Wahpper, World's Largest Catfish

Wahpper was built to celebrate the catfish and the fishing that are part of life on the Red River. The river and its tributaries around Wahpeton draw anglers after channel catfish and other species, and the giant statue gives that local tradition a face, a huge, friendly fish rearing up out of a riverside park for all to see.

He belongs to North Dakota's cherished lineup of oversized roadside monuments, joining Salem Sue the giant cow near New Salem, the World's Largest Buffalo in Jamestown, the giant sandhill crane in Steele, and the turtle sculptures up in the Turtle Mountains. Each was built by a community to give travelers a reason to pull over, and each says something about its home, here, a river town's love of its fishing.

Wahpeton sits at a geographic milestone, the birthplace of the Red River of the North. Here the Bois de Sioux and Otter Tail rivers meet to form the Red, which then flows northward, an unusual direction for an American river, through the wide, flat valley toward Winnipeg and Lake Winnipeg in Canada.

That northward flow shapes the whole region. The Red River Valley is the bed of an enormous glacial lake that drained away after the last ice age, leaving behind flat, deep, and extraordinarily fertile soil that makes this some of the finest farmland in North America. Wahpper stands right at the head of it all, a whimsical marker at the start of a river with an outsized influence on the land.

The town's name comes from the Dakota language, and the region is part of the homeland of the Dakota people, who have long ties to the Red River Valley and the surrounding country. Nearby Sisseton Wahpeton communities carry names rooted in the same Dakota heritage, a reminder that the river and its valley held meaning long before the arrival of homesteaders and farmers.

Understanding that deeper history adds richness to a visit. The valley that grows so much grain today was, for generations, a land of prairie, wetland, and river bottom used and known by the Dakota, and their presence remains part of the story of this corner of the state. Wahpper is a modern, lighthearted landmark, but the river and land he celebrates carry a much older past.

Wahpeton is a friendly river town in the far southeastern corner of North Dakota, sitting across the Red River from Breckenridge, Minnesota. Its riverside parks make for pleasant strolling, and the nearby Chahinkapa Zoo and park offer an easy way to turn a quick photo stop into a longer, family-friendly visit.

The surrounding Red River Valley is a landscape of vast, flat farm fields and the slow, winding river that gives the valley its name. For travelers crossing this fertile corner of the state, Wahpper makes a memorable stop, a giant catfish grinning by the water at the very place the great northward-flowing river begins its journey.

The closest Boutel™ stays, so you can turn this stop into an overnight. Each is an independently owned, editorially selected place to stay.