North Dakota might be the country’s most underrated summer state, and that is exactly the point. While the crowds pile into busier places, its towns stay quiet under wide prairie skies. You can boat and fish and catch outdoor theater without ever fighting for a parking spot. Some towns sit in the Badlands, others along the Missouri River or up near the Canadian border. These eight prove a crowd-free summer is still easy to find.

Medora

Medora has fewer than 200 full-time residents and still feels like the liveliest stop for miles. The Marquis de Mores, a French nobleman, founded the town in 1883 and left behind buildings you can still walk through, while his wife funded St. Mary’s Catholic Church, the oldest Catholic church still in use in the state. The big summer event is the Medora Musical, entering its 61st season this June at the open-air Burning Hills Amphitheater, with live music and history nightly except Mondays. Right next door, Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s South Unit reopened its full 36-mile Scenic Loop Drive in late 2025 after a six-year closure, so the bison, wild horses, and painted buttes of the Badlands are all back in reach. Golfers can take on Bully Pulpit, named USA Today’s number-one public course in 2025, where the back nine climbs straight into the buttes. And come July 4, 2026, Medora gains the brand-new Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, a 100,000-square-foot attraction minutes from the park.

Valley City

Valley City calls itself the City of Bridges, and the drive in on the Sheyenne River Valley National Scenic Byway shows you why, rolling past wooded river bends and historic spans. Most road-trippers blow right by it on I-94 between Fargo and Jamestown, which is their loss. The Hi-Line Railroad Bridge runs nearly 3,900 feet long and sits about 162 feet above the river, ranking among the longest and highest single-track rail bridges in the country. In summer, Lake Ashtabula is the place to fish, boat, ski, or swim, while downtown hosts Summer Nights on Central every second Thursday from June through September. Just outside town, the 213-foot Medicine Wheel at Medicine Wheel Park lines up with the solstices, a quietly remarkable thing to find on the prairie.

Dunseith

Dunseith sits right on the Canadian border, where Turtle Mountain’s wooded slopes meet a string of quiet lakes. Its claim to fame is the International Peace Garden, a 3.65-square-mile spread straddling the US and Canada where you can wander flower beds and cross between two countries almost without noticing. Summer is the sweet spot to visit, since the grounds stay uncrowded outside the early-July national holidays, and the garden rents kayaks by the half-day. Lake Storman anchors the recreation here, and just up the road stands the W’eel Turtle, a sculpture built from more than 2,000 painted wheels. Cap the day with prime rib at Dale’s Cafe, then mark your calendar, because the first International Indigenous Peace Powwow lands here in early July 2026.

Mandan

Most people treat Mandan as the road to Bismarck, which keeps Fort Abraham Lincoln and the Missouri River bottomlands refreshingly quiet all summer. Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park is the oldest state park in North Dakota, complete with a reconstructed military fort, and it is where George Custer rode out on his doomed 1876 march to the Little Bighorn. The Mandan Rodeo, one of the world’s oldest continuously running rodeos, fills early July with denim, boots, and wide-brimmed hats, a tradition that predates North Dakota’s statehood by about a decade. If the kids need a break from history, the Raging Rivers Waterpark has tube slides, speed slides, and a lazy river to burn off the afternoon.

Garrison

Garrison bills itself as the Walleye Capital of the World, and the title is earned out on Lake Sakakawea, the reservoir the Garrison Dam created on the Missouri River back in 1953. Anglers in the know come for some of the best walleye water in the upper Midwest, while everyone else drives past toward flashier spots. Fort Stevenson State Park spreads over 500-plus acres of camping, biking, hiking, and boating under wooded bluffs, on the site of a frontier outpost now partly beneath the lake. Grab a shake at the Four Seasons Restaurant and Ice Cream Parlor, then poke around the North Dakota Firefighters Museum to see antique trucks and old firefighting gear.

Jamestown

Fargo, 100 miles east, hogs the eastern North Dakota spotlight, but Jamestown quietly offers just as much history and a lot more roadside character. Out front of the North American Bison Discovery Center stands the World’s Largest Buffalo, a 26-foot, 60-ton concrete bull built in 1959 by sculptor Elmer Petersen. Inside, exhibits trace the bison’s history and survival, and a live buffalo herd grazes nearby. For open-air time, Jamestown Reservoir and Pipestem Dam offer swimming, fishing, boating, and miles of trails. Jamestown is also the birthplace of Louis L’Amour, the best-selling Western novelist, and you can trace his early life on the self-guided Trail of Louis L’Amour, centered on a kiosk at the Alfred Dickey Public Library.

