PORTAL, =241.5 m.= (1,954 alt., 512 pop.), is an important international port of entry, hence its name. It is an airport of entry, and also a division point on the Soo, much of the traffic to the Canadian Northwest passing through its custom offices. The U. S. CUSTOM AND IMMIGRATION HOUSE (_for custom regulations see_ INFORMATION FOR TRAVELERS), on Boundary and Railway Aves., is a two-story brick building in Colonial style. A large canopied driveway at the front of the building permits inspection of three automobiles at once. The Canadian custom offices are directly across the avenue, which is bisected by the international boundary. Portal is the home of many sports enthusiasts, and most of its games have an international aspect. Unusual in sports is the international golf course, on which in August 1934 a young Portal golfer, George Wegener, made an international hole-in-one, driving from the eighth tee, which is in Canada, 125 yd. into the cup on the ninth green, in the United States. The curling club here is also international, being composed of both Canadian and United States citizens in the border cities of Portal and North Portal. They play this winter sport in a specially constructed domed building. US 52 crosses the Canadian Line at the customhouses in the city of Portal, 30 m. S. of Estevan, Sask. TOUR 8 (Minneapolis, Minn.)--Fargo--Valley City--Jamestown--Bismarck--Mandan--Dickinson--(Glendive, Mont.). US 10. Minnesota Line to Montana Line, 368 m. N. P. Ry. and Northwest Airlines parallel route across State. Paved or bituminous-surfaced roadbed except 73 m. graveled. Accommodations chiefly in towns. US 10, rising steadily toward the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, with a gain of 1,852 feet in altitude in crossing the State, traverses the three main topographic divisions of North Dakota (_see_ NATURAL SETTING), from the low, flat Red River Valley, across the rolling Drift Plain and out upon the Missouri Plateau. Near the end of the route are the strange and beautiful Badlands. Most of the country along the road is cultivated, and in the fields the cycle of farming operations--plowing, seeding, cultivating, harvesting--repeats itself as the seasons progress. During the growing season, stretching far across the flat plains and over the sloping hills, the varying greens of the grains blend with the blue flax fields and the invading yellow patches of mustard. In the fall the prairies have a somber, peaceful air as their tawny stubblefields and newly plowed black acres await the first snowfall. When winter comes the never-ending expanse of white is broken by the dark pattern of roads and an occasional lead-colored clump of trees, bare and shivering in the wind, while at the distant horizon the whiteness unites with the pale blue of clear winter skies.