things get really busy and people are thinking ahead to their summer vacations. | |
| And tell us a little bit about how you guys are gearing up for the busy summer. | |
| Sure. | |
| This is a really busy time for parks and recreation. | |
| People don't generally think that this is a busy time for our staff, but if you think about what's going on, we have really great winter sports going on right now, so we're actively managing. | |
| It's been a great year for snow sports. | |
| This is also the time of year where we're hiring our seasonal staff, so we're hiring people that do the jobs that I did when I got started in this work. | |
| And then we're starting to think about planning our summer events, Putting together educational programs, opening buildings and facilities, all while hosting customers right now. | |
| And then just give us a little frame of the scope, because this is a big operation you're running, and North Dakota is a big state. | |
| I have to remind people that... | |
| North Dakota at 71,000 square miles is about exactly the same footprint as the six New England states combined. | |
| So Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island equals the size of North Dakota. | |
| And so you're managing a park system that in the eastern part of the state would cover six states, but it's just one big old beautiful North Dakota. | |
| So give us the scope. | |
| How many parks? | |
| How many team members? | |
| How many visitors? | |
| Sure. | |
| We have 15 what we call destination properties. | |
| So that's our 13 state parks plus the Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center with Fort Mandan and the Pemina Gorge State Recreation Area. | |
| Across those 15 parks we have 1300 plus campsites. | |
| And 219 marina slips, 53 rental units. | |
| So it's a big system across a wide area. | |
| And in addition to the state parks, we also have state natural areas and state recreation areas, which are lesser developed properties that generally have fishing access, boating access, and trails on them. | |
| So a lot of variety out there across the state. | |
| But looking ahead, turning ahead to summer, which will be here quickly, sometimes people are surprised to find out that we have not one, not two, but three state parks that are on the amazing Lake Sakakawea. | |
| Tell us a little bit about the water recreation opportunities there and the three parks that we have that are on the lake. | |
| Sure, so on Lake Sakakawea we have the Lewis and Clark State Park, Fort Stevenson State Park, and Lake Sakakawea State Park. | |
| Each one of those parks have camping. | |
| They have picnic facilities. | |
| They also have marinas and stores. | |
| If you're looking to get out on the water and fish and ski and play, you can launch right at the park. | |
| You can get some of your... | |
| Supplies there. | |
| You can stop for ice cream. | |
| And then if you want to camp and make a weekend of it, you're able to pull in with your camper, go fishing and hiking as well. | |
| There's good shore fishing from our parks, and then you can also get out in a boat as well. | |
| That's great. | |
| And going back a little bit on the scope of this, 1,300 campsites. | |
| I mean, the average hotel in North Dakota has about 100 beds. | |
| So this is like you're running 13 hotels, hundreds of slips, but you're not just... | |
| Running a hotel, you're also running stores and shops and trails and trail maintenance and boat ramps and boat, you know, boating activity, hundreds of slips, all this activity. | |
| But tell us a little bit, how many visitors will visit a state park during the course of a year? | |
| So we do have a large visitation base. | |
| In 2018, we had 1.1 million visitors to state parks in North Dakota. | |
| 1.1 million. | |
| Wow. | |
| That is correct. | |
| That's fantastic. | |
| One of the things that people don't think of when they think of park professionals, park managers, and rangers is they're really running small cities out there. | |
| At any weekend, you can find thousands of people in a park. | |
| They have water systems and electrical systems. | |
| They have a lot of the same infrastructure that small towns and cities have, all while providing programming for visitors as well. | |
| And instead of a mayor, we've got park superintendents, and I know we've got some of the most dedicated park superintendents in the country working here in North Dakota, and many of them actually live in permanent housing on the park. | |
| So they are kind of the mayor, the city council, running those communities. | |
| But tell us a little bit about our superintendents and their dedication, because I would certainly put that in the category of work worth doing. | |
| Working with park staff is one of the most satisfying parts of working in parks and recreation field. | |
| People don't come to parks and recreation because of the salary and benefits. | |
| They come to parks and recreation because they really are passionate about what we do. | |
| They're passionate about the resources that they manage. | |
| They're passionate about the visitors that they get to serve. | |
