BISMARCK

The travelers' guide to tasty convenience-store cuisine in North Dakota and Minnesota

Tammy Swift — Tue, 30 Jul 2024 12:39:00 GMT

FARGO — A few years ago, when my former job required frequent jaunts through rural North Dakota, convenience stores became my restaurants.

I learned quickly that not every tiny town had a cafe, but almost every community has a gas station or convenience store.

And while one doesn't expect to find decent food at a place that sells air fresheners and ice scrapers, the quality of the menu at some of those places surprised me. After all, today's Quickee-Mart also often serves as the local deli, pizzeria and neighborhood market all in one.

So I turned to Facebook friends, along with some other frequent travelers, to find any roadside gems they'd recommend for on-the-go grub.

The list below captures some highlights.

Note: This is by no means a definitive list. It’s just a sample of a few better-known stop spots for grab-and-go sustenance. So if you feel one of your faves desperately deserves a mention, let me know at tswift@forumcomm.com.

Landers' Shell & Northside Market, 2210 N. 12th St., Bismarck, I-94 Exit 159 — Grinders: This isn’t a huge convenience store, but it’s locally run, immaculate and offers a nice array of house-made grab-and-go foods. Drop by between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. weekdays and you’ll find freshly made soups like knoephla. But the real stars are the grinders, as Landers bought the recipe when a beloved Bismarck institution, The Grinder, closed. Although the grinder counter is only open during the week, you can always grab a wrapped sandwich, salad or homemade bar or cookie to go.

Simonson Station Store Deli, 124 Dakota Ave., Wahpeton, North Dakota — Chicken-bacon-ranch panini, fresh coffee, baked raised doughnuts: While there are Simonson delis offering good food across the region, one Facebook friend made a point of giving the Wahpeton store a shout-out. “Cleanest gas station in the state,” she raved, before pointing out her favorite food item: the chicken-bacon ranch panini, a toasted sammy layered with grilled chicken, bacon, provolone, lettuce, tomato, red onion and ranch dressing.

While convenience store coffee sometimes brews so long it has to be cut with a hacksaw, Simonson’s coffee tastes great “because the machines are cleaned often,” she said.

The Tower Travel Center, 101 Maiden Lane, Tower City, North Dakota, I-94 Exit 307 — Pie: The original Tower View Cafe and Fuel Stop, which opened in Tower City in 1960, was famous for its incredible homemade pies, in flavors like walnut cream or sour cream-raisin.

So when the dilapidated eatery shut its doors in 2009, it was sorely missed by I-94 travelers.

Fortunately, the people of Tower City banded together to build and open the new Tower Travel Center in the summer of 2010. Wisely, they included a from-scratch bakery.

Although the bakery seems to have more limited hours these days, you can pre-order a pie or select from an assortment of pies-to-go when you get there. We recommend the Apple Caramel Crumb.

TA Express/Coffee Cup Travel Plaza, 620 Mitchell Ave. N., Steele, North Dakota, I-94 Exit 200 — Cinnabon rolls: This sprawling travel center has many grab-and-go options, as well as three different kiosks for popular food chains: Caribou Coffee, Pizza Hut and, most recently, Cinnabon. Most menu items from the iconic cinnamon-roll giant are available, including the wickedly gooey “center of the roll” bites.

If your arteries slam shut at the thought of such decadence, there’s a decent refrigerated section which offers healthier options like cut-up fruit or vegetables or the keto-centric summer sausage-and-cheese cup.

Casey’s, Fargo-Moorhead (or wherever the chain convenience stores can be found) — Pizza: The Casey’s General Store chain should advertise this as: “I can’t believe it’s convenience-store pizza.” It is cheesy, perfectly seasoned and contains just the right amount of toppings — all atop a flavorful, chewy crust. People who live more exciting lives than I do claim that the breakfast pizza — a mix of breakfast meat, scrambled eggs, mozzarella and cheddar cheese atop sausage gravy or cheese sauce — is perfect hangover food.

M&H Gas Station, 510 Main Ave., Moorhead — Broasted chicken: Those who scoff at the notion of finding great fried chicken at a convenience store have never been to M&H in Moorhead.

Their pressure cooker-fried chicken has even won the lofty praise of Michael Stern, who, along with wife, Jane, won James Beard Awards for their columns highlighting the country’s top dining spots for road warriors.

Here’s what Michael had to say about M&H’s best-known item: “The hot-oil bath under pressure somehow forces extra lusciousness into the crisp skin as well as into the meat below, resulting in thighs, breasts, and drumsticks that are to ordinary fried chicken what baby back ribs are to spare ribs: more tender and easier to eat, albeit lacking rugged personality. For comfort food, this stuff can’t be beat.”

Kwik Trip, 10510 Radisson Road N.E., Blaine, Minnesota — French toast tornadoes, breakfast sandwiches, rib sandwiches: No sooner had I published the post asking for favorite convenience store cuisine than the Kwik Trippers began singing its praises.

One friend wrote that her daughter’s family — including four boys, ages 7 to 13 — lives in Blaine, Minnesota, and survived a prolonged kitchen remodel during COVID with daily trips to Kwik Trip.

Over those eight months, they became expert Kwikologists. “The employees were wonderful,” my friend wrote. “The foods they had were exactly like a restaurant.”

She listed their faves, which included: French toast tornado (sausage wrapped in a maple-glazed French toast shell), waffle breakfast sandwich (chicken breast and maple waffle), barbecued rib sandwich, chicken tenders and their fruit and yogurt parfaits.

(Fargo-Moorhead folks will be reassured to know there are plans for future Kwik Trips to open here.)

Clearwater Travel Plaza/Nelson Bros. Bakery, 950 Minnesota Highway 24, Clearwater, Minnesota — Baked goods: If you’re heading to the Cities for the weekend, it’s practically a requirement to take I-94 Exit 178 to the Clearwater Travel Plaza/Nelson Bros. Bakery for a Frisbee-sized doughnut, a loaf of apple fritter bread or a caramel apple so big and shiny you could look in it to apply your makeup.

Personally, I’m partial to the gargantuan, gooey, soft cinnamon rolls and the fritter bread, which makes next-level French toast.

Worth noting:

Fargo Petro Travel Plaza, 4510 19th Ave. S.W. (off I-94 Exit 348): Won mentions for its cheese curds, mini corn dogs and mozzarella sticks. “Petro has bomb food,” a Facebook friend noted. The Petro Serves in Casselton (102 Langer Ave., I-94 Exit 331) and Valley City (1020 8th Ave. SW., I-94 Exit 292): Both received mentions for their hot breakfast items and homemade lunches. Cenex Convenience Stores, which contain the Hot Stuff Pizza kiosk: Also got a shout-out for its reliably tasty pizza, featuring plenty of cheese and a fluffy, flavorful crust. Rothsay (Minnesota) Truck Stop, 544 Center Street N., off I-94 Exit 38): Although this food doesn’t technically come out of the convenience store, this small-town truck stop got several shout-outs for its diner’s friendly and accommodating staff, homemade caramel rolls and from-scratch pie.]]>

How a historical clue solved a mysterious code found hidden in a vintage dress

Jeremy Fugleberg — Thu, 28 Mar 2024 12:31:00 GMT

BISMARCK — Sara Rivers Cofield loved the dress at first sight.

