01.11.16

Hoeven: North Dakota's Theodore Roosevelt National Park Ranks Fifth on NY Times Worldwide List of "Places to Go in 2016"

Senator Invites Travelers to Visit North Dakota

WASHINGTON – Senator John Hoeven today commended the New York Times travel editor’s choice of Theodore Roosevelt National Park (TRNP) in North Dakota as fifth on its list of 52 worldwide destinations to visit in 2016. Only Mexico City, Bordeaux, France, the Mediterranean island nation of Malta and the Caribbean city of Coral Bay, St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands ranked ahead of TRNP.

“Western North Dakota gets a lot of attention because of its vibrant energy economy, but few people outside our state know about the spectacular landscape and natural beauty that thrives side by side with it in our state,” Hoeven said. “I invite travelers from around the world to visit us and see what the New York Times described as a ‘century of protecting America’s magnificence.’”

Tim Neville for the New York Times wrote: “Few presidents have done as much for conservation as Teddy Roosevelt. Fly into Dickinson in western North Dakota to visit the park named after him, where rolling grasslands dotted with bison collapse into the spectacular red, white and gold badlands of tumbling mud coulees.”

Last month, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed the National Bison Legacy Act, legislation Hoeven introduced with Senator Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) that designates the American bison as the national mammal of the United States. The bison figured prominently in Roosevelt’s fascination with North Dakota, where he came to hunt and ranch in the 1880s. As president in 1905, he and the American Bison Society led an effort to save bison from extinction by establishing a captive breeding program at the Bronx Zoo in New York. Within a few years, the program and others like it were successfully establishing bison back into its native habitat. Bison now live in all 50 states and are a common site at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Information about visiting this beautiful western gem can be found at the U.S. Park Service web site and the North Dakota Tourism Division web site.