(upbeat guitar music) - Hello and welcome to Prairie Pulse.

You know, coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll see some fascinating artifacts from the Becker County Museum in Detroit Lakes.

But first, joining me now is the Director of Tourism of North Dakota, Sara Otte Coleman.

Sara, thanks so much for joining us today.

- Yeah, great to be back.

New studio, this is awesome!

- We are.

So as we get started, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and your background.

- So I've been a North Dakota lover my whole life, and a promoter for a long time, you know, going on over 30 years.

So I've been with the state as the state Tourism Director for 19 years, marketing the state, and prior to that, for 15 years I was marketing the Bismarck-Mandan area.

So definitely love telling the stories of North Dakota and showcasing all that we have to see.

You know, breaking down those images or those misperceptions that people have.

We farm and ranch just north of Bismarck as well, so we're pretty busy.

- Well, I guess so!

So let's talk a little bit about, well, I don't wanna say last summer.

I mean, you know obviously this summer I think will be way better, but can you talk about how tourism was for the COVID year of 2020?

- Yeah, obviously the travel and tourism sector was dramatically impacted by COVID.

We lost about, we were down a little over 20% in visitation, but almost 30% in visitor spending.

So what that meant is that some people were still moving around, but they maybe weren't going to places, right?

They were just enjoying the outdoors, or doing some of those activities.

So what that meant for the state was a loss of about a billion dollars.

So normally we have over $3 billion, and we were just over $2 billion in visitor spending this past year.

You know, obviously the hospitality sector was impacted as well as, you know, just a ton of pillar businesses that rely on visitors to support and sustain them throughout the year.

- Well, you know, you've quantified it there some, but how do you really quantify a year like 2020?

And compared to other years, do you just put an asterisk by 2020?

- I think it is going to be an anomaly.

You know, we, we will look back at the 2019 numbers and compare from there.

But you know, they're saying that leisure travel, you know, it's going to take a year or so for leisure travel to completely return, and business travel and international travel, it's going to take even longer.

You know, business travel meetings and conventions are saying definitely not till 2025.

So there might be a few asterisks.

- Wow, 2025, boy, that's... What was your life during the COVID year?

How did you do your job?

- You know, we went home, we all worked from home.

We kinda got the call and mobilized pretty quickly.

We were lucky that we had the technology support that we needed and the team adjusted really quickly to a lot of Teams and Zoom meetings.

And we figured out ways to connect and whatnot.

So I would say overall, our efficiency improved.

We became very, very efficient.

You sometimes lose the energy in the collaboration, especially when you're in the business that we are in that involves, you know, some content creation and some creative activities.

And we didn't obviously get to go out to the sites as much and and engage with the partners in person.

More of that was online.

But we hosted, we started weekly hosting a tourism chat with our industry partners, and we still do that monthly now.

So there are some things that we started doing during the pandemic that people love that will continue.

- Yeah, I was going to say, I think we were asked that question in a Zoom meeting, recently is, what did you discover, and what did you not do, and what will you continue to do thanks to COVID?

But I assume you're heartened, feel good about the CDC guidelines that have been coming out recently and the way things are moving, at least for this point.

So, you know, what are you looking at this summer in North Dakota?

- Yeah, we're really encouraged, you know, the emergency proclamation was done the end of April.

So all the ND Smart Guidance kind of went back or went away.

And so we definitely feel more comfortable inviting people to the state, the way things have been going.

So, yeah, we're super excited.

We think, we know, this is going to be the year of the road trip.

Nationwide, you're going to see a lot of people hit the road because they feel safer, and they can control their environment a little bit more for the first, you know, for the first year.

So we've really retooled a lot of our resources to gear to making it easy for people to plan itineraries and trips to North Dakota.

We have a new road trip guide that's out.

We cooperated with North Dakota Department of Transportation for a new map that's got itineraries and a stylized map on the back of the map that shows some of those routes.

Our trip ideas on NDTourism.com have been improved.

You can search by route or interest area.

And so, we really think we're poised well here in North Dakota.

We have what people want.

You know, they want national parks, scenic drives, historic attractions, those are what people are really looking for this year, and we've got the product to offer them.

- Well, you're not talking before we came on air.

You know, some people bought or rented campers last year for the summer, and probably doing some of that this year, so are you seeing more of that?

- Definitely.

North Dakota state parks had a record year for camping nights sold last year.

The reservations are really strong for this year as well.

So if you want to go camping, I recommend you get that reservation in early.

Of course, we've got other, you know, beyond the state parks, we've got great local campgrounds, and great ones that are run by federal entities as well, especially around Lake Sakakawea and the Missouri River system.

But there was a ton of recreational equipment sold last year, and whether it was campers or, you know, pontoons or paddleboards or mountain bikes, people are gonna want to use those this year.

