Theodore Roosevelt's North Dakota

South of Williston, in the Little Missouri Badlands, Theodore Roosevelt came in eighteen eighty-three to hunt bison and ended up ranching for three years. He arrived as a twenty-four-year-old New York assemblyman; he left with a different understanding of land, wilderness, and himself. His ranches, the Maltese Cross and the Elkhorn, are preserved today as Theodore Roosevelt National Park.

Roosevelt later said that the person he became in the Badlands, the conservationist and president, would never have existed without the North Dakota years. The national park named for him sees far fewer visitors than the big-name parks, which means you can often have it nearly to yourself.