Culture

The humanities aren’t political — they’re personal

April 17th, 2025

By Prairie Rose Seminole

ms.prairierose@gmail.com

I was a child who walked behind my parents into classrooms and kitchens, spaces of song and prayer, where teachings lived in the air and settled on my shoulders. I didn’t yet have the words to name what I was learning, but I felt the weight of history in story, the pull of a sense of place in land, the breath of language in prayer, the shape of theology in the way we loved one another.

Faith, culture and community became my earliest…

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A letter to Leonard Peltier

April 16th, 2025

By Winona LaDuke

winona@winonaladuke.com

You sent me a postcard in 1984. It’s a picture of myself, author Peter Matthiessen and a few more of us in Fargo, right after your Bismarck evidentiary hearing in October. We had scraped together money and purchased a billboard downtown Fargo that said “Free Peltier.” We were proud of ourselves that day. That’s in the photo’s background.

You wrote a sweet note to me, the return: #89637-132, from Marion Federal Penitentiary. I’d gone…

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Long live cowgirls: HPR chats with Stellar Trick Riding Cowgirls

March 15th, 2025

By Sabrina Hornung

sabrina@hpr1.com

Rodeo is a family tradition for sisters Kate and Tera Flitton. The duo performs under the moniker Stellar Trick Riding Cowgirls. The Utah natives will be performing along with bareback riders, steer wrestlers, barrel racers and more at the Fargo PRCA Rodeo at the Fargodome on March 28-29.

Kate, who is 18 years old, has been trick riding for 11 years. Tera, age 13, has been trick riding for five years. Kate fell in love with the sport after seeing a…

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​Non-profit spotlight

January 15th, 2025

By HPR Staff

We’re all a part of building strong, healthy and inclusive communities. But the region’s non-profit organizations do a lot of the heavy lifting. Now it’s time for these organizations to step into the spotlight.

We asked several North Dakota and Minnesota nonprofit organizations to share three easy ways our readers can help them reach their goals in 2025. From Fargo-Moorhead to Grand Forks, Valley City to Bismarck, these groups showcase great art, local agriculture and…

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​The onion calendar: A folk forecasting tradition

December 26th, 2024

By Sabrina Hornung

sabrina@hpr1.com

The onion calendar is an old German folk tradition used to predict levels of moisture each month throughout the coming year using salt, a knife, an onion and a little bit of patience. Donna and Delbert Eszlinger of Ashley, North Dakota, honor this tradition each New Year’s Eve. They along, with a number of other locals, swear by it.

“It’s a German tradition that's been carried on from grandparents and great grandparents,” Donna Eszlinger said…

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​Holiday spiders goats and pigs:

December 19th, 2024

SHSND delves into their ornament collection

By Jenny Yearous

history@nd.gov

In 2017 we received Christmas ornaments from the North Dakota Former Governors’ Residence. The ornaments were gifts from local chapters of the Germans from Russia Heritage Society of North DakotaThree Crowns Swedish American AssociationSons of Norway and the Ukrainian Cultural Institute. Starting in 1985, different ethnic-themed Christmas trees were decorated at the residence as each year another group…

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​Yuletide memories from days of yore

December 19th, 2024

By Michael M. Miller

michael.miller@ndsu.edu

As the holiday season approaches, I wish to extend Yuletide best wishes and a special “Weihnachten” greeting to you and your family. I would like to share with you some Christmas memories from our Germans from Russia community. Please email or send me your Christmas memories.

A Christmas tradition in many Germans from Russia homes was halvah. This Turkish confection is made of pressed sesame seeds and honey. Curt Renz recalls his father…

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​What is it about serial killers?

December 18th, 2024

An exclusive Q&A with Dr. Scott Bonn

By Sabrina Hornung

sabrina@hpr1.com

Dr. Scott Bonn is a renowned criminologist and serial killer expert. He is a professor, a best-selling author and he also travels the country discussing America's fascination with serial killers and true crime. In January, he’s bringing his 90-minute show to Fargo and Bismarck followed by a Q&A session, so get your questions ready.

During High Plains Reader’s exclusive Q&A opportunity, Dr. Bonn revealed a number…

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Whitestone Hill: Making it Right

November 23rd, 2024

By Winona LaDuke

winona@winonaladuke.com

There’s not really a word for reconciliation, it's said in our language. There’s a word for making it right. To talk about reconciliation in terms of the relationship between Indigenous people and North Dakota, South Dakota or Minnesota, would assume that there was a good relationship to begin with. That’s a stretch.

There is a word for making it right: gwayakochigemin. That’s what we must try and do. Gwayakizhichigemin: making it right.

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​Folklore Haunting the Former Governor’s Mansion

October 17th, 2024

By Johnathan Campbell 

history@nd.gov

Since Halloween is just around the corner, I thought I’d share three mysterious — and mildly creepy folktales — that have been shared about the Former Governors' Mansion State Historic Site, which housed 20 chief executives between 1893 and 1960. Folktales are one of those things that both confound and delight historic house interpreters when their visitors engage them with a statement or question that they believe with all their heart to be…

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