Walhalla

In the state’s far northeastern corner near the Canadian border, Walhalla flies under almost everyone’s radar. The Pembina Gorge nearby holds one of the largest unbroken blocks of forest in North Dakota, and this summer it gets a major upgrade, as Pembina Gorge State Park opens in June 2026 as the state’s 14th state park and its first new one since 1989. The Pembina River threads the gorge for seasonal kayaking, and Frost Fire Summer Theatre stages Broadway-style musicals on an outdoor stage right above it through July. History buffs should not skip the Gingras Trading Post State Historic Site, where fur trader Antoine Blanc Gingras built a hand-hewn log store and home that rank among the oldest buildings still standing in the state.

Washburn

Forty miles north of Bismarck, where most day-trippers turn around, Washburn keeps one of the richest Lewis and Clark stories almost to itself. The Lewis and Clark Interpretive Center walks you through the brutal winter of 1804 and 1805, and just west, Fort Mandan State Historic Site holds a full-size replica of the fort where the expedition waited it out. Nearby, Cross Ranch State Park runs wild along the Missouri River, with prairie-and-cottonwood trails for hiking, fishing, and paddling under the watch of bald eagles. When lunchtime hits, the Cabin Bar and Grill turns out one of the best burgers in the region.

Summer In North Dakota

North Dakota is one of America’s best-kept summer secrets, not just a box to tick on the way to visiting all fifty states. Between the Badlands, the Missouri River, and a string of welcoming towns, you get real outdoor adventure without the crowds that turn a trip into a chore.

GRAND FORKS — A Saturday event in Grand Forks marking World Refugee Day will not feature any refugees due to safety concerns.

The program, at 10 a.m. Saturday, June 13, at the farmers’ market, will not include the annual youth performance amid concerns that gathering refugees in one place may allow them to be targeted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, according to Cynthia Shabb, executive director of the Global Friends Coalition organization.  

The United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees has established the theme “Until Everyone Is Safe” for 2026, Shabb said. “This is an appropriate theme given what has been happening here and around the world.”

World Refugee Day is an internationally recognized day designated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, she said.

“This is a frightening climate for many, and for those of us born in the U.S., it is frustrating that something done each year in our beautiful city has had to be approached with a level of concern we have not felt before,” Shabb said.

As members of the Global Friends Coalition weighed whether to organize a program with refugees on stage, “we had to consider the risks our youth and families might face,” she said. “We were concerned that convening refugees in one spot may allow them to be targeted by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,” she said. The farmers’ market “has always been a welcoming place. However, when immigrants talk about their fears, when teachers express concern about safety and whether we would be setting children and families up for being held by ICE, we have to listen.

“Because of this, there will be no public refugee youth performance this year, as we have always done previously,” Shabb said. “Instead we will share the artwork of area students who came as refugees so that Grand Forks can hopefully better understand the lives and perspectives of those who have been through enough struggles already.”

The program will feature two U.S.-born high school students, members of the Summer Performing Arts Company, and elementary students will read six-word memoirs written by students who are refugees. Altogether, 14 memoirs will be read, each accompanied by a piece of artwork by the memoir writer.

All the memoirs have been written focusing on the theme “Until Everyone Is Safe,” Shabb said.

It will also feature U.S.-born individuals, including Tricia Berg, a Grand Forks City Council member, and others who will speak on behalf of refugees and immigrants, Shabb said.

“In my 16 years of putting this (program) on stage for World Refugee Day, I have never had to be this cautious,” Shabb said of the decision not to feature, on stage, the talents of refugees and immigrants who live in Greater Grand Forks.

BLACKFOOT — A North Dakota man has been charged with trafficking fentanyl, methamphetamine, cocaine and marijuana across east Idaho.

Jamie Edmond Jones, 40, of Fargo, North Dakota, is charged with multiple felonies for trafficking methamphetamine, cocaine, fentanyl and marijuana; as well as a felony for attempting to elude an officer in a motor vehicle.