| And they really do feel like they have a responsibility to the citizens of the state of North Dakota And the communities that they're within to provide that high quality of life. | |
| And so what you find with park managers is even when they're not on duty, they're on duty. | |
| Part of that's because they work and live in the park. | |
| And part of that is because it's work that they value so much that they don't put it down. | |
| They know that there's a customer out there to serve. | |
| They know that there is a task out there to do. | |
| And they really get fully immersed in the park. | |
| So it's exciting now we're starting to interview for the summer help, but tell us a little bit about what's the total number of permanent members that work in North Dakota Parks and Rec? | |
| And then when you scale up in the summer, how many team members do you add during the summertime? | |
| Sure. | |
| We have 65 full-time equivalent staff, so permanent staff in the North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department. | |
| And then in summer, we increase that to over 200. So it's really an interesting place to work because our staff have to change over the course of the year. | |
| We talked earlier about how they have to change over the course of the day. | |
| But in the off-season, our permanent staff are really Operating the park and planning for the new year, and then at this time of year we're hiring a lot of people and training them and bringing them on. | |
| So it's very dynamic in how our staffing works over the course of the year. | |
| And if someone is interested in a career with North Dakota Parks and Rec, go to the same website? | |
| Absolutely. | |
| If you go to our website and click on the business link, you'll be able to go to where all of our jobs are listed and find out about us as a place to come work. | |
| There's no doubt that it takes a big team to maintain North Dakota's parks. | |
| After all, the North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department oversees more than 20,000 acres of land and hundreds of structures across the system. | |
| While state-owned parks offer a wide variety of landscapes and experiences, the Parks Department is just part of a greater ecosystem of recreation in North Dakota. | |
| For example, popular destinations like Theodore Roosevelt National Park and Sully's Hill National Game Preserve are federally operated lands. | |
| And the International Peace Garden, the namesake of our state's official moniker, is operated by a joint board of North Dakotans and Manitobans dedicated to maintaining this iconic symbol of peace. | |
| And furthermore, municipalities maintain a myriad of memorial parks, town plazas, and other gathering spaces. | |
| This collaborative ecosystem is essential for providing recreational opportunities. | |
| A great example of this is the Matahe Trail in the Badlands of western North Dakota. | |
| As it winds more than a hundred miles through one of the most beautiful landscapes in North America, the Matahe crosses through a mix of federal, state, and private lands. | |
| The shared goal of providing quality outdoor recreation and education is the uniting force behind these entities. | |
| As the North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department seeks to provide programming for a growing number of visitors, Melissa and her team are working to make sure that our parks provide something for everyone. | |
| And I know some of your parks are doing a fantastic job of this year-round. | |
| I had a chance just a few weeks ago on the sweetheart hike, I think they were calling it, because it was in the middle of February near Valentine's Day, but at Fort Abraham Lincoln, right here, historic, you know, the tie-in with history, but also a great park. | |
| They're doing a hike once a month, all 12 seasons, and there are hundreds and hundreds of people out there, families, dogs, kids, parents, grandparents, all hiking in the snow, and your staff doing a fantastic job. | |
| It was just another example of how people are building community. | |
| I think it's a really great example of how people are building community, and it was something that really surprised me when I got here. | |
| The 12 for 12 hike program as a program is not unique in the nation. | |
| There are other park systems that do that. | |
| The success of this program is unique in the nation, however. | |
| In the systems that I've worked in, I've worked in several, I haven't seen this much dedication and commitment to a hiking program. | |
| That we see at the 12 for 12 hiking program at Fort Abraham Lincoln. | |
| And what we find when folks come in is that the hike is nice and the walk is nice, but what it is is that they have a collegiality and community there that people come out to see each other and it's a real social event and it's them connecting to Each other in a way that sometimes in the winter it's harder to find those opportunities. | |
| And so even in the hike that you were at, more people than you would expect are out there. | |
| And so we have hundreds of people that participate in the 12 for 12 hikes and many of them do every one of them. | |
