Alice Waterfowl Production Area,
North Dakota
Rails to trails to accessible hunting and wildlife viewing
Tucked in southeastern North Dakota, about 40 miles from Fargo, Lake Alice sits amidst some of the world’s most productive agricultural land.
Yet Lake Alice harbors something else — a special place teeming with wildlife. It’s the keystone of the 2,343-acre US Fish and Wildlife Service Alice Waterfowl Production Area.
Snow geese, Canada geese, and a myriad of ducks pile en masse during spring and fall migrations. Pheasants and white-tailed deer thrive there.
A haven for resident wildlife and migratory waterfowl and neotropical birds, Alice WPA is a place to watch the world come to life on a crisp autumn morning duck hunt. More than one-half of the WPA consists of wetlands, large and small, surrounded by grasslands.
It’s a place where wetland and grassland birds of all sizes and hues serenade harmonious praises for those willing to patiently wait, listen and embrace the expansive horizon.
However, Alice WPA wasn’t, until recently, a place where the non-ambulatory public could enjoy all the sights and sounds the area had to offer.
The Cass County Wildlife Club wanted to change that.
The club has harbored a sweet spot in its heart for the WPA for years. They worked with the Fish and Wildlife Service through its Adopt-a-Waterfowl Production Area program on a variety of projects, including wildlife food plots.
The WPA is also unique because a straight-as-an-arrow railroad bed slices right through its namesake, Lake Alice. The railroad, to no avail, tried to sell the grade after closing the line and pulling the track.
It seems there isn’t much demand for an old railroad bed surrounded by water and land owned by someone else. The grade didn’t have any takers but it did present opportunity, a chance for hunters and wildlife watchers to access the lake’s midsection.
However, the grade wasn’t smooth enough for wheelchair access.
Former Fish and Wildlife Service Valley City (N.D.) Wetland Management District Manager Harris Hoistad, outreach coordinator Lynda Knutsen, and others contemplated what other uses an old railroad bed could offer. They liked the idea of a trail accessible to people with disabilities. So did the Cass County Wildlife Club.
It took five years of talking, planning, designing and fundraising but by 2006, their vision began to take shape.
Club members Jim Schmitt and Bill Radermacher, Casselton, N.D., designed and constructed wildlife viewing and hunting blinds based on Americans with Disabilities Act specifications. The club submitted grant requests, sought local and regional donations, and sorted through government bureaucracy until the dream was realized — two parking lots, one on each end of a 5,800-linear-foot walking path, resting benches, informational signs, and observation and hunting blinds — were in place.
The trail received national recognition in 2008, when it earned National Recreation Trail Designation as a “Wetland and Waterfowl Trail.” Established through the 1968 National Trail System Act, the program authorizes a national system of national, scenic and historic trails.
No matter what it’s called, Alice WPA is where hunters and wildlife enthusiasts — able-bodied and disabled alike — can enjoy a day outdoors. — Patricia Stockdill