A friend of mine went to Minot State University in North Dakota. My lasting impression; very very nice and polite people. Almost all of the cities in NDak are clean and quiet. Sometimes almost eerily so. But nice people.

In parts of Southern Manitoba/Northern North Dakota the border is almost invisible and the relationships between border communities run strong.  My parents have a cottage 6 miles from the border and there are as many N.Dak licence plates in the parking lot at the harness racing oval here as there are Manitoba plates at the baseball tournaments there.  Issues of nationhood and differences of opinion are largely the stuff of joking banter over beers at the local bar or beer garden.