| I think that their dogs do every one of them, too. | |
| It was great to see big and little and a lot of happy dogs out there on the day that I was there, along with happy kids and happy families. | |
| But as we're wrapping up the winter season, again, a guy that's always loved... | |
| I love winter. | |
| I mean, I know I'm maybe a little odd that way. | |
| I love winter camping. | |
| I've done a lot of cross-country skiing in my life. | |
| When I was a kid, we had a snowmobile when I was growing up in Arthur. | |
| For those that have their bingo cards, there's Arthur. | |
| 2,800 miles of snowmobile trails in North Dakota that are in collaboration with a lot of park system working with local snowmobile cubs. | |
| 91 miles of snowshoe trails. | |
| 38 miles of cross-country ski trails. | |
| And now the new thing is the fat tire biking. | |
| I mean, people can bike all year long. | |
| And, of course, ice fishing. | |
| We've got some of the best ice fishing in the nation. | |
| And I know Graham's Island up there at Devil's Lake. | |
| I mean, this is a huge... | |
| Part of our economy is ice fishing here, but tell us again as we wrap up the winter, are there any winter events that are still closing out here that we should be aware of? | |
| Right now, if I were looking to recreate, doing some winter recreation, I would really get out on the ski trails. | |
| This has been one of the best snowmobile seasons that we've seen in a while because of all of the snow. | |
| And our snowmobile partners and visitors are just ecstatic about the opportunity to be able to get out at this time of year with this much snow to go play in. | |
| But of course, one of our most beautiful natural lakes, Lake Matagoshi, perhaps one of our most visited state parks. | |
| I had a chance to get up there a couple summers ago, and when I was a kid, I camped there the night before I was being forced to check into the music camp. | |
| That was a... | |
| My mom, if I was going to go to football camp, I had to go to music camp. | |
| But it turned out I had a fantastic week at music camp and enjoyed camping at Lake Matagoshi when I was a kid. | |
| And it was up there a couple of years ago. | |
| It's still as beautiful as ever. | |
| Yes, Lake Matagoshi is a really special park. | |
| And I say that every time you mention a park because I think they are really all special. | |
| But transitioning from Lake Sakakawea to Lake Matagoshi State Park, you really find a different experience. | |
| The lakes you can access from Lake Matagoshi are smaller lakes. | |
| They're more sheltered, more trees in the area. | |
| And so going to Lake Metagoshi is an opportunity to slow down a bit, get into tree-lined hikes and tree-lined camping spots. | |
| There's great canoeing and paddling there. | |
| And one of the great things about canoeing and paddling at Lake Metagoshi State Park, as opposed to a Lake Sakakawea State Park is that you have an opportunity for beginners there. | |
| Those waters are quieter, they're calmer. | |
| There are some lakes that don't have motorized access to them at all, and so it's a good place for novices to go and start paddle sports. | |
| Yeah, and paddle sports include stand-up paddle boarding on another tree-lined lake, beautiful lake at Icelandic State Park, where I was thrilled to have an opportunity to do a little stand-up paddle boarding there with your park staff when they were hosting me at Icelandic. | |
| But the other thing was, I thought I didn't need a passport to go to Icelandic Park, but I think half the people there were from Canada. | |
| Yeah. | |
| Icelandic State Park is really interesting. | |
| Across our system, North Dakotans are our number one visitor base. | |
| We serve a lot of North Dakota citizens. | |
| But at Icelandic State Park, we get a lot of folks from Manitoba. | |
| And so if you want to visit your Canadian neighbors, you can probably find them at Icelandic State Park. | |
| And for the listeners too, they speak English at Icelandic State Park. | |
| You don't have to speak Icelandic like many people were at the August 2nd festival that I was at. | |
| The Prime Minister of Iceland was there the same day. | |
| I know she was excited that we had an Icelandic State Park with all the folks from Round Mountain. | |
| But yeah, great, great, great place. | |
| One of the other things I know North Dakota just love to do is get out and ride horse. | |
| And I've been fortunate in my life to live in rural areas where I've been able to keep and have horses. | |
| And I know my favorite horse, Cody, loves to get in the trailer, go for a ride. | |
| But tell us a little bit about some of our state parks where we've got great horseback facilities. | |
| Certainly. | |
| We have some great opportunities out there for folks who want to recreate with their horses and with others who have horses. | |
| Several of our campgrounds have horse corrals at them, so we have horse-specific facilities at our campgrounds. | |
| Fort Ransom State Park is a great place to take your horse. | |
| Sully Creek and Little Missouri State Parks are both great places to take your horses. | |