They didn't buy them, you know, to not use them.

So we think that we're going to see a lot of that kind of outdoor activity continue.

- Yeah, you're right, bicycles were a premium last year.

You couldn't find them!

What about advanced motel bookings, how does that look right now?

- You know, really good.

In fact, Fargo, I think it was last month, bookings, actually, that was airlines.

But airline bookings, Fargo was the most searched site on Expedia for July.

You know, and part of that's because of some activities and events happening again this year in Fargo, but bookings are looking good.

Activity on the website in general, on our website and on all the sites that we monitor has been really strong.

Of course we were up last year during the pandemic, and we're up like another 50% to 80% on top of last year's increased numbers, so things are looking good.

- Well, do you believe people will want to be outside more, and do the traffic destinations?

That's kind of what you're saying.

But is it going to be because of COVID, or just it's easier to do, or what?

- I think a combination.

You know, the pandemic is going to change people's patterns and consumer behavior for a number of years, especially those folks who were in urban areas where they were really locked down.

You know, to them, Fargo's rural, right?

And so, they're excited just to get to a place that's a little bit more open, still has some amenities and the activities and recreation and entertainment they want, but in a less crowded environment.

When you looked last year, over 90% of the searches were for rural destinations.

So people weren't looking for the major metropolitan cities, and of course, some of that will come back as people, you know, as things open up.

But we think, you know, we're just a little bit more interesting to people now than we've ever been.

And we certainly fit into that rural, outdoor, small community, safe community type of activities people are looking for.

- Yeah, I agree with you.

I think, in talking with my mother, even talking about metropolitan areas are different than rural areas.

You know, did your department, did y'all receive any CARES or stabilization money that that was given out the past year?

- We did, the Department of Commerce actually received significant funds that we used for our Economic Resiliency Grants.

So we did the first round of ERG, which was specifically to help improve safety and help get consumer confidence back, to get them back to the marketplace.

And then we did specific programs for hospitality.

The first one was kind of venue-based and focusing on restaurants and venues.

And then the second one was lodging-based.

So those were really popular.

We ended up doing two rounds of the hospitality ones.

And then recently, we've just announced two other grants for travel agents and tour operators, because they got missed earlier.

And then some of the support businesses that support the venues and meetings and events kind of got missed in the other grants.

Additionally, our budget we got some additional dollars this year to do some marketing with some CARES Act dollars this year, so we'll be marketing the state with some additional dollars as well.

- Okay, well, what about just the state legislative session that recently adjourned?

How did you fare during that?

- That we actually, we had about a $7 million increase, which is huge for us, but that they did end up shifting that over to CARES Act dollars, so it limited us a little bit in that those have to be spent this year to market.

But we're still excited about the opportunity, and excited to have more resources to showcase and tell the North Dakota story.

- Well, you talked about your background and history with North Dakota.

What are some of your favorite spots in North Dakota?

- Oh, you know, love all corners of the state.

Lake Sakakawea, of course is close to where I live, you know, north of Bismarck.

And so we do love to boat up at Lake Sakakawea.

The lake is so pretty, you know, up in the New Town area, and in the western part.

It's very different from the eastern part of that lake, too.

So that's one of my favorite spots.

We also just, that whole New Town area, we just were up for the dedication of the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Interpretive Center up there, and the activities that they've added on the lake are really impressive and exciting, too.

Of course, the southwest, you know, I love to hike and be outdoors, and so there's so many different hiking trails and places to discover up there.

And then we've really been working kind of in the central part of the state to develop more agritourism offerings.

And so this summer I plan to get out and try to talk to small farms, large farms, producers, you know, you-picks, wineries, all of those, because again, that's what people love.

They love the really unique things, and when they come to a state like North Dakota, you know, they kind of expect that agricultural experience.

- Well, you may have already hit on some of these, but what are the hidden gems out there in North Dakota for people, just waiting for people to discover?

- Yeah, there, you know, the one I think that's really surprising to a lot of people is Fort Ransom and the National Scenic Byway.

That is just a beautiful drive, you know?

Pretty close, it's people don't expect it that soon.

You know, they expect it, the train to start rolling a little bit further west, but that's a great hidden gem.

They do, they've got the first, you know, the only waterfall, official waterfall in the state, you can hike into and discover in that area.

And then there's, you know, there's just hidden gems just everywhere.

But I also love, there's a resort up on the north shore of Lake Sakakawea up by Williston, and the Williston area called Lunds Landing.

And you can rent there, they've got really quaint little cabins, the best juneberry pie in the state, but that's also one of my favorite, kind of in the opposite corners.