It was a beautiful brown silk bustle dress with original buttons from the 1880s, on sale at an antique mall in Maine. Rivers Cofield, an archaeologist who also collects antique dresses, bought it for $100, then looked it over.

She noticed the name "Bennett" handwritten on a paper tag sewn inside the dress. And there was a pocket, hidden, hard to get to. And it contained something: a clump of balled-up paper.

What she found would spark a nearly decade-long mystery, confound professional and amateur codebreakers alike, and only be solved with a unique historical clue about North Dakota weather hidden in an old book.

Joined by her mom as she examined the dress, River Cofield opened up the clump of paper.

"It consisted of two translucent sheets, both of which exhibited writing," she told readers of her blog "Committment to Costumes" in a Feb. 14, 2014 post. "There we were thinking we'd stumbled upon some historic letter, and then we were standing there, each with a freshly unballed sheet of paper, and each suffering from complete bafflement."

The handwritten words on the wrinkled paper didn't make sense. The start of the first sheet read:

Smith nostrum linnets gets none event
101pm Antonio rubric lissdt full ink
5
Make Snapls barometer nerite

The second sheet's beginning didn't make any more sense:

1113 PM Bismark Omit leafage buck bank
5
Paul Ramify loamy event false new

What did this all mean, and why had such a nonsensical message been hidden away so carefully?

The hunt for answers

Cofield posted her story and images of the coded papers to her blog, convinced it could be solved by someone. She also sent the code to the National Security Agency's National Cryptologic Museum, and posted it on Reddit and Facebook.

"I'm putting it up here in case there's some decoding prodigy out there looking for a project," she wrote.

Her public posts stirred a lot of interest, and speculation, as the mystery went viral online. Were the codewords dress measurements? Perhaps related to illegal gambling? Love notes of some kind?

Some suggested it was a secret Civil War message, but the dress didn't date back that far, Rivers Cofield knew. Others suggested it was a telegraph code, but that was hard to check without the exact right code book, Rivers Cofield found.

There were some old telegraph code books on Google Books online, but there were many more out there, most in archives — and Rivers Cofield still had an actual job that required her attention. So the mystery remained unsolved, for the time being. Still, what became known as the "Silk Dress cryptogram" continued to make its way around codebreaking circles.

In 2017, German historical encryption expert Klaus Schmeh listed the cryptogram on his blog Cipherbrain as one of the top-50 unsolved encrypted messages, sparking another flurry of speculation and more research among wannabe codebreakers.

The idea of a telegraphic code still held a lot of promise, many speculated. In the 1800s, networks of wired telegraph stations across the U.S. and around the globe were the only way to quickly send messages from place to place.

Sending these messages was expensive, the cost determined by the length of the message. So codes were devised to shorten the messages, not necessarily to obscure their contents, but to save money. But there were many such codes. Unless you had the right one, a telegraph message would seem like a collection of random words — just like the code in the silk dress.

Still, nobody could break this code from more than a century ago.

Breaking the code

In August 2023, the bombshell news: Someone had broken the code.

His name was Wayne Chan, an analyst with the Centre for Earth Observation Science at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. He published his solution to the code in an article published in the journal Cryptologia.

Chan had tried to solve the message in 2018 before initially giving up. But Chan was a code-solving hobyist, and soon he was back to solving a seemingly unsolvable cipher.

Chan considered the telegraph code idea, and began working his way through nearly 170 telegraphic codebooks. Nothing. Then, he read an old book, "Telegraphic Tales and Telegraphic History." The book described a code used by weather field stations across the U.S. and Canada to send reports via telegraph to the Washington, D.C. office of the U.S. Army Signal Service — the precursor of the modern day National Weather Service.

Some of the examples in the book seemed similar to those in the coded message from the dress.

Chan got in touch with the Central Library of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, home to the National Weather Service, who found him a weather code book from 1892.

"I could tell it was clearly the right code — it didn't match exactly but about 90% of it fit," Chan told CBC.

Then the silver bullet: An 1887 version of the weather telegraph codebook. There it all was. Chan had solved the silk dress cryptogram.

“When I first thought I cracked it, I did feel really excited,” Mr. Chan told the New York Times. “It is probably one of the most complex telegraphic codes that I’ve ever seen."

As NOAA later explained in an article about the mystery, such weather messages started with an unencoded station location, followed by code words for various meteorological conditions and sunset observations.

That meant "

Bismark, omit, leafage, buck, bank"

from the code was actually:

Bismarck: Bismarck, Dakota Territory (North Dakota didn't become a state until Nov. 2, 1889) Omit: Air temperature 56 degrees, 30.08 barometric pressure Leafage: Dew point 32 degrees, observation time 10 p.m. Buck: Clear weather, no precipitation, north wind Bank: Wind at 12 mph, clear sunset

Based on archival information from NOAA, that meant the dress message was a weather report from Bismarck on May 27, 1888.

So who owned the dress? That remains an unsolved mystery.

According to NOAA, Chan was able to document that a number of women worked as clerical staff at the Army Signal Service office in Washington, D.C. around the date of the weather report. But it's not clear any were named Bennett, nor did his research explain why someone hid away the coded message.

“Presumably, whoever did that is the last person who owned the dress," Rivers Cofield told the New York Times. "And presumably, the last person who owned the dress put the code in the pocket.”

River Cofield's silk dress still holds a secret.

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No-smudging rule at North Dakota school's powwow prompts backlash

C.S. Hagen — Thu, 19 Jan 2023 10:15:00 GMT

BISMARCK — Signs barring the Native American practice of smudging at the University of Mary's weekend powwow created an online stir, with some saying the policy was a violation of religious freedom.

The University of Mary's policy of no-smudging indoors was a longstanding one because of concerns about fire alarms being set off by smudging, said Carmelita Lamb, associate dean of the university’s Liffrig Family �� of Education and Behavioral Sciences.

“It is a little heartbreaking that something as small as a sign would make everyone feel so badly. We do have some smudging on campus, but a powwow is a social event and not a ceremonial event,” Lamb said.

Smudging is practiced by a variety of Indigenous groups. It generally involves the burning of sacred herbs, sometimes to cleanse a person or place.

The no-smudging signs were posted at the university’s annual Mid-Winter Powwow, an event that took place Sunday, Jan. 15, in partnership with the United Tribes Technical College.

Lamb said the Mid-Winter Powwow was a time for people to break out of winter isolation, see friends, listen to music, put their regalia on and dance. “It was just a matter of safety because of fire alarms being sensitive. We don’t allow any vaping or cigarettes or any of that, with a risk of setting off alarms,” she said.

Tom Plenty Chief, a member of the Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara Nation and president of Medicine Butte, a nonprofit group at Fort Berthold, said the news that smudging was not allowed during the powwow disturbed him.

