by Ashley David

“Have you ever heard of a Bonanza Farm?” the North Dakota Tourism website asks me, and I have to answer, “Sure, I watched re-runs of Bonanza when I was a kid,” which is enough to betray me. I am so very much not from North Dakota, and the tv western I watched as a kid seems to have nothing to do with a North Dakotan notion of bonanza. Neither does my next leap to mining lingo. No, a Bonanza Farm is what resulted in the 19th century when the Northern Pacific Railroad offered its stock holders the opportunity to buy large tracts of land at government prices in order to raise capital to complete the railroad across what would shortly become the state of North Dakota. Next time you’re in North Dakota, you might want to visit one such farm, the tourism site continues, and they offer up Bagg Bonanza Farm near Mooreton. North Dakota not in your immediate travel plans? Then how about Brenda K. Marshall’s story “In Which a Coffin Is a Bed but an Ox Is Not a Coffin.” Marshall’s story kicks off the summer reading issue and is our featured story on the website, but don’t expect mosquitoes and bar-b-q. A chilly, chilly, chilling blizzard is in your future. Plus, two illustrations, the first of which sent me on my Bonanza Farm quest.

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