Sports fishermen, water skiers, and sun worshippers have several alternatives for recreation. Skjermo Lake, Noonan Dam, and Tanberg Dam are the larger recreation areas offering picnicking, camping and water sport. Across the border, Rafferty Dam, south of Estevan, Saskatchewan, is a popular destination for North Dakotans. Within a 30 mile radius of Divide County, several more recreation areas await with boating, skiing, fishing, swimming, and camping access.

 

Ice fishing is popular in winter, as die-hard

anglers pull shacks onto frozen ponds,

bringing with them all the comforts of home.

Imagine fishing and playing cards at the

same time, all in a cozy and warm room,

while the wind blows a -20 wind chill across the lake outside.

 

All prairie towns offer parks for recreation, or just enjoying the shade of a few trees. Crosby has parks in each quadrant of the city, collectively offering playground equipment, picnic sites, and tennis.

 

Each of the county’s other three towns also maintain parks that are used from everything to an afternoon of child’s play to hosting summer celebrations on the Fourth of July, to family reunions.

When temperatures begin to fall, the action heats up at the Crosby Sports Arena. The arena offers club hockey teams for toddlers through adults. Established in the early 1960s, the Blue Line Hockey Club has turned out a few hockey players who have gone on to play as semi-professionals.

Three sheets of ice for curling host league play at the Crosby Arena. The Fortuna Curling Club has two more sheets of ice. The sport of curling, invented in Scotland, involves delivering a 40-pound stone across the length of an ice sheet to a target on the opposite end — a little like shuffleboard. Each team has four players, and regular bonspiels for men, women, and mixed teams attract dozens of players to Crosby and Fortuna each season.

Both the Blue Line Hockey Moms and the lady curlers of Fortuna are renowned for providing good food at all events.

Outdoors, the Northwest Trailblazers hold regular "poker runs," trail rides, and races for those who enjoy feeling the cool wind on their face and the power of a snowmobile beneath them.

For children who appreciate indoor sport during the winter, the Prairie Tumbleweeds Gymnastics program offers a first-rate facility for tumblers beginning at age 3. The Tumbleweeds perform exhibitions at regional sporting events, and most years field a team that travels to other clubs for competitions.

Our Native American history is preserved on prehistoric rock hieroglyphics that have long baffled historians at the Writing Rock State Historic Site. You can complement your visit to Writing Rock by spending the night at the campground located on the premises, or take a picnic lunch to enjoy in a shelter atop one of the highest lockouts for dozens of miles.

 

Legend says Indians used to make regular treks to the Writing Rock because it could reveal the future. Some claim the rock lost its magic when white fur traders and trappers appeared on the scene.

 

The rocks were "discovered" by homesteaders when the township was organized in 1916, and named for the "Writing Rocks" located there.

Many Indian camp and grave sites are found throughout the township, and throughout much of the native prairie in the western half of the county.

 

The state officially designated the park in 1936, and 20 years later an enclosure was built to shelter the mysterious stone from future erosion. The rock stands about five feet high and three feet wide, weighs approximately two tons and is made up of gray granite. Symbols engraved on the stone seem to depict the figure of a Thunderbird in flight, carrying a branch or tree limb, along with what is believed to be an Indian sun sign, circles, dots, figures, and arrows. A smaller, companion rock was studied at the University of North Dakota for several years before being returned to the enclosure.

When the summer sun heats up, the Crosby Swimming Pool fills up with water as well as with

young people.

 

On a typical day the pool, operated by the City of Crosby, is "the" place to be for youngsters of all ages.

 

Youth swimming instruction is offered throughout the summer at a small charge. Adult exercise and

water aerobics programming is also available.