“I would think in this day and age with religious freedom and equality and the Freedom of Religion Act of 1978, I would think an institution of higher learning that is funded by federal dollars would recognize the fact that Native people or any people have their own culture and their own ways of prayer, so it should be nondiscriminatory,” Plenty Chief said.

Leander “Russ” McDonald, president of United Tribes Technical College, said he attended the powwow, but didn’t see the no-smudging signs. After the event, someone shared an online post with him about the no-smudging policy.

“We could probably visit about that and see if there are any opportunities to work with this in the future. A lot of us Natives want to do that because it puts us in the right frame of mind. It’s a spiritual lock and helps everything go good,” McDonald said.

The University of Mary does allow smudging in certain spaces on campus, and as a Native American herself, Lamb encourages the practice.

“In the future as we move forward with powwows, we will make a special effort to participants that if they wish to smudge we will provide them an environment they can do that. We embrace that,” Lamb said.

“Nobody came to me to ask for smudging. We would have welcomed them and provided them a safe place for that to be done and not trigger smoke alarms,” Lamb said.

Online comments related to the no-smudging policy at the powwow claimed the practice was no different than Catholic priests walking down an aisle swinging incense burners.

“I’ve been to Catholic Mass before and I believe they burn frankincense and that is a variation of smudging. If they don’t allow Native American people to smudge during a Native event, then why allow that during their Mass? It’s something to think about,” Plenty Chief said.

A similar situation at the University of Michigan prompted the university recently to change the smoke-free campus policy to allow smudging, as long as requests were made in advance.

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Dakota Spotlight 'House on Sweet and Seventh' documentary available on streaming service

Trisha Taurinskas — Thu, 03 Nov 2022 16:02:00 GMT

Forum Communication’s Emmy award-winning documentary, “The House on Sweet and Seventh,” is now available to stream from your big screen through Tubi, with plans for availability on additional platforms in the near future.

The true crime documentary, which tells the twisted tale of a 1996 Bismarck double homicide, takes viewers through a chilling journey of how the crime was committed — and how the case was pieced together and solved by investigators.

Barbara and Gordon Erickstad were gruesomely killed in their Bismarck home by their 18-year-old son, Brian Erickstand, along with at least one accomplice, 27-year-old Robert Lawrence. Central to the case — and documentary — are the questions: Who was present at the time of the murder, and who knew the crime had been committed by Brian Erickstand and Robert Lawrence?

The answer will likely stun viewers.

Interviews with those who were present at the time of the gruesome crime, along with insight from investigators, paints the picture of a tight knit group of friends who placed loyalty above morality.

The creator, Dakota Spotlight podcast host James Wolner, first told the story through a six-part series on the Dakota Spotlight podcast. Based on the series, the documentary was created with WDAY photographer Derek Fletcher. While the video started out as bonus content for podcast listeners, Wolner and Fletcher quickly realized they were capturing something special.

“Derek and I, from the very beginning, worked really well together,” Wolner said. “We had the same vision, ideas and passion. He’s an excellent photographer.”

The teamwork and storytelling led to the 2021 regional Emmy award, following its airing on WDAY.

Now, with it available on Tubi, podcast listeners – and all those interested in true crime content – can stream it for free on the Tubi app.

The documentary’s debut on Tubi comes after behind-the-scenes work by those within Forum Communications to create and deliver content on an array of platforms. Jim Manney, director of video content at Forum Communications, has been working with interested parties to make the documentary available through streaming services.

He says the documentary’s availability on Tubi is just the start. It’s slated to become available on additional streaming platforms.

“The availability of ‘The House on Sweet and Seventh’ on prominent streaming services is in line with Forum Communication’s goal of delivering great content on platforms that serve our audience,” Manney said.

Tubi is a free streaming service available for download on smart TVs and Roku.

To listen to the podcast series on which the documentary was based, visit this site.

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Police lieutenant with a rap sheet had allegedly harassed missing North Dakota woman

Jeremy Fugleberg — Wed, 02 Nov 2022 11:00:00 GMT

While investigating Michele Julson's disappearance in Bismarck in 1994, police detectives learned she had told friends and family that a Bismarck Police lieutenant named Donald Schaffer had been harassing her. Julson's cold-case file offers no indication that Schaffer was ever investigated or questioned about the harassment or Julson's disappearance.

In the new and perhaps final episode of Season 7 of the Dakota Spotlight investigative podcast, founder and host James Wolner looks into Schaffer, his long career at the Bismarck Police Department and how his paths crossed with Julson's before she disappeared.

Listen to Episode Nine — Frightened, Followed, Harassed

Get Dakota Spotlight on your favorite podcast app

: Apple | Spotify | Google

A lot of strange things were happening to Julson just before she fell off the face of the earth in August of 1994. Between anonymous hang-up phone calls at home, her car being vandalized, being followed home from work and an ominous automobile cruising past her front door at night, Julson was feeling harassed and on edge. Julson told friends that one of the people harassing her at work was a Bismarck police officer . . . named Don Schaffer.

Schaffer's rise to lieutenant was not without controversy and it abruptly ended in 1996 after Schaffer was arrested for allegedly terrorizing and assaulting his girlfriend. In her application for an emergency protection order against him, Schaffer's girlfriend said he threw her down some stairs twice and punched her in the face. "He was yelling he was going to kill me," she wrote.

About Dakota Spotlight, Season Seven: 'Call Me Shelly — The Mysterious Disappearance of Michelle Julson'

In this season of Dakota Spotlight, creator, host and Regional Emmy Award-winner James Wolner looks into the cold case of 26-year-old Michelle "Shelly" Julson, who vanished from Bismarck, North Dakota on Aug. 2, 1994. Granted exclusive, unprecedented access by police to the cold-case file, Wolner presents a play-by-play review of the initial investigation and further examines the strange events surrounding Shelly's life and her disappearance.

With the aid of new interviews with Shelly’s friends, family and retired police investigators, Wolner dives into the shadows of Shelly’s world at the time — Bismarck’s bar and gambling scene — and tracks the movements of several persons of interest. All in an attempt to answer the biggest questions of the case: What actually happened to Shelly?

Gallery - Browse with arrow on right

Photo gallery - Dakota Spotlight Season Seven - Call Me Shelly

�� portrait of a smiling Shelly Julson 18 years of age wearing blue button-down shirt under a purple knitted vest. Shelly has feathered, shoulder-length red-brown hair and dark eyes and eyebrows.

Staff photo of Lieutenant Don Schaffer of the Bismarck Police Department. While investigating Michele Julson's disappearence in 1994, investigators received multiple tips informing them that Schaffer was one of several persons harrasing Julson at a local bar, The Burnt Creek Club. Julson's cold case file shows no indication that Schaffer was ever spoken to by investigators in regards to Julson's case. One hundred and four pages of Julson's investigative file were removed in 1994 at the request of then head of investigations Lieutenant Myron Heinle.

Bismarck Police Department's missing poster for Shelly Julson

When investigators walked the perimeter of Shelly Julson's home the windows in the back were open. The front door was locked and the TV was on.

