A seldom mentioned event in US history that should never be forgotten occurred 55 years ago. The occasion was notable inasmuch as it assured eternal notoriety for a beach near Eugene, Oregon — alongside other famous beaches of the world, like Waikiki and the one where she wore an itsy-bitsy, teeny-weenie, yellow polka-dot bikini. It was the day the Oregon Highway Department blew up the 80 foot carcass of a dead, beached sperm whale with no less than a half-ton of dynamite. A YouTube video of the event is probably now used as an instruction guide for Oregon highway department trainees.

A while back upon the first spring visit to our small cabin on Long Lake east of Metigoshe State Park, we discovered two dozen trees had been taken down by beavers. Not only that, but a dam they built in the small creek alongside the property was backing water up into our yard. My brother-in-law, Troy, surveyed the situation as if he used to work for the Oregon Highway Department, then said, “This calls for drastic action. We have to blow up that beaver dam.” Not normally stockpiling dynamite at the lake, I suggested we attempt to tear the dam out by hand. I had just as well been talking to a convention for the deaf. “I’ll call David. He is driving up from Minot later. I’ll have him pick up some Tannerite at the sporting goods store.”

“What’s Tannerite?” I asked.

“It’s like dynamite,” he answered. “But you don’t have to have a license to use it. I blew up a washing machine out at the farm with it last fall. You should have seen THAT!” The statement failed to calm my fears. As usually happens around Troy, I failed to persuade him to reconsider his lamebrain idea in favor of something less risky. He made the call to order up the explosive. “Get two pounds,” he told David, then changed his mind. “Better make that four pounds.”

During the subsequent wait for TNT-lite to arrive, I found my way to the dam and removed what was required for water to drain around one side of it. With that accomplished, Troy put on waders, sloshed into the shallow creek with a spade and began chopping a hole in the side of muddy sticks and branches below where the waterline once was. “We’ll pack this hole with Tannerite,” he explained. “Pretty soon we can blow this place to smithereens.” I hoped he didn’t mean the cabin.

Meanwhile, Rita and her mother were walking the yard examining spring’s sprouting hostas and other early arrivals. Sure enough, soon after David arrived with the goods, Troy jammed a pair of two-pound containers of the stuff into the side of the dam. “Ok. Now, we need to stand back a little. I’ll shoot this rifle into the Tannerite. That makes it explode. Poof, no more beaver dam!”

As Troy loaded his deer rifle, David and I took refuge at what we mistakenly thought was a good distance away to watch and wait. Wild Troy Hickock took aim, then fired. Rather than a “poof,” a deafening explosion shook the cabin and the entire neighborhood, sending mud and branches sky high in every direction while grandchildren screamed and echoes reverberated from across the lake. As we know, what goes up, must come down. And, it did – providing Rita and her mother walking through the property next door with a generous mud bath.

One day during 1970 in Eugene, Oregon, putrid, rotting blubber rained down over spectators, including a chunk that crushed the top of a car parked a quarter of a mile away. For all we know, there could still be blubber in orbit. An eerily parallel event a dozen years ago at Long Lake, ND, might have provided not only an addition to Troy’s resume when applying for work with the highway department, it likewise brought shoreline notoriety to a beach in Bottineau County.