DAY 04 23112017

Holy Fucking Shit.

I had thought stupidly to myself that maybe the scale of it would be lost in the fields, that without a proper gauge it would look like any other radio mast. 

I left my room late today, spending the morning on my laptop going through the footage I had collected until now. It would take me an hour to reach the tower, heading north and then west from Fargo. I thought I spotted it about halfway there, but that was just your standard height mast. After a while, scanning the horizon, I think I spot it, the faintest vertical line, just barely there. My GPS says I'm still 30km away, and yet it's already the tallest thing around. Keep in mind that from ground level, the horizon dips after 5km. Thankfully it's a beautiful, warm, clear day. The landscape outside Fargo is fields and factories, golden in the afternoon light. 

I turn west onto ND HWY 200, and there's no mistaking it. The mast swings into view in front of me as I take the exit ramp. I drive by farm houses, barns and grain silos, familiar landmarks by now. I'm still 15 minutes away, and the tower grows imperceptibly, though enough that I can now make out the guy wires. It seems like no matter how close I get, it doesn't move, doesn't get any closer. Eventually I turn onto a single lane gravel road. To my right is a strange amalgam of sheds, shacks and silos. There's a house in the fields north of the mast and I can't help but wonder about the people who live here. I decide that I'll drop a letter in their mailbox with my contact info. I want to ask them about the tower which most likely sits on their land, and about their bizarre property, which I'd love to photograph (seriously, this place looks like something out of the Texas Chainsaw Massacre, only much friendlier). Ahead is the tower and by now the top has vanished from the narrow field of vision my car allots me. I slow down as I pull up to another single lane path which leads directly to the base of the tower. 

I panic. I keep driving, past the tower.

I'm not sure what happened exactly. By now I thought I had gotten over my fear of these things, but the overwhelming sense of dread was undeniable. The thing is alien. The guy wires buckle under their own weight, noticeably sagging as they fly upwards. The lattice work of the tower is dense and massive, unlike the other masts I've seen. The degree to which I crane my neck to see the top is unreasonable from this distance, which I'd guess is a least 1500 feet. 

Doug Jensen, chief engineer at KVLY, had informed me via email that the tower is fairly accessible, with only a small fenced off portion at the base of the tower. Now that I was here I wasn't sure I could even leave my car. I do a u-turn and park at the foot of that path, facing the tower, beside the furthest guy wires. I turn the car off and notice how absolutely quiet it is. Today is American thanksgiving, so whoever lived at that farmhouse was either turkey wasted by now, or visiting family elsewhere. I'm completely alone. 

Fuck it. I get out of the car with my camera. I had switched to my 35mm lens and quickly realize that, even 1500 feet away, even on my knees, down in a ditch on the side of the road, basically as low as I could get, I couldn't capture the whole thing. I get up and switch to a 28mm manual focus lens. 

The tower is back-lit from here, but the sky is perfect, a few wispy clouds adding a bit of drama. I spend some time here, by those first 3 massive wires. Eventually I muster up enough courage to walk towards the mast, taking photos along the way. Despite the warm, sunny weather, I'm freezing. The wind out here is relentless - not enough to throw you off balance, but just enough to pierce your clothes.

As I walk, I get that same impression as when I drove towards it: I'm not getting any closer. Had I misjudged the distance? The tower plays tricks on your perception, at times seeming shorter, sometimes taller. You look ahead and it seems like it's right there, a few hundred feet away. You look up, and suddenly you lose your bearings, the guy wires flying above your head to points far behind you. I kept placing the CN tower beside it, knowing that it falls short by about 200 feet. That didn't help make any sense of it. Walking through Toronto, you get glimpses of the CN tower between buildings, framed in a proper setting. Standing below it, you can't even see the top. Here, not only is the whole thing on display, it might as well be in my head for how implausible it seems. 

And despite the constant wind, I hear sounds. Standing by my car, by the solid concrete foundation to which those wires tie back to, I can hear creaking, pulling, snapping. I had approached the small fenced-off area around that foundation, hoping to get a close-up shot of those connections, but quickly reconsidered, imagining the unbelievable tension in those wires, and the story Doug told me about the tower's sister mast just 5 miles away collapsing during an ice storm. As I walk towards the tower, every once in a while I'll hear that sound again and quickly snap my head back, expecting to see a lose wire flying towards me. 

Later, at the base of the tower, by the control room, I'm reminded why I was afraid of these things in the first place. A low, constant hum is clearly audible above the wind. Electricity. Voltage. Signals. Transmissions. Warning Signs. Danger. It feels like I'll be fried if I take one wrong step. But then I see a sign above the single door, above the cracked lintel, seemingly hand painted:
 

KVLY 11
FARGO - GRAND FORKS
701-237-5211
2063' TOWER
BUILT 1963
 

And suddenly I'm reminded that this used to be a tourist destination. That at a time, probably long ago, anyone driving through North Dakota would probably stop to see the tallest thing in the world, the same way you would stop to see the largest ball of twine (I mean, some people would). And I suppose - despite remaining (on-and-off throughout the years) the tallest man-made structure until 2010 - that part of why the tower has faded from discussion is at least partially because of it's disposability. Over-the-air transmission is an antiquated technology, and cable is quickly being adopted even in rural communities.

But standing there, below the tower, I was no longer nervous, instead feeling a kind of nostalgic sadness. I looked over to the farm house and wondered if the people living there now had been kids when the tower was built. Doug had mentioned that he remembered the day the tower was completed, not because of any engineering feat, but because his number of TV channels jumped from 2 to 3. Those farm house people would remember it differently, I'm sure. Their parents were more likely annoyed at the surge of tourists and local looky-loos clogging up their single lane dirt roads and probably knocking on their door at all hours to use the toilet. The kids, however, might have found it awe-inspiring. Whether that household owned a TV set or not, there it was, the tallest structure on earth, right there in their back yard. I imagine the kids (in my mind a boy of about 10 and a girl a few years younger) lying on their backs right where I was standing, looking up at the mast at dusk, waiting for those flashing red beacons to light up the evening sky. Eventually the novelty would wear off, they would grow up and join their parents in finding the tower a nuisance and an eye sore more than anything. But for now I tried to join those kids in that sense of wonder, and asked myself why I was alone in that field on that day, why so few people made the trip out here anymore to see what is still the tallest structure on this continent. 

My plan was to wait for the sun to set, but as it fell towards the horizon I decided to head back and process the experience instead, leaving it at that for now. I'll head back tomorrow, same time of day. 

And as I transferred photos from this evening, I took a closer look at that sign above the door, noticed that the paint was fading, but that certainly it was not the original paint from 1963, that certainly someone must touch-up the paint every so often, and that meant someone at KVLY still thought the tower was a point of pride, that it was a monument worth preserving and commemorating. At least until an ice storm takes it down. 

Marco Chimienti
23.11.17

P.S. I'm pretty much running a day behind, and I've yet to process photos from Day 02, but fuck it at this point - I'm here for the tower. 

P.P.S. This website limits the size of photos. Needless to say these need to be printed on fucking billboards to appreciate the whisper thin qualities that are lost on screen.

P.P.P.S. I swear a lot, I know.