The Red River Valley has some of the richest soil and best farmland in the world. There are two reasons for this: (1) fertile (rich) soil had been brought down from Canada by the glaciers; and (2) a great deal of organicDecayed plants and animals matter had been left from Lake Agassiz.

The Red River Valley as it exists today emerged from receding glacier ice at the end last major ice age. Over a period of time that began about 14,000 years ago, an enormous "ice lobe" crept south from the Arctic, pulverizing all in its way and kneading the land into a new configuration.

French explorer Pierre Gaultier de Varennes et de La Vérendrye arrived to the Red River Valley area in 1732. He coined the term “Red River” due to its reddish-brown silt. It was the primary source of transportation between Lake Winnipeg and the Mississippi River system.

Description and Overall Condition: This landscape component consists of the tallgrass prairie historically found predominantly in the eastern one-fourth of North Dakota. The Red River of the North forms the state line between North Dakota and Minnesota. This region today is commonly referred to as the Red River Valley.