Shelly said she was going to pick up her paycheck at the Fort Abraham Lincoln Foundation office, 309 East Broadway in Bismarck. She never picked up her check.

Shelly worked dealing black jack at the burnt creek club and had been dating Tony Hulm a bartender there. Shelly told friends and family the patrons at the bar were harassing her and she had asked her supervisor to transfer to a different location. On more than one occasion, Shelly believed someone had followed her home from the bar and her car was vandalized.

Shelly Julson occasionally worked at the Elbow Room. Different from today, in 1994 the bar was located near 3rd street and Main. 36 hours before Shelly disappeared she was witnessed talking to two men in the parking lot just after closing. The men had stated they were railroad workers and one of the men was going to be laid over in Bismarck a couple more days.

Bismarck Police officer Dennis Walls was the first investigator to work on Shelly's case.

Officer Julie Thompson worked on Shelly's case. Thompson focused on looking into Shelly's banking activity and she was also present when Shelly's home was investigated and when her car was located.

People in this episode(In alphabetical order)
Russ Bryant: Investigator for Burlington Northern Railroad Bill Connor: Bismarck Police Department investigator Officer Rob Carvell: Bismarck Police Department officer and patrolman, who responded to the Julson missing person report Larry Helfenstein: Shelly's friend Tony Hulm: Shelly's latest on-again/off-again boyfriend, and a bartender at Burnt Creek Club Linda Julson: Shelly’s mother Michele "Shelly" Julson: a 26-year-old blackjack dealer and mother of 3-year-old Jaden, she went missing on Aug. 2, 1994. Wes Julson: Shelly's father Holly Ness: Shelly’s friend

Don Schaffer: Bismarck police officer and patron at Burnt Creek Club. Shelly told friends Schaffer had been harassing her at work. Rick Snell: Did not return to work at Great Lines after Aug. 2, 1994 Julie Thompson: investigator with the Bismarck Police Department. Dennis Walls: Bismarck Police Department sergeant who was the initial and lead investigator on the Julson case Jaden Woodworth: Shelly's son, 3-and-a-half years old when she went missing Kevin Woodworth: Shelly's former boyfriend and Jaden's father Richard Woodworth: Jaden's paternal grandfather and the last person to acknowledge having seen her when she dropped Jaden at 104 American Ave. Jenny Yantzer: Barmaid at Burnt Creek Club. Shelly speculated that Jenny was responsible for hangup phone calls and damage to her car. Jenny has denied any involvement. People in previous episodes Chris Aziz: Bartender at the Elbow Room. Witnessed Shelly with two men Sunday night. James Becker: Shelly's friend Kim Borner: Shelly's friend Walter Czerwinski: Retired Burlington Northern employee John Drath: Wes Julson’s co-worker and acquaintance of Shelly Clifford Emmert: Bismarck Police Department investigator Jack Erhardt: Kevin Woodworth's foreman at Miller Insulation Sheila Heil: Shelly’s boss and co-worker at Fort Abraham Lincoln Foundation Darrel Helbing: One of two railroad workers kicked out of The Comfort Inn swimming pool at 3 a.m. on Aug. 3, 1994. The men were in the company of two unidentified women and a third man in a cowboy hat. Mitch Maher: One of two railroad workers kicked out of The Comfort Inn swimming pool at 3 am on Aug. 3, 1994. The men were in the company of two unidentified women and a third man in a cowboy hat. Robin Mostad: Shelly’s co-worker at The Elbow Room Bonnie Munsch: Shelly's friend and coworker, worked with Shelly at the Burnt Creek Club the night before Shelly vanished. Bonnie felt Shelly did not seem her usual self that night. Tarileen Olson: Blackjack dealer at Fort Abraham Lincoln Foundation Mike Quinn: Agent at North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation Amy Sansburn: Claimed she partied with Shelly at WE Fest. Tammy Sumner: Shelly’s babysitter Troy Schaner: Bismarck police officer who helped North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation's aerial search for Shelly's car Nick Sevart: Bismarck Police officer Carol Thomas: Assistant manager at The Fleck House hotel near The Elbow Room bar]]>

Jacobson disappearance, Part 3: Missing diary could shed light on vanished North Dakota mother and son

Trisha Taurinskas — Thu, 14 Jul 2022 15:03:00 GMT

This is the third and final story in a series on the missing persons case of Sandra and John Jacobson. To read part one,

click here

. To read part two,

click here

BISMARCK — As Bismarck Police Sgt. William Connor attempted to piece together the final known days of Sandra and John Jacobson, he kept circling back to the same question: What happened to her journal?

Family members say that Sandra Jacobson kept a daily, detailed journal — one that could hold the answers related to the nature of her relationship with her husband, Alan Jacobson. If true, it could also resolve questions regarding her emotional and mental state at the time she went missing.

The police file on this case, recently obtained by Forum News Service, reveals an initial investigation that failed to obtain information that could have shed light on Sandra Jacobson’s relationship — and life in general — in the days and weeks before she vanished.

When Sandra Jacobson’s vehicle was found in Centennial Park along the shores of the Missouri River on Nov. 17, 1996, the morning after she was reported missing, the lead investigator thought the case was as good as closed. With an open front driver’s side door and her purse on the passenger’s seat, he believed she and John had been swept away in the river.

@truecrimevault

As a result, Sandra Jacobson’s home — a trailer in Center, North Dakota — was never searched. Despite pleas by her close friends and family members to secure the trailer, her belongings went unexamined.

Just days after Sandra and John Jacobson disappeared, Alan Jacobson entered her trailer, and walked out with an unknown set of items. Those familiar with the situation told investigators he took nearly everything, including clothes, food and random belongings.

Alan Jacobson said he didn’t know his wife kept a journal. In fact, he claimed he never came across it — not even during the process of putting the trailer up for sale.

Forum News Service has made multiple attempts to contact Alan Jacobson to request an interview, without success.

A divorce on the table?

Those close to Sandra Jacobson said she believed she was days away from a divorce when she and her son went missing. She believed — however naively — that her husband was handling the paperwork.

While she was looking forward to moving on, she had anxiety regarding a potential custody battle. In 2004, Sandra Jacobson’s mother, Bernice Grensteiner, told Connor that her daughter had been visibly upset and concerned about that possibility on the night she disappeared. A close friend backed up that claim.

Alan Jacobson, however, told a different story. He said he and his wife were trying to work things out when she went missing.

So, what was really happening?

Jacobson Disappearance, Part 3

A missing persons poster from 2016 shows an age progression for John Jacobson, who went missing with his mother, Sandra Jacobson, in November of 1996.

Sandra Jacobson and her 5-year-old son, John Jacobson, were last seen on the evening of Nov. 16, 1996 in Bismarck. Sandra Jacobson's gray 1990 Honda Civic was discovered the following morning parked in Centennial Park near the edge of the Missouri River. Their case remains unsolved.

A couple of weeks after Sandra and John Jacobson went missing, the lead investigator on the case wrote a letter to Northwest Airlines on behalf of Alan Jacobson. In the letter, the investigator requested a partial hardship repayment for Alan Jacobson, who flew home from Missouri when he learned his wife and son had gone missing.