| Where you have corrals, you can go and camp with your horses, you can put them in corrals whenever you're not out riding them, and great trail systems to explore with your horse at those parks. | |
| And not only in the park, but like at Sully Creek, where we rode out of there one time and got on the Mata Hay Trail, which is, you know, one of the, you know, right connected from Sully Creek, one of the great trails in the country, now extending over 100 miles from the area. | |
| Not just between the North and South Unit, but now all the way down to the Burning Coal Vein Campground in Slope County. | |
| But one of the great trails in the nation where you can hike, you can bike, you can ride horseback and connecting into our parks and the national parks. | |
| But, you know, really unique, the Badlands, nothing like it. | |
| Absolutely, and the Montahay Trail is something that North Dakotans are really proud of. | |
| A lot of people really connect to that trail, and as a department, we're really proud to be partners in that trail. | |
| We partner with the National Park Service, with the U.S. Forest Service, with the Save the Montahay Group. | |
| That is really an example of places where North Dakotans really come together to protect what they value and to make that accessible to others. | |
| Yeah, absolutely. | |
| And I was looking and thinking about some of these other incredible special events that you have and looking all the way to next fall, but tell us about Halloween at the state parks. | |
| So Halloween at the state parks actually happens in July at most of our parks. | |
| And it's an incredibly popular event. | |
| In North Dakota, we don't know what the weather is going to be at Halloween. | |
| And so often our kids are bundled up over their costumes. | |
| In July, June, July, at most of our parks, we have Halloween in June or July. | |
| And it's a time where kids come with their Halloween costumes and they don't have to cover them up. | |
| All the campers there know it's Halloween in the campground, and they bring their treats, and the kids actually go trick-or-treating in June and July in the campgrounds. | |
| How fun is that? | |
| And I know that even here at Fort Abraham Lincoln, then there's the Haunted Fort, too. | |
| They throw some of that in there, and Christmas in July also. | |
| In our campgrounds we do quite a bit of holiday celebrating in the summer season and our visitors just find it a lot of fun and they're very very popular weekends. | |
| And then Haunted Fort in October at Fort Mandan is a very very popular event. | |
| Hundreds of people every night coming out to that. | |
| Coming into Mandan enjoying what's there and then coming out to the park to get a little scared. | |
| Yeah, I'm going to need to get out to the Haunted Fort. | |
| I think you know my great-grandfather and great-grandmother were at both Fort Rice and Fort Lincoln, Dr. and Linda Slaughter, so maybe there's some family ghosts out there I can meet at the Haunted Fort as well. | |
| Whether it's by taking a group of friends to the haunted fort at Fort Abraham Lincoln, or setting sail out of the marina at Lake Sakakawea, the enthusiasm that our residents and visitors show for our parks indicates something more than just a fun getaway. | |
| One of Governor Burgum's five strategic initiatives is the Main Street Initiative. | |
| There are three pillars of this initiative. | |
| One, a skilled workforce. | |
| Two, smart, efficient infrastructure. | |
| And three, healthy, vibrant communities. | |
| What exactly does it mean to have a healthy and vibrant community? | |
| And how can the state of North Dakota help enable this? | |
| Well, our parks play a key role in this formula. | |
| By providing a space for residents to be active and build community, the Parks and Recreation Department is making North Dakota an even better place to live. | |
| And tell us a little bit again on the 1.1 million visitors, because this is a, we all know that one of the biggest challenges facing North Dakota is workforce. | |
| We've got 30,000 jobs open in our state, and certainly one of the things that our parks are in some ways the front door. | |
| We may have a family that's vacationing. | |
| Here stays in a state park and kids are like, hey, I love this place. | |
| And then mom and dad are like, I wonder if there's any job openings. | |
| Tell us how Parks and Recs are helping us solve our workforce challenge. | |
| That is something that we are really proud of and that we think is important. | |
| And it's a natural byproduct of the work that we do. | |
| People want to live where they want to play. | |
| They want to find jobs where they want to spend their time. | |
| And the work that we do in parks, it creates that high quality of living. | |
| Some of the things that people look for in a community is how do we spend our free time and what is there to do with our family and how can I connect to community? | |
| And all of that is present in parks. | |
| If you have a few hours in the day, you can go to parks and you can hike or picnic or attend an interpretive program. | |
| If you have longer than that, you can go out for a day of fishing. | |
