Devils Lake, North Dakota.

As a volunteer for Civil Air Patrol, I found myself at a week-long activity in Devils Lake, North Dakota. During my “tour of duty”, I was given one morning off assignment and I went looking for something to photograph. It was an opportunity to travel to the south shore of North Dakota’s largest natural lake.

In planning for my trip, knowing I’d have some time off to explore, I reviewed online maps and aviation charts to see what I might find interesting. On the aviation chart for the area, I saw a reference to Sullys Hill National Wildlife Refuge. Though that name is still printed on charts, it has been changed. That story of the name change and the original naming for General Alfred Sully, a veteran of the Civil War and the Indian Wars, was told on my blog here. Given the history, that name change was long overdue.

White Horse Hill is a great place to photographically capture bison, elk, prairie dogs, and many varieties of birds native to the area. Viewing platforms provide safe and secure viewing areas for visitors to the park.

One of those viewing platforms can be found at the top of White Horse Hill, the highest point in the park, originally named a National Park by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1904. To see that viewing area, though, you’re going to have to work for it. There are about 100 steps to the top, and it’s a steep climb. You’ll note there are four rest stops on the climb. I found that I needed two of them to take a break and catch my breath. Visit my Flickr site to see a selfie captured from the top of White Horse Hill.

The views from the top provide a 360-degree panorama of the park, now part of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, it went from being a National Park to a Big Game Preserve in 1914, then to a National Game Preserve in 1931. From that hilltop, you can see much of the park’s 1,674 acres. If you look closely and “pixel peep” at the image above on my Flickr site (click on the image to do so), you’ll see the town of Fort Totten where you can visit one of the most complete original forts, and even spend the night in a hotel that was once part of the fort.

Featured in a Cellpic Sunday a few months back, I built this panoramic image from two cell phone images. From this vantage point on the south shore of Devils Lake, you can barely see the outlines of buildings in the city of Devils Lake on the north shore of the lake.

On the day of my visit, I didn’t see any elk, but I was treated to a herd of bison grazing near a wetland just south of the lake. The park features a 4-mile (6.5 km) auto tour, as well as many hiking trails. Bring your camera with a long lens to capture some of the 250 species of birds captured in the park. I had my Sony camera with me, but the birds kept well out of reach of the shallow zoom on my Sony. My Nikon with the 300 mm lens was tucked away at home since I was traveling light for the activity that would take most of my time.

I arrived at the park before 8 AM only to find that they don’t open the gates until 8 AM, so I drove through Fort Totten until the main gate to the preserve was open. Along the auto tour route, I spotted these early risers in the prairie dog community that parallels the roadway.

The visitor center looks to be a very nice facility, however, it was closed due to the pandemic. I’ll have to save it for my next trip to the area. I took several more images that I captured in 2K HD and put them on my Flickr site for you to view. You can see (and scroll through) the entire album here.

John Steiner

Devils Lake, North Dakota.

Over the years, my membership in Civil Air Patrol has given me the opportunity to assist in our nation’s air defenses. Almost always, our smaller aircraft are used as “targets” to help our nation’s National Guard or the United States Air Force in joint training missions.

One of the more interesting missions concluded last month in Devils Lake, North Dakota. For this exercise, we had the entire fleet of North Dakota Wing’s red, white, and blue Cessna aircraft at our disposal as necessary. We assisted in the training of the 1-188^th Air Defense Artillery Regiment as they learned to operate upgraded equipment. From their Facebook page: Soldiers with the 1-188th Air Defense Artillery Regiment’s Minimum Deployment Package (MDP) conduct Sentinel radar familiarization and emplacement May 17, 2021, during the battalion’s annual training at the Camp Grafton Training Center near Devils Lake, North Dakota. For their upcoming deployment, the MDP will provide early-warning ground-based aerial surveillance in the National Capital Region (NCR).

My main duty assignment was as one of the three Incident Commanders for the 25 Civil Air Patrol volunteers who spent at least part of their week supporting the mission. On the day prior to exercise start, I captured an image of the other two Incident Commanders (IC) and two of the three Communications Unit Leaders (CUL) who were on duty for the week. From left to right, Ken (IC), Rob (ND Guard Air Boss for the exercise), Walt, (IC), Dean, and Rusty (CULs).

Our usual routine involved multiple aircraft flying at multiple altitudes with a goal of arriving at a specific point within seconds of each other. Our pilots and navigators in the two-person air crews did an excellent job of matching their ground speeds as they approached from different directions starting as far as 30 miles (48 km) out. The photo above captured two aircraft that would be crossing the same point over the ground within seconds of each other.

We started with two aircraft as the guard calibrated their systems, then progressed to three. Our last day was to have included four aircraft with simultaneous arrivals, however the weather “went south” on us so the last day of the exercise was scrubbed.

North Dakota Wing flight crews flew over 135 hours over the seven mission days and two aircraft relocation days. In the image above, James and Kai are tying down one of our Cessna 182s after completing an exercise sortie.

There was no way I was not going to get the opportunity to be airborne on at least one of the sorties. On one of my “days off” as Incident Commander, I volunteered to fill in as navigator on one of the evening flights. During the sortie on our several inbound trips to the target, I was quite busy reporting position and ground speed while coordinating with the other aircraft as each pilot adjusted air speed to meet our target arrival requirements. Of course, on our way outbound to make another run, I had a few minutes to capture the view of the approaching sunset over Devils Lake.

By the time we finished with another inbound leg, it was already dusk, that after-dusk glow lighting up the western sky in gold.

At the conclusion of our flight, our aircraft happened to be closer to the airport than our teammates in the other plane. I was able to capture an image of them being marshaled to their tiedown by Mike, one of our ground team leaders.

On the last full day of our mission, I had the honor of accepting a letter of thanks addressed to the North Dakota Civil Air Patrol Wing Commander from Major General Timothy J. Sheriff, Commanding General of the 263d Army Air Missile Defense Command at Anderson, South Carolina. From left to right, CSM Davin Powell, SCARNG; Col john Steiner, CAP; Maj Gen Sheriff, SCARNG; Lt Col Dean Reiter, CAP; 2^nd Lt Joseph Aho, CAP.

Exercise America’s Shield is one of the more interesting joint training assignments I have been involved with in CAP. For a closer look at the gallery of images, click the Flickr image below to enlarge the images and to scroll through the album.

John Steiner