A drawing details the area where Sandra Jacobson's vehicle was discovered on Nov. 17, 1996. Sandra Jacobson and her son, John Jacobson, were last seen Nov. 16, 1996.

Sandra Jacobson's gray 1990 Honda Civic was discovered by law enforcement officers the morning of Nov. 17, 1996. It was parked in Bismarck's Centennial Park, along the shores of the Missouri River. Sandra Jacobson and her son, John Jacobson, have not been heard from since.

Sandra Jacobson and her 5-year-old son, John Jacobson, were last seen on the evening of Nov. 16, 1996 in Bismarck. Sandra Jacobson's vehicle was discovered the following morning parked in Centennial Park near the edge of the Missouri River. Her purse, which contained her state identification card, was found on the passenger's seat. Absent from the purse was her driver's license.

Sandra Jacobson and her 5-year-old son, John Jacobson, were last seen on the evening of Nov. 16, 1996 driving away from her parents' home in Bismarck. Sandra Jacobson's empty gray 1990 Honda Civic was discovered the following morning parked in Centennial Park near the edge of the Missouri River.

Sandra Jacobson and her 5-year-old son, John Jacobson, were last seen on the evening of Nov. 16, 1996 in Bismarck.

Sandra Jacobson and her 5-year-old son, John Jacobson, were last seen on the evening of Nov. 16, 1996 in Bismarck. Sandra Jacobson's empty vehicle was discovered the following morning parked in Centennial Park near the edge of the Missouri River.

Phone logs obtained for Sandra Jacobson's car phone showed one call per page. Phone logs for her landline were not initially obtained by investigators for the month of November.

That’s what Connor was trying to figure out. He attempted to track down any potential records of the initiation of a divorce procedure — a search that led him to multiple county courthouses. In the end, he found no evidence of an impending divorce.

Alan Jacobson’s claim that he and his wife sought couples counseling through her state employment benefits package didn’t check out, either. Despite obtaining a subpoena for the information, Connor wasn’t able to confirm Alan Jacobson’s claims.

“That’s where I would like to have had that… that journal, because that would have been things she wrote down, you know,” Connor said in a recent interview with Forum News Service. “And if Alan and her were talking about the divorce, she would have wrote it down. So, I would have had some fuel at least, or some things to work off of.”

The potential initiation of a divorce mattered for a number of reasons. According to Connor, Alan Jacobson’s family estate had been put in both of their names. Dividing assets — including land — would have likely been included in any divorce procedures.

Had a divorce occurred prior to the disappearance, Sandra Jacobson’s 16-year-old son would have been included in conversations regarding her assets. Without the divorce, the spouse is entitled to everything.

A background check on both Alan and Sandra Jacobson also revealed an address in rural North Carolina. Attempts by Forum News Service to obtain information related to that property revealed it is owned by TC&I Timber Company, LLC.

What about the rings?

In an initial interview with Turnbull in 1996, Sandra Jacobson’s 16-year-old son claimed he saw his mother’s wedding rings — days after she went missing — in a change container on a counter in Alan Jacobson’s home.

When he saw the rings, it sent a chill up his spine. He couldn’t clarify for Connor that his mother had been wearing the rings when she disappeared, but he did wonder why they were inside his step father’s home.

While Alan Jacobson was never questioned about the rings the first time around, he told Connor he wasn’t entirely sure why he had the rings.

“I asked Alan how he got the rings originally,” Connor wrote in the report. “He stated he didn’t remember. He thought about it for a while and thought Sandy took the ring off and left it on the dresser when they separated but he couldn’t remember for sure. He stated he knew for sure he didn’t take it from the trailer.”

The rings represented another detail of the case that proved difficult for Connor to clarify. In the eight years following the disappearance, memories had faded — particularly for details related to whether or not Sandra Jacobson continued to wear her rings.

In the absence of the journal, Connor turned to another option that could point him in the right direction.

He asked Alan Jacobson to take a polygraph test for questions related to the case.

Connor received a phone call a couple of days later from Alan Jacobson’s attorney, informing him that he was declining the test.

Concerns for mental health

There was one running theme present throughout the investigations into Sandra and John Jacobson’s disappearance, and it had to do with the state of her mental health at the time she went missing.

While close family members said Sandra Jacobson was experiencing a mental health crisis, they struggled to believe she would have taken her own life — and the life of her 5-year-old boy, whom she loved deeply. Not known to even raise her voice, her loved ones couldn’t fathom she would cause him harm.

In an effort to make sense of it all, investigators turned to those who knew her

best. Among those interviewed was Vernon Nastrom, Sandra Jacobson’s ex-husband, who was also the father of her first child.

In 1996, Nastrom told Detective Tim Turnbull, the initial lead investigator on the case, that Sandra Jacobson had been fascinated with end-of-world scenarios. While still together, she made a pact with Nastrom: If signs of the end of the world appeared, they would meet up and jump off the Memorial Bridge.

The Memorial Bridge crosses the Missouri River, just down the street from Centennial Park.

The pact didn’t last forever. Sandra Jacobson’s beliefs regarding end-of-world scenarios came and went, according to Nastrom. Throughout the course of their relationship, she also came to believe that taking one’s own life wasn’t the answer as it meant one’s soul would walk the earth forever — heaven would be out of reach.

Call logs show Sandra Jacobson attempted to call Nastrom in the hours before she went missing. Ultimately, Nastrom admitted he had been on “crank” the day Sandra Jacobson reached out to him, causing him to miss the call.

Nastrom took a polygraph test to clear any suspicion that he was somehow involved in their disappearance. Connor noted that he passed that test.

Roughly one year later, Nastrom was found dead along a rural road in North Dakota’s Kidder County. An autopsy revealed he died from blunt force trauma to the head. His death remains an unsolved case.

Nastrom’s story that Sandra Jacobson had an on-and-off again obsession with the end of the world fell in line with what Alan Jacobson had told both Turnbull and Connor.

The theory also, somewhat, matched the story Sandra Jacobson’s family member told investigators in both 1996 and 2004: they believed a third party was in the car when a distraught Sandra Jacobson called hours before vanishing. In that call, she told the family member to kill themself. She hung up without saying, “I love you,” which she had never done before.

Nastrom’s story was also consistent with the transcript of her phone call to the Bismarck Police Department in the hours before her disappearance.

The transcript, included in the police report, displays a distraught woman who believed a loved one was in danger of sexual abuse at the hands of a demonic cult. Because the alleged ritual abuse was taking place outside the jurisdiction of the Bismarck Police Department, she was told there was nothing that could be done.

A report written by the officer who took the call stated that Sandra Jacobson was worried that a loved one was going to be killed by a cult — there was no mention of allegations of sexual abuse.

The audio recording of that phone call was not placed in evidence. By the time Connor attempted to locate it, the tape had been deleted altogether.

