Giant Beasts of North Dakota

Dakota Thunder, The World's Largest Buffalo
Constructed in 1959 but only named in 2010

Salem Sue, The World's Largest Holstein Cow
Photo:  The Real North Dakota Project

Just as I was thinking that the I-94 highway was sooo boring, WHAM!  I saw it.  The sign for The World's Largest Buffalo in Jamestown, North Dakota. We just left Theodore Roosevelt Park, still on a nature high from the wild buffalo sightings.  How dare North Dakota so blatantly advertise its crass commercialism when the real thing was all around.  No sir, not for me, I'm not getting reeled in to that sideshow. Then....signs for Salem Sue, the World's Largest Holstein Cow, followed by Giant Geese in Flight, The World's Largest Scrap Metal Sculpture.  Did we blink too long and in that instant get transported to the land of The World's Largest Everything, like Brobdingnag, the world of giants in Gulliver's Travels?  Well, almost. We're experiencing North Dakota's quirky giant roadside animal sculptures.  To give you an example of how giant these guys really are, Salem Sue is 38 feet high, 50 feet long, and is visible from the road for 5 miles.

Other roadside attractions include The World's Largest Sandhill Crane, The World's Largest Catfish, The Giant Pheasant Family, Wally the Giant Walleye, Tommy the Giant Turtle, the Giant Deer Family, and how could we tell we were in the Plains without the Giant Grasshoppers.  The car veered off the Interstate like a divining rod to see Dakota Thunder.  I changed my mind.  He was worth it.