Grand Forks Herald, N.D., Dorreen Yellow Bird Column: Take a Ride on the Dakota Wind

By Dorreen Yellow Bird, Grand Forks Herald, N.D.

Jan. 2–Flying above the white, snow-covered North Dakota plains while harnessed to a kite may be the sport of the future — or at least, that’s what two young entrepreneurs from UND are hoping.

I met Sam Salwei and Jason Schafer at the Amazing Grains natural-foods grocery in Grand Forks a few days ago; we spoke over slices of baked bread packed with organic vegetables. Salwei is one of the students whom the Center for Innovation is nurturing, and the institution won’t be disappointed: He is sprouting ideas for the community and the state, and snowkiting is one of them.

These two young men and about a dozen others in their group are promoting the wind and kiting. They want North Dakota to become the Aspen of the Upper Midwest.

You can use skis, snowboards and other things to kite, they told me.

I am not a person — and don’t laugh — who’ll be gliding off on one of those snowkites anytime soon. Yet, if I were 10 . . . OK, maybe 20 years younger, I’d take up the sport. It involves flying across drifts of snow and even sailing in the air — what a feeling that must be!

I watched a brief video short that Salwei showed me. It showed the extremes — you know, snowkiting down a mountain or flying 50 feet in the air while doing summersaults. That’s crazy, but exciting to watch.

The wind catches the kite, at times with tremendous force, and it pulls the rider along at speeds that can exceed 70 mph, they told me. North Dakota has a lot of wind that blows regularly. We all know that.

Ordinary snowkiters don’t have to fly too high in the air, although they can if they want. Schafer and Salwei said they don’t get that far off the ground — maybe 10 feet. I think that would be enough exhilaration for me.

Is it safe? Any sport, including skiing on the “bunny” slope, involves risk. It isn’t a good sport unless there’s some risk, is it?

And there is less risk snowkiting than in snow skiing or water skiing. Using a kite to water ski is riskier and more difficult, too, Salwei said. You can fall into the water and drown, and the skis or a snowboard are harder to control in the water.

The snow, however, is just there. Landing is usually soft — and if you’re on snow or ice, you can really sail along, he told me.

“I can stop the kite on a dime,” Salwei said. You control the direction of the kite, and if you direct it so that it can’t catch the wind, you stop. If you are heading in a dangerous direction (such as toward a rock pile), you can let the kite go with a quick pull. It might take some time to find the kite again, but you and your kite won’t be wrapped around a tree.

I didn’t realize that you can snowkite on land with wheels, but you can. The risk, however, increases because if you fall, you hit hard ground. Wind is powerful, and it doesn’t matter — it will blow just as hard across the pavement as on a snowfield. The young men have even used their kites to pull a car; it’s that powerful, they said.

“What about a blizzard with 40 mph wind that’s kicking up snow and causing white outs?” I asked, trying to corner them into “dissing” the sport. That is the best time to snowkite, they told me. The winds are going in one direction, and you can really move.

They’ve snowkited in 40-below weather, Schafer said. I guess outfits made for rough weather are a must.

Salwai, Schafer and a group of young men plan to snowkite down the state, at one point following a long stretch of the Missouri River. Their stops will be Minot, Crosby, Williston, New Town, Bismarck, Fort Yates and Grand Forks. They will be promoting wind energy, talking with residents and providing free snowkiting lessons.

It is more fun than skiing on mountains. It is better than water skiing, and what these young men have in mind is that if they get young people interested in the sport, those young people will stay, and perhaps others will move here because the sport fits so well in North Dakota.

I hope this project catches on like the wind in their sails. I know a lot of young people whom I think would find great fun in snowkiting. It sure beats playing video games.

Look to the skies for these young people. You may see them riding a wind that will populate our state.

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Copyright (c) 2007, Grand Forks Herald, N.D.

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