“I can’t believe they destroyed that audio,” Connor said. “I tried to find that audio, and it was gone. And, you know, there’s a lot of things that are different about those cases now. I mean, I don’t think nowadays we would have destroyed that audio, you know. Because we never did have a body. We had no clear cut evidence that she went in the river.”

In the decades since Sandra and John Jacobson went missing, their remains have not been discovered. Sandra Jacobson’s mother and father passed away without any closure related to their daughter and grandson’s disappearance.

As for those who knew and loved Sandra and John Jacobson, they’re still waiting for answers to questions they wish had been asked decades ago.

If you know anything about the missing persons case of Sandra and John Jacobson, please contact Trisha Taurinskas at ttaurinskas@forumcomm.com.
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Jacobson disappearance, Part 2: Police file reveals suspicion fell on husband in 1996 North Dakota case

Trisha Taurinskas — Thu, 07 Jul 2022 19:50:27 GMT

Editor's note: This is a multiple part series examining the investigation into the 1996 disappearance of 35-year-old Sandra Jacobson and her son, 5-year-old John Jacobson. To read part 1,

click here

BISMARCK — Sergeant William Connor was a patrolman for the Bismarck Police Department on the frigid 1996 November morning Sandra Jacobson’s vehicle was discovered near the banks of the Missouri River in North Dakota.

It was on that bitter cold day that the department received a report that a 35-year-old woman and her 5-year-old son had gone missing. With Sandra Jacobson’s purse located on the passenger’s seat, police officers were able to match the vehicle owner’s identity with that of the missing person.

Burned in his brain were the memories of searching the riverbanks — he recalled the family of Sandra and John Jacobson begging him to do his best to scour the area. Despite his best efforts, no trace of the missing mother and son were found.

“I had a K-9 at the time and so I was down along that river for several hours that night,” Connor said in a recent interview with Forum News Service. “It was horrible cold. I can remember that, and it was way below zero, the wind was howling, the river was already freezing up.”

In 2004, Connor was reminded of the case through a phone call by the Missing and Exploited Children’s Center. Just like that, he was taken back to that day — and he got curious.

That curiosity fueled Connor’s quest to re-open the investigation. While he initially set out to update the case through the collection of DNA from family members, he ended up spending years attempting to gain answers to questions the initial investigation failed to obtain.

Connor's new investigation, revealed in a police file exclusively obtained by Forum News Service, details Connor's hunt through phone and insurance records, and hard questions for Alan Jacobson, husband to Sandra and father to John.

Sandra and John Jacobson case

A child's shoe was discovered in the spring of 1997 near the area where Sandra Jacobson's vehicle was discovered. While Alan Jacobson claimed the shoe could likely belong to his son, John Jacobson's brother and grandmother said the shoe was far too large to belong to the 5-year-old boy.

Alan Jacobson's wife and 5-year-old son were last seen the evening of Saturday, Nov. 16. In a letter to the initial lead investigator on the case, a coworker writes that Alan Jacobson was with him on a work trip during that time.

Sandra Jacobson and her 5-year-old son, John Jacobson, were last seen on the evening of Nov. 16, 1996 in Bismarck.

An age-enhanced photo of John Jacobson was created to show what he would have looked like in the years following his disappearance. John Jacobson went missing, along with his mother, Sandra Jacobson, from Bismarck in 1996.

A missing persons poster from 2016 shows an age progression for John Jacobson, who went missing with his mother, Sandra Jacobson, in November of 1996.

Forum News Service has made multiple attempts to contact Alan Jacobson to request an interview, without success.

A father’s refusal

The Missing and Exploited Children’s Center representative told Connor they attempted to reach Alan Jacobson several times to obtain pictures of Sandra and John Jacobson for the missing poster the organization was putting together. They had also requested his DNA for age-enhanced photos of his son, John Jacobson.

The organization turned to Connor to help them out.

Connor reached out to Sandra Jacobson’s family members, who were more than willing to provide pictures and submit DNA samples — simple mouth swabs — to aid in the investigation.

In April 2005, Connor sat down with Alan Jacobson at the police station with a long list of questions — among them were a few related to his cooperation with the Missing and Exploited Children’s Center.

When pressed about the topic, Alan Jacobson told Connor that he had sent in the photos they requested. That caught Connor off guard.

“He said he had mailed them pictures of Sandy and John in the beginning and since he has seen they did an age enhanced poster of John,” Connor wrote in the follow-up report. “I told him that I had sent the pictures of John and Sandy that they created the posters with.”

Alan Jacobson admitted he did receive the DNA kit. While he understood his DNA would be used in efforts to find his son, he wasn’t interested in returning a sample.

Alan Jacobson told Connor that he and Sandra Jacobson were working on getting back together when she and their son went missing. He said they even went so far as to go to couples counseling, which they sought through the Employee Assistance Program included in Sandra Jacobson’s benefit package. According to Alan Jacobson, he was the only one who showed up to their appointment.

Connor set out to verify that claim. If true, it could shed light as to the nature of their relationship at the time of the disappearance.

After locking down a subpoena, he obtained documents from the Employee Assistance Program, which did not include a record of Alan Jacobson attending a couples counseling appointment. That was a red flag for Connor.

“If Alan attended a session with Employee Assistance as he said he did in the interview I would have been provided with that record,” Connor wrote in the follow-up report.

There was another question Connor had for Alan Jacobson. When reading through the original report, he noted Alan Jacobson told Turnbull in 1996 that Sandra had “off the wall” conspiracy theories that he was having affairs.

@truecrimevault

He asked Alan Jacobson if he had been involved in extramarital relationships during their marriage. This time, Alan Jacobson had a different answer.

“He admitted to one affair earlier when they first split but then they reconciled in early 1996,” Connor wrote in the follow-up report. “Alan would not admit to any other affairs when I mentioned that Sandy had told others of his affairs and that was why she moved out.”

The phone records puzzle

In the week before Sandra and John Jacobson disappeared, those close to her said there were a lot of late night calls between her and Alan Jacobson. The calls, they said, were so frequent that they caused her to go without sleep. Often, the heated conversations left Sandra Jacobson in tears.

Access to Sandra Jacobson’s landline phone records would have helped Connor confirm this information — and would shed light on who was doing the dialing. Yet as Connor would discover, time wasn’t on his side.

While the original report contained phone records for Sandra Jacobson's landline phone, they were only for October of 1996. That didn’t help Connor, who was after November records from the week before she went missing.

He attempted to obtain the November phone record, but it was no longer available. That wasn’t the only time he’d hit that roadblock.

He also attempted to obtain phone records from 1996 for Alan Jacobson’s cell phone through Verizon Wireless, but was told records only went back to 2001. It was the same case for records related to his landline phone. Quest Subpoena Compliance only kept local calls on the log for three years.

What about life insurance?

As Connor scoured the original police report, he came across phone records from Sandra Jacobson’s car phone. In 1996, Turnbull asked Alan Jacobson to fetch them from her phone company. It was a move that wasn’t out of step with the 1996 investigation. Turnbull turned to Alan Jacobson for a lot back then.