EastIdahoNews.com has reached out to Jones’ attorney, Andrew Hart, for comment but did not hear back by the time of publication. If we receive a response, we will update this article.

According to a report from an Idaho State Police corporal, on May 18, around 11:30 p.m., the corporal was on patrol on Interstate 86 near exit 61 in Bannock County, when they saw a sedan approaching eastbound.

When it approached the patrol car, the sedan reportedly “rode the brakes” until it passed the corporal. The corporal says the driver was then “likely pushed back behind the B Pillar.”

The sedan was reportedly traveling 80 mph and slowed to 65 mph in the 65 mph zone. The corporal wrote that “based upon my previous training dedicated to detecting criminal activity in drug and other criminal behaviors, I pulled out to get a closer look at the vehicle due to it riding the brakes as it passed me and how I perceived the driver being pushed back.”

The sedan signaled to turn north onto Interstate 15 from I-86, then took the ramp, eventually changing lanes to the far left, then back to the northbound lane, this time without signaling.

The corporal initiated a traffic stop for the violation, but the sedan “continued slowly” even though the corporal says it could see the patrol car due to its “extremely bright lights.”

According to court records, the sedan’s license plate was registered out of California and later found to be a rental car. The sedan continued driving the speed limit down I-15, and the corporal reportedly thought the driver wasn’t aware he was being pulled over.

“Based upon I-15 being a main corridor to Yellowstone National Park, and encountering individuals from different cultures all around the world where responses to overhead lights and sirens vary, I believed I may be encountering a cultural issue,” the corporal wrote in the report.

Eventually, the sedan reportedly almost hit a motorcycle in the right lane near mile marker 79, and the driver had a “delayed reaction and abrupt lane change.” The documents say the sedan then sped up to 83 mph as it entered Bingham County, and another patrol car joined the pursuit.

When the first patrol car pulled up beside the sedan, the corporal said he saw a “taller black male with dreadlocks” in the driver’s seat. According to his report, the driver could “tell I was there, although did not pull over” and sped up to 90 mph.

The sedan pulled off the highway on exit 89 and got stuck behind a semitruck, then “accelerated abruptly around the semi truck passing on the right shoulder in an aggressive manner, where it struck a construction sign.”

The sedan kept going, the corporal said, passing another semitruck and coming close to a flagging crew before running multiple stop signs and turning south back toward Fort Hall.

Fort Hall police responded to the area and deployed spike strips that the car eventually ran over. One mile south of Broncho Road, the corporal said the sedan pulled over on the right shoulder.

The report says that the driver stuck his hands out the window while the deputies, troopers, and officers held him at gunpoint. The driver was detained and eventually identified as Jones.

While looking in the car and trunk to make sure there were no other passengers, the corporal reportedly found a “large vacuum-sealed package of marijuana sitting in plain view” in an open suitcase.

The corporal approached Jones, who was reportedly “somewhat aggressive and refused to state where he was coming from.” Jones reportedly told the officers they were being racist and racially profiling him, and refused to answer any questions.

Officers performed a pat-down of Jones, during which they said they found a large amount of cash. They then continued searching the sedan and reportedly found a tool kit and a black backpack.

In the backpack, the corporal says they found “large quantities of illegal drugs,” including two vacuum-sealed items containing methamphetamine, multiple large white bricks of either cocaine or fentanyl powder, and another small marijuana dispensary bag containing marijuana.

Also inside the car, troopers reportedly found a plane ticket from St. Paul, Minnesota, to San Francisco, a baggage ticket from the same flight, a rental car agreement to Jones showing the car had been rented in San Francisco, a bank receipt showing a $14,000 withdrawal from a bank in California, and two phones.

According to court records, troopers say Jones had “previous drug trafficking charges on his extensive criminal history.”

In total, troopers say they found 944.2 gross grams of methamphetamine, 1074.1 gross grams of cocaine, 252.8 gross grams of marijuana, and 532.5 gross grams of fentanyl.

Jones was then arrested and booked into the Bingham County Jail on a $150,000 bond. Jones paid bail and was released on Saturday.

He is expected to appear for a preliminary hearing on June 25. If convicted, he could face up to life in prison.

Though Jones has been charged with these crimes, it does not necessarily mean he committed them. Everyone is presumed innocent until they are proven guilty.