I’m particularly proud of this feature about Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota: nine colorful pages plus jump copy. For one, the assignment was initiated by the late Keith Bellows, one of the finest print editors ever, as the magazine’s homage to the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service.

It also gave me the chance to commune with one of my conservationist heroes, Theodore Roosevelt, in a setting that was deeply meaningful to him.

This article won the Gold Award from the Society of American Travel Writers Western Chapter for Best Article on US Travel.

Excerpt:

I OWN a prairie dog colony in North Dakota. Not that its residents are impressed with me at the moment. The trail I’m walking bisects their turf, and they’ve come out in force to scold me for the intrusion. My prairie dog town is in the 70,000-acre Theodore Roosevelt National Park, which is mine too, as are the granite walls of El Capitan in California’s Yosemite National Park, the lakes of Michigan’s Isle Royale National Park, and the stalactites and stalagmites of Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave National Park. Simply by being an American, I hold collective title to these and other profoundly beautiful places—an inventory that is the envy of the world—thanks to the establishment of the National Park Service a century ago.

Just beyond my prairie dog colony, a movement, something large, catches my eye. Bison? Bighorn sheep? I veer off-trail and spot four mustangs grazing near a copse of junipers. As I edge toward them, they warily edge away. Then one prances and the others follow, inscribing an arc around me.

Then it strikes me: What could be more fun, more free, than to be a mustang with thousands of acres of grassland to roam?

READ THE ARTICLE (PDF Download)