Dive North Dakota

19. August 2010 by Michael Johnson.

My newest summer tee shirt sports the words Dive North Dakota below a graphic of a diver standing in a cattle water tank beneath the shade of a windmill.  When I tell people I grew up in ND, the first thing they think of is snow and cold weather.  I am pretty sure that NO ONE thinks of planning a scuba diving trip to North Dakota so when I told Kevin I wanted to do my dive master internship in ND, I think he thought I had flipped out. But, nonetheless, he made the call to in Randy Kraft, owner and operator of ScubaOne in Bismarck ND and arranged for me to work as a divemaster intern on their boat.

Almost every weekend in July and August divers travel from around North Dakota to dive near the face of the Garrison Dam.  The embankment of this earthen dam is 2 ½ miles long and 2050 ft wide at its base. The lake that was formed above the dam is 14 miles wide at its widest point, has some 1500 miles of extended shoreline and depths that reach 175 ft.  The body of water held back by the dam is named Lake Sakakawea, after the Indian princess who aided the Louis and Clark Expedition when they navigated the great Missouri River in 1805 in their quest to find a waterway route to the Pacific Ocean.  The elevation here is 1850 feet above sea level so this is considered an altitude dive.  Almost all of the diving that occurs on the lake takes place on the face of the dam in 20 to 60 feet of water.  The bottom here is boulders and slabs of granite while most of the rest of the lake has a muddy bottom.

My first dive of the summer was the second weekend in July.  The bottom temps were 65 degrees so diving with a 7MM wetsuit and hood was the most comfortable.  By the end of July bottom temps were up to 72 degrees and some hearty North Dakotans were diving in 3mm wetsuits and no hood.  Air temps were in the 80’s or 90’s everyday.

I grew up boating and fishing on this lake and ever since I can remember, the locals have told stories of the diver they knew who said “if you knew the size of the fish in this lake, you would never go swimming in it”.  Needless to say this is not a story you tell your kids who are learning to swim in the lake, but after this summer I can tell you, it is safe to go in the water.  While diving we saw an occasional cautious walleye, curious carp and numerous schools of small mouth bass that loved to follow us around like pets and stare eye to eye as we practiced hovering skills. We did not see any, but there actually are paddlefish in the lake that can grow as large as 120 lbs.  But like the whale shark, all they eat is plankton.

Every weekend our boat had open water and advanced open water students getting certified so they could dive when they went south to tropical waters in the winter for a break from North Dakota’s 30 below zero January temperatures.

Diving North Dakota has been a great experience that I intend to repeat for many summers to come.  The people are friendly, the summer weather is fantastic and the scenery is gorgeous.  With my divemaster training nearly complete and instructor training soon to start, next summer I invite you to come Dive North Dakota with Mike and extend your dive training.

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