North Dakota launches Office of Outdoor Recreation

North Dakota has created a new office specifically dedicated to the state’s recreational attractions.

During a Thursday afternoon ceremony at Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, Gov. Doug Burgum said the Office of Outdoor Recreation will help North Dakota compete with its neighbors, noting that tourism is the state’s third-largest industry. Outdoor recreation brings in roughly $1.3 billion for North Dakota’s economy every year, according to a Thursday announcement from Burgum’s office.

Twenty-one states already have similar offices, Burgum said — many of them in the western U.S.

“People are picking where they want to live first,” Burgum said. “They’re not moving places for jobs. They’re moving for places because of the recreation opportunities. And so we’ve got to dial up our recreation capability and our ability to market if we’re going to be competitive on workforce.”

The office will be housed under the Parks and Recreation Department, Burgum said.

Cody Schulz, director of the North Dakota Parks and Recreation Department, said the office will require no new staff positions and has not received any funding from the state government. 

“It’s not the creation of this new department or new bureaucracy,” Schulz said. “I would call it an initiative.”

The goal is to keep an open line of communication across government agencies, as well as with private businesses, when it comes to investing in North Dakota’s outdoors economy.

As part of the office’s launch, the state added sites and activities to OuterSpatial, a recreation mobile app.

The platform now has more than 2,200 North Dakota trails — more than double than what’s available on AllTrails, another popular hiking app, Schulz said.

Schulz also announced the state will grow the Roughrider Trail south of Mandan from 16 miles to 20 miles to connect Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park to a handful of other recreation areas.

He said the Recreation Trails Program Grant, a matching grant available through the Parks and Recreation Department, plans to award $1.7 million to five applicants to build and maintain trails across North Dakota.

Burgum earlier that day presented his recommendations for the 2025-27 budget cycle, where he asked large state agencies to cut their operating budgets by 3%.