While reviewing the logs, Connor noticed something peculiar: In the hours before her disappearance, Sandra Jacobson had called the same number twice. The number belonged to Bismarck United Life Insurance Company. The phone log clocked the calls at around 10 seconds each — that’s 10 seconds after someone answered the phone.

When initially going through the phone records together, Alan Jacobson told Turnbull that Sandra Jacobson probably misdialed. After all, the number was similar to the one belonging to the Bismarck Police Department.

Turnbull didn’t question Alan Jacobson’s explanation, nor did he mention anything in his report about calling the insurance company.

That was a detail Connor couldn’t let go unexamined.

Bismarck United Life Insurance Company was sold to ING ReliaStar, but did still hold information related to policies obtained prior to their takeover. A representative of the company told Connor that Sandra Jacobson did have a policy: a term policy that was taken out in 1991. However, it lapsed in 1995.

Roughly eight years after her disappearance, Connor attempted to track down any information related to additional life insurance policies on Sandra Jacobson. But, as he discovered, that’s a lot like finding a needle in a haystack. One single database for insurance policies didn’t exist.

“… we would have to contact individual companies to find out that information,” Connor wrote.

There was one avenue Connor could go down, though. Connor spoke with Bob Evans, the director of Human Resources at the Motor Vehicle Department, where Sandra Jacobson worked.

“He said he thought it was a couple days after her disappearance that he came in and was rather aggressive about her benefits,” Connor wrote in his follow-up report.

In Connor’s quest, he did find one life insurance policy — a $30,000 policy that had Alan Jacobson listed as the beneficiary. Alan Jacobson openly admitted to receiving that payout five years after her disappearance, claiming it was used to cover administrative costs and bills.

That was a reasonable response for Connor. Yet there was one aspect of this case that still didn’t sit well with him. It had to do with claims by Sandra Jacobson’s family members that Alan Jacobson had taken a number of items from her home — a trailer in Center, North Dakota — just days after she went missing.

Connor had been told by those close to Sandra Jacobson that she diligently kept a diary. If there was anything that could give Connor a glimpse into her mind — and what was happening between her and Alan Jacobson, it would be in that diary.

If the diary existed, Alan would have known about it. If he hadn’t been aware of it from the start, he would have found it eventually when he sold the trailer after Sandra Jacobson went missing.

In part 3 of this series, to be released soon, learn more about what Connor discovers as he continues his investigation, including details regarding the final hours before Sandra and John Jacobson went missing.
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Historical fiction filmed in North Dakota will get its Fargo premiere next week

Fri, 26 Nov 2021 12:15:00 GMT

BISMARCK — The Fargo premiere of “A Heart Like Water,” an historical fiction film, will be a “fun, immersive, interactive experience,” and “a glimpse into what it is like to make a true North Dakota film from the ground up,” says Daniel Bielinski, writer and producer.

Along with filmmakers from the Bismarck-based Canticle Productions being present to interact with the audience, he adds, the Fargo Theatre premiere on Dec. 5 will include a red-carpet walk with photo opportunities, along with sales of autographed copies of the screenplay and film memorabilia.

Attendees will also get a peek at “Sanctified,” the company’s next film, set to release this spring.

Bielinski founded Canticle Productions, a film and theater production company, in 2018, a couple years after he and his family moved to North Dakota from New York City, where he’d been working as a professional actor. A father who’d grown “tired of schlepping kids up and down subways,” along with the “endless moral battle of work versus values,” Bielinski says that when the University of Mary asked him to direct its theater department, the timing was right, and he quickly became drawn to telling stories that honor the history and culture of North Dakota.

“It’s been important to me to discover a voice in the work that not only honors North Dakota history, but honors God,” he says. “And not in a way that punches you in the face with a message.”

Some faith-based media proves inaccessible to those who “aren’t on the wagon” of the Christian worldview.

“My goal is excellent storytelling, and then having that story come through a Christian lens,” he says. “But if we don’t check that first box first, (some) people aren’t going to pay attention.”

‘A Heart Like Water’

To the point, Bielinski says, he just got done reading “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis to his five children. “It’s such a beautifully written story, and so obviously Christian, but it’s also such a well-told, emotionally gripping and well-structured story.”

He hopes these elements flow through his work, too, he says. “‘A Heart Like Water’ is the most personal film I’ve ever made,” Bielinski says, noting that it follows the storyline of Linda Slaughter’s book, “From Fortress to Farm,” about Dakota settlers of the late 1800s. Slaughter, he adds, is Gov. Doug Burgum’s great-grandmother.

In the book, Slaughter shares about the first postmaster in Dakota Territory and her standoff with Gen. George Armstrong Custer. “There is one page we lifted out of that story that inspired the first act of the movie,” he says.

The film’s name, he notes, comes from Lamentations 2:19: “Arise, cry out in the night, as the watches of the night begin; pour out your heart like water in the presence of the Lord. Lift up your hands to him for the lives of your children, who faint from hunger at every street corner.”

“It really examines what the struggles were on the frontier, for faith, hope and survival, and how it was all linked,” Bielinski says, told through the story of a nameless frontier couple trying to keep their family together, and their hopes alive, in 1887.

“It’s very much a meditation, and I hope it’s very gripping,” he says. “It’s also very reflective on what it means to have children on the frontier, what it means to be a parent, and what it means to endure suffering in the light of faith.”

Its relevance extends into today.

“I think we can certainly learn from the perseverance and courage and the sacrifices of those who came before us,” he says. “That was kind of the driving force of this film.”

“North Dakota has so many amazing stories,” Bielinski adds, “and they’re so much better than anything I could come up with in my imagination,” explaining his passion for adapting them to film.

An actor’s perspective

Tiffany Cornwell, an actress based out of the Twin Cities, and soon, Los Angeles, was immediately drawn to the script when Bielinski shared it with her. After reading it, she met up with Charlie Griak, the film’s director, at a coffee shop.

“I love Charlie’s approach to directing, so I flew out (to North Dakota) in January 2020.” After arriving in Bismarck, she got to visit the Badlands; an area she’d never seen, despite having some North Dakota heritage. “It blew my mind. It was just the most serene, perfect, January day,” she says, noting that the filming was an incredible experience.

She adds that Griak has “a unique gift of empathy that makes him a dream to work with as an actor. Because he is so empathetic, and so focused and professional, you feel entirely safe to completely immerse yourself as an actor.”

Cornwell’s acting career began at 3 months, she says, when she played the baby Jesus in a Christmas production, and though she started out in theater, she’s developed a real love for film.

The lead in “A Heart Like Water,” she says it took about 10 days to film. “This was one of the most scheduled, well-planned-out shoots I’ve been on. It was impressive.”

She hasn’t seen the film in whole yet. “I’ll be seeing this along with the audience for the first time on Dec. 5,” Cornwell says, noting that, based on Griak’s artistic abilities, she’s certain it will be beautiful. “In many ways, I expect it will feel like watching a painting in action.”

Cornwell especially looks forward to seeing the audience’s reactions, and viewing the film in an iconic space, she says. “There’s just something about watching something that is entertainment and art… and then also, to have that in a beautiful frame.”

