When The Landscape Is Quiet Again: The Legacy of Art Link
A film by Clay Jenkinson and David Swenson
Former Governor Arthur A. Link has become virtually a mythic figure in the North Dakota consciousness. His father was an immigrant from the German Sudetenland, who homesteaded on the hardscrabble land of northwestern North Dakota. Art Link was Governor of North Dakota during the first great energy crisis in the 1970s.
The nation's thirst for new energy sources threatened that which Art Link loved most: the land. Governor Link insisted that North Dakota's energy development was inn harmony with values deeper than mere extraction: stewardship, the agrarian ideal, the integrity of rural communities.
On October 11, 1973, Governor Link delivered what is widely regarded as North Dakota's "Gettysburg Address." His creedo, written in the margins of his prepared speech moments before he was introduced, is known by its opening phrase: "When the landscape is quiet again."
This film is the story of that man, that speech, and the landscape that inspired it.