- Yeah, well, you mentioned a lot about lakes, but, you know, talk about the recreational and lake activities in the state, because in this region, you always think about Minnesota with lake country.

But there's a lot of lake and water activity in North Dakota also.

- There is, and it's fun to do different, right?

I mean, our lakes, you know, Metigoshe is very similar to Minnesota lakes, but most of our other lakes are not.

You know, when you've got the, you go to Government Bay, and you've got the cliffs, and you've got the different terrain all along Lake Sakakawea, the Missouri River, you can rent, whether it's paddleboards or, you know, jet skis or pontoons, I encourage people who've never boated the Missouri River to do that.

I mean, you gotta be careful, you gotta learn, and follow somebody to follow the currents.

But the residential communities and the restaurants that are tucked into all of those different marina communities is really amazing to a lot of people who have never explored that way.

- Do you know of anything that will be closed this season?

- You know, I'm not aware of any major attractions that will be closed.

The Norsk Hostfest did postpone another year, they're not gonna be operating this year.

Again, some of those contracts for entertainers, especially, you have to make those decisions so far in advance.

But I think most of the other events are continuing, we're working hard right now with partners trying to make sure that everybody's got their information updated and current on the website so that when people go searching, they can see the full variety of what's available.

- Yeah, and we talked a little bit about last year, but restaurants and hotels, they were hit hard, I'm sure.

How damaging was it and did some close?

- Yeah, unfortunately some did.

We think we're down about 30 hotels from where we were, and granted, not all of those were COVID-related.

You know, on one, for example in Bismarck was just sitting on some really prime real estate.

And so I think there are multiple factors that came into play with some of them closing.

But yeah, we are down some properties.

Restaurants I don't have a number on.

You know, restaurants actually fared better.

Restaurants did better than kind of entertainment and recreation because they were able to do curbside and because great local people supported them, right?

And kept them in business by taking out, doing takeout and whatnot.

- Yeah, you already mentioned Fargo numbers for air traffic.

Are we seeing anything suggesting air traffic, Bismarck, Mandan, anywhere else?

- Yes, those numbers are starting to rebound.

I flew out, I think I flew just about every month this year, and it was really interesting to see how, you know, in January it was, you're pretty much alone, and nothing was open, and by February.

And so it's really kind of been a slow evolution, but the boarding numbers and deplaning numbers are increasing, going in the right direction.

- You know, how many staff work in the Tourism Department for North Dakota?

- So we have 15 on staff, but we do more than tourism.

So we're kind of the state overarching marketing entity, so we also work with our economic development division, our workforce division, and then we also do the branding, the state branding, and work with other state agencies to develop consistent communication pieces, especially externally focused.

So we do, you know, we do more than just the tourism piece.

Dedicated to tourism, I have, you know, I have probably six or seven that pretty much spend the bulk of their time on tourism.

- Do you have any volunteers that work for your department, or for, I guess, any organization with tourism for the state?

- Yeah, you know, we don't, but both the State Historical Society does, and the state parks has opened up a volunteer program as well, so they both encourage volunteers.

But I tell you what, we added online chat to our website this year, and we've been so busy.

We might have to look for some volunteers who can help with that!

- Well, they have to answer all those questions, though!

People want to know.

You talked about your budget a little bit.

And you got some one-time money, but what is your basic budget, and how are you funded?

- Yeah, we're funded 100% by general funds.

So we go back to the legislature each year as part of the Department of Commerce budget, and you know, requests continuing funding.

So we do have, you know, one of the smallest budgets in the state, or in the country, but I think we're really efficient with those dollars and deliver a really strong return on investment.

Our tourism-specific budget's usually about $9 million, $9 to $11 million per biennium.

- Yeah, you know, you talked about you flew, I think you said you flew just about every month.

But are you looking forward to when you can fly again, and have you had in-person conferences?

I assume not, but are you looking forward to when you have those again?

- Yes, we have not.

So the biggest one will be an in August, which is called the International Powwow, which is a huge international tourism conference that will be in Vegas in August.

So I think that will be really telling, especially to see how many international people we can get into that.

But yeah, I am very much looking forward to not only getting out there and selling North Dakota in person face to face, but also getting back in the same room with some of my colleagues from around the country.

- Sure, well, we've got just about a minute left, but what do you want to tell the people about coming to North Dakota, and what they can do and what they can see?

- They should go to our website, of course, NDTourism.com, and click on the trip ideas.

Because I think people will be really surprised at the variety, and it's an easy button, so there's itineraries right out there.

We're even doing a real detailed itinerary every month.

So last month we did, I-29, we started with the interstate.

So we did I-29 and we're doing I-94 this month.

But you can, they're all indexed there, so you can click on whichever one you're interested in.