| You can camp overnight in the facilities. | |
| There is just a lot of ways to connect with community, to connect with family, and to connect with history and nature right there out your back door. | |
| That's fantastic. | |
| And I know there are a number of communities that have got great relationships with their local state parks. | |
| And we've even seen this when we've been out on Main Street initiatives where we've got communities, I don't want to say adopted a park or have a partnership, but some really close relationships, including one exciting thing, say like with Garrison and Fort Stevenson, great collaboration going on between a local community and a state park. | |
| That's right, Governor. | |
| The relationship between Garrison and Fort Stevenson is a really great example of how parks are important to communities. | |
| And part of this department and the philosophy of our department and of our staff is that we're really part of the communities that we serve. | |
| So in Garrison, you see a lot of events and partnerships with the local CVB and the community groups. | |
| First responders. | |
| We've got one coming up, Maple Sugaring Day, which is an entire community event in April where we'll have a pancake breakfast, we'll tap trees, we'll make maple syrup. | |
| School groups come out and we teach them about how you can do that in a place like North Dakota where you don't think you'd make maple syrup. | |
| And so we allow people to really connect to what's special about their community. | |
| And not just the natural attributes of the community, but also the social bonding of a community. | |
| When all of these groups come together and work together, it really is more than just that single event. | |
| It's really building the character of a community. | |
| And I know that every agency in our state is working hard to update their information technology systems because of We're, you know, government today, interfacing with citizens is really about mobile devices. | |
| It's about the internet. | |
| It's about, you know, making sure that we get information out. | |
| So I know you've recently launched a very cool new website, cool new reservation system, but tell us a little bit about that and tell us if people are thinking about reserving a spot this summer. | |
| When should they think about doing that and where do they go and Excellent, yes. | |
| So we have launched a new website and a new reservation system. | |
| And if you go to our website, parkrec.indy.gov, you'll be able to link to both of those. | |
| And we're really proud of the website and the reservation system because it's going to make things much easier for the visitor. | |
| You'll be able to look at all of our parks. | |
| You'll be able to select the activities that you want. | |
| It will help show you which parks offer the things you want to do. | |
| When you go into the reservation system, you can put in either the date or the park that you wanted to visit. | |
| You can put in the size of your camping unit, and it will show you the... | |
| Campsites that can fit your camping unit and so you don't have to worry about getting there in your big nice camper not fitting on your spot. | |
| You'll know that it fits and it's really easy to navigate on your computer but also on your tablet and your smartphone as well. | |
| So you could be on your smartphone right now planning for your weekend trip. | |
| And those reservations are very busy right now. | |
| People are starting to plan their summer vacations. | |
| They're starting to plan into June for their reservations. | |
| And so I would encourage folks to get out there and look at it. | |
| Or give us a call. | |
| We're able to help you there too. | |
| Fantastic. | |
| Well, Melissa, as we wrap up today and we talk about this work worth doing, what have you enjoyed most about your career in Parks and Rec and what are you enjoying most about having the opportunity to lead this incredible North Dakota agency? | |
| You know, when I got into this field, I thought the thing that I would value the most would be the park itself, the resources. | |
| But what I found in my career is what I really value is the people. | |
| I get to work with great people. | |
| You're not going to find a better group of co-workers than you're going to find in North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department. | |
| They're just fantastic to work with. | |
| And that extends to our partners and communities, too. | |
| It's a lot of people pulling together about things that they're passionate about, and then the result of that is you get to watch families be happy and bond and communities come together. | |
| To be able to impact people's lives in that way is a really special opportunity, and we're all really grateful to have been able to do it. | |
| And we're grateful to have you here in North Dakota. | |
| Thank you. | |
| North Dakota State Parks hosted visitors from all 50 states last year. | |
| Believe me when I say, campsites can fill up fast. | |
| If you're looking for your next adventure, head over to parkrec.nd.gov. | |
| That's P-A-R-K-R-E-C dot N-D dot gov. | |
| That's all for now. |