A costumer’s perspective

Because most of her work as a costumer comes in pre-production research and planning, Michele Renner isn’t always on set. But during a recent filming in Medora, she says, she drove one of the out-of-area visitors to the filming site, impressing him with a buffalo sighting.

“I was born in Dickinson,” she says, later leaving the area for quite a few years before eventually circling back after “falling in love with a North Dakota guy,” her husband.

Though Renner has worked in theater for 25 years in a variety of roles, she says, her latest as a costumer came from a need she discovered in the Bismarck area, and her skills as a seamstress, along with being able to look at the big picture.

A Catholic, Renner says she appreciates Bielinski’s strong work ethic, respectful communication and faith sensitivities, such as ensuring the crew can take time to worship when filming on weekends.

“There’s also definitely a work ethic that exists within the production company, too, where you do what needs to get done to get the production off the road; to get it going,” she says.

Renner also appreciates that Bielinski’s films, while not overtly didactic, have a moral component, describing “A Heart Like Water” as “a touching story of a man and a woman who, if they didn’t have this faith, there’s no way they would have survived what they survived.”

‘A rightly-ordered universe’

Until recently, Bielinski acted in most of his films, he says, but he’s backing away from that now to focus on writing and producing.

“Finding the right stories to tell, I’m grateful to be in the position to do that, and then to frame them in the context of a rightly-ordered universe in a way that will give glory to God.”

Bielinski says he’s hoping to show the film to as many people across the state as possible.

“I’ve been to Fargo a few times, and think it’s a great town. I’m hoping we can get lots of people into the theater that evening.”

Follow the film’s updates at www.facebook.com/aheartlikewater.

If you go

What: “A Heart Like Water” film premiere and red-carpet event; Q&A with filmmakers

When: showings at 7 and 8:30 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 5

Where: Fargo Theatre, 314 Broadway N.

Contact: Tickets are $20; visit https://www.aheartlikewater.com/ or email tickets@canticle-productions.com

Salonen, a wife and mother of five, works as a freelance writer and speaker in Fargo. Email her at roxanebsalonen@gmail.com, and find more of her work at Peace Garden Passage, http://roxanesalonen.com/.

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Dakota Access Pipeline ramps up carrying capacity by nearly 50% as expansion continues

Adam Willis — Fri, 06 Aug 2021 14:44:01 GMT

BISMARCK — A new phase in the expansion of the Dakota Access Pipeline's oil capacity is complete, operators of the embattled North Dakota pipeline announced this week.

Energy Transfer, the parent company to Dakota Access, reported the development on its quarterly earnings call on Tuesday, Aug. 3, announcing that the pipeline has ramped up its carrying capacity to about 750,000 barrels a day — an increase of almost 50% from the volume of oil it has been able to carry since beginning operations in 2017.

The Texas-based company has been adding pump stations to scale up the pipeline's load to a total of more than 1.1 million barrels per day when the expansion project is complete.

Members of the North Dakota Public Service Commission approved the installation of a new pump station in Emmons County southeast of Bismarck to allow for the expansion following a marathon hearing in Linton in November of 2019 in which Energy Transfer butted heads with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe.

Operations of Dakota Access have been vigorously opposed by members of Standing Rock since construction of the pipeline began near their reservation in south-central North Dakota in 2016. The tribe argues the pipeline's Missouri River crossing just off their reservation endangers their water supply.

"It's an outrage," said Jan Hasselman, an attorney representing Standing Rock in its legal challenge to Dakota Access operations. "They don't even have a permit to operate at all because the risks of an oil spill have never been studied. They are subject to ongoing federal enforcement over their many safety violations, and they have previously assured a federal court that the expansion would not occur until the (U.S. Army Corps of Engineers) has signed off on it."

And though Dakota Access opponents have been disappointed that President Joe Biden's administration so far declined to take action against the pipeline, Hasselman said circumstances changed in recent months, in part because of recent federal fines slapped on Energy Transfer for safety violations.

"And now we have the entity essentially snubbing its nose at the White House, all but taunting them," he said.

A five-year legal battle between Standing Rock and Energy Transfer over the pipeline's permit at the Missouri River crossing came to a close earlier this summer. A federal judge last summer revoked Dakota Access' permit at the river crossing, but the same judge said this May that the tribe's legal arguments did not meet the standard needed for him to order the pipeline to shut down.

The Army Corps is in the middle of an extensive environmental review of Dakota Access and its Missouri River crossing near the Standing Rock reservation to determine whether the pipeline's permit will be returned.

The Biden administration and Army Corps have declined to shut the pipeline down, though they have not ruled out enforcement actions. Standing Rock leadership has continued to call on the White House to intervene and recently cited a federal agency's intention to fine Energy Transfer over safety violations as further justification for a shutdown.

The expansion project is part of the agency's environmental assessment. That's slated for completion in March of 2022, but the Army Corps recently indicated it is considering an extension on that timeline following requests from the tribes.

Justin Kringstad, director of the North Dakota Pipeline Authority, said Bakken oil producers are already using a portion of the incremental capacity increase in Dakota Access, adding new pipeline space will likely prompt some shift from rail transport to the pipeline. The vast majority of North Dakota's oil is carried to market by pipeline, but Kringstad said trains transport around 200,000 barrels per day.

Dakota Access carries oil from northwestern North Dakota to Illinois, and the pipeline cleared its last regulatory hurdle for the expansion project after receiving a greenlight from Illinois regulators last fall. The company said it expects the full expansion to be complete by the end of this year.

Readers can reach reporter Adam Willis, a Report for America corps member, at awillsi@forumcomm.com.

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Minnesota universities mandate masks, North Dakota officials undecided

Jeremy Turley — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 13:36:28 GMT

BISMARCK — Several universities in Minnesota will begin requiring masks on campus to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, but North Dakota higher education officials haven't yet decided on the issue.

The University of Minnesota announced Monday, Aug. 2, it will require all students, staff and visitors to wear masks indoors at its five campuses starting Tuesday. The Minnesota State public college system said last week face coverings will be required at campuses located in counties with higher levels of COVID-19 transmission, though many of the system's 37 campuses lie in areas with low rates of spread.

The North Dakota State Board of Higher Education could issue a mask requirement for North Dakota’s 11 public colleges and universities, however the board left decisions on masks last year to officials at each institution, and a localized approach is the most likely outcome this time around, university system spokeswoman Billie Jo Lorius said.

A panel of North Dakota college presidents and health experts has recently formed to determine how to safely start the semester later this month, but officials are waiting to see how the highly infectious delta variant of COVID-19 will affect the state, Lorius noted.

Recommendations from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention call for indoor mask-wearing in the Twin Cities, Fargo, Bismarck, Minot and much of western North Dakota due to "high" or "substantial" levels of COVID-19 transmission.

The rapid spread of the delta variant in recent weeks has prompted local and state officials to readdress the contentious issue of mask mandates. As of Monday, nearly 60% of the nation's counties are deemed to have "high" levels of viral transmission, according to the CDC.

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