But that even gives you where to stop for coffee, and where to stop for, you know, a photo op, and you know, the best lunch and dinner spots.

And so we're trying to make it easy for people, and we just encourage people to go out and explore, and do something you've never done before.

Find a new area.

- Well, there are so many spots in North Dakota, we wouldn't have time to go over them.

And you mentioned it, but once again, what's that website they can go to?

- NDTourism.com.

- Well, Sara, we wish you the best of luck this year, and we're looking forward to having a much better summer than last year.

- It's gonna be good.

Thank you.

- Thanks for joining us today.

Stay tuned for more.

(upbeat guitar music) In our ongoing segment, Artifact Spotlight, we're visiting the Becker County History Museum to learn about traditional beadwork from their exhibit of Woodland tribes artifacts.

- I'm Emily Buermann from the Becker County Museum in Detroit lakes, Minnesota, and this is our Artifact Spotlight.

(gentle guitar music) I am the Program Director here at the Becker County Museum, and I'm also a citizen of the White Earth nation.

And I am a traditional Ojibwe beadwork artist.

And so the artifacts in the collection here at the Becker County Museum that are of the beadwork artist/genre are of particular interest to me.

And so I've spent a lot of time with some of these items, and I'm going to tell you about some of them today.

All of the items on this table are Woodlands beadwork of design, and you can tell if it's Woodlands because it would be beaded with all of the most beautiful florals, and leaves, and vines, and medicines of the Woodlands area.

So you can think about our local Ojibwe Anishinaabe population as folks who are living here in our area.

So where winter is six months long, and you go with six months with snow or it's gray, or everything's brown, and it's just dried and covered in snow, and the most beautiful thing that you see all year are those first flowers that come up in the spring.

You know, those first leaves, the first buds on the tree, and that's when you know you finally get to see some green and some color.

So the Woodlands tribes, majority of their beadwork is going to be floral-inspired.

So the big piece here is a bandolier bag.

You can see that it's got flowers, it's got vines, it's got leaves.

A lot of these are stylized.

They've also got some berries here on their vines and we've got some berry motifs down here.

And the leaves in particular, in this piece here, you can see that the artist really took care to bead in the veins on the leaves, and really make them a little more realistic, even though some of the flowers are a little more stylized.

This whole bottom section here is a pouch or a purse to keep all of your important items that you would want to have with you in your bag.

And this would have been worn across your shoulder here, with the bag hanging down on your hip.

If you were very fancy or very important, and you had two bandolier bags to wear, you would crisscross them and have one on each hip.

These are very important as traditional pieces of regalia with the Woodlands tribes.

And the cliche kind of saying about the bandolier bags is that it's a bag that's worth a horse.

So you could trade one of these and get yourself a horse or more, depending on how intricately it's beaded.

We also have a few of these cinch-top bags.

These sometimes are called tobacco bags, but of course, they could hold a lot more than just tobacco.

So these bags are leather, and they've got leather fringe on the outside.

And now that you know it's Woodland, and it's floral, you can tell that it's got this beautiful orange flower here, and it's got some bluebell-type flowers here, and it's got a really nice maple leaf.

And then we've got some moccasins.

So moccasins are the shoes, the footwear of the Woodlands tribes.

And we've got a pair here of baby moccasins, and they are so adorable.

They're teeny tiny, and they've got a distinctive Woodlands pucker toe design.

So it's got a pucker all the way around the toes, and that's really a distinctive Woodland tribe design.

And this pair has a cuff of black velvet around the outside, and it's beaded all the way around.

And making a pucker toe moccasin is not easy.

I've tried several times, and I have been beading for about 30 years, and I still haven't perfected the technique of making a pucker toe moccasin that's quite as cute as this.

And it's not easy to make moccasins, and it's gotta be particularly difficult to make it in miniature size.

So these cute little newborn moccasins were made with love and care.

Lovely!

So this is an adult size of the Woodland moccasin.

It does have the pucker toe design, but it also has this pointed toe pucker toe design.

So you can see there's a seam running here through the front of the foot and it's stitched very close and very tight, and a very careful pucker toe around this design.

And these have the attached cuff all the way around, but in that traditional floral Woodland design.

These ones have a little sparkle with the little silver-lined glass beads.

So these are some of my favorite pieces in our collection.

We do have a larger collection, however, items that have the glass beads or are made of leather or on delicate fabrics, we do need to change those exhibits out from time to time, because any amount of light, even artificial light, any amount of light starts to break down the materials in these items.

And so these get switched out from time to time in our exhibit gallery at the Becker County Museum.

(upbeat music) - Well, it's all we have this week on Prairie Pulse, and as always, thanks for watching.

(upbeat guitar music) - [Announcer] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008.

And by the members of Prairie Public.