John N Loc: HP14 3QF Stokenchurch, UK

Just 250 miles North of me is Swaledale, U.K. So I took a Google tour around Swaledale, Iowa, to see if they bore any resemblance. Not even close, and I was left wondering why it was called 'Dale' at all. It's as flat as a pancake and looks a lot like parts of Norfolk, Cambridgeshire & Lincolnshire (The Fens). I wonder whether you use the term Dale in a different way to us, though I was unable to determine one from a brief search.

Take a look at Swaledale, U.K., lovely scenery, wild in a developed sort of way, and unforgiving in a damp Winter.

http://www.yorkshiredales.org.uk/places/swaledale/

I managed to get a few miles in in the U.S., but never made it to this region.

Uuglypher Loc: South Dakota (East River)

Good Heavns! I took a virtual tour of Swaledale Iowa, as you did, John, and reached the same conclusion as did you! However,.....
My experiences from which a favorable comparison of our two “Swaledales” is drawn began with having viewed, first hand, the original Yorkshire Swaledale during an extended visit to your “Sceptered Isle”in the early 70s and then, a few years later, having, for the first time, driven Interstate highway 80 north from Ames, Iowa to Minneapolis, MN. Along that route I found it passing a deep and most bucolically scenic dale that immediately swept my recollections back to my trip through Yorkshire a few years before! I needed little more convincing of the remarkable topographical similarity of the two “Dale’s” of my experience than the roadside sign stating, simply, “Swaledale”, which, of course, I found most apt!

Iowa, thought by many unfamiliar with the State to be a place of unrelieved flatness, is , simply, not that! There are lovely hills and valleys in NE, SW, North central and northeast Iowa. I personally have no doubt that someone with a distinct Yorkshire accent felt instantly “at home” in that dale now adjacent to Route I-80 - and claimed and made it so!. And I can confidently guarantee that were you to momentarily find yourself in that place in Iowa I describe, you would find its similarity to the Yorkshire dales downright eerie- and would understand the appropriateness of the origin of its name - bestowed lovingly for a Yorkshire dale in, I am certain, that person’s beloved memory.
Best regards,
Dave