WOODWORTH (AP) - There are times Natoma Buskness will sit among the grasslands of the Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge and soak in the view.

Rolling hills of native grasses and flowers. A Swainson's hawk soaring above with the chirping of potentially 300 different bird species below that attracts birders from all over the country. The lake itself, which in the spring is home to one of the largest breeding colonies of American white pelicans in North America.

"Imagine the power lines in the horizon not being there," Buskness said, as a typical blustery, North Dakota wind bends the tall prairie grass. "What you see is probably what the settlers saw when they first came here. There are not many places around where you can get that feel."

That feel - under the name of the Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge - has been around for 100 years. On Aug. 28, 1908, President Theodore Roosevelt established the refuge as a reserve and breeding area for native birds.

Chase Lake this summer is celebrating its centennial as one of the oldest refuges in the state and the country.

"The refuge was established even before Woodworth," Buskness said of the town of 80 people to the north that is home to the refuge's office. That's where Buskness has been living and working the last three years as a wildlife refuge specialist.

"That's incredible when you think about it. Somebody definitely had some foresight," she said.

That somebody was H.H. McCumber, a local resident who in the early 1900s spearheaded a move to protect the Chase Lake pelicans.

The earliest documentation of pelicans nesting at Chase Lake was in 1863. Nine years later, the Northern Pacific Railroad reached Jamestown and brought a flood of settlers to the area - who in turn started hunting the pelicans during a time when there were no laws protecting wildlife.

"The pelicans would fly through what was known as 'The Pass,'" Buskness said, pointing to an area on the northwest side of Chase Lake. "This is where the locals would shoot them."

After three decades of hunting, McCumber reported in 1905 that there were only 500 pelicans left on the lake. He requested the Biological Survey in Washington, D.C., establish a bird refuge at Chase Lake.

"To think of what he must have went through," Buskness said. "I'm sure he faced a lot of resistance from the local hunters."

By the time the government investigated the area, only 50 pelicans remained. By the year 2000 - thanks to Roosevelt's refuge proclamation - a record 35,466 breeding pelicans were tallied at Chase Lake.

In the meantime, the majority of the 4,385-acre refuge has not been altered. Most of those acres were designated as wilderness area in 1975 under the Wilderness Protection Act of 1964. It has also been designated as one of America's 500 most important bird areas by the American Bird Conservancy.

"There is just a tremendous amount of grasslands for birds," Buskness said. "If this area wasn't established as a refuge, these birds wouldn't be here."

The pelicans have been Chase Lake's claim to fame. Buskness and the six other U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service employees who work in the Chase Lake area have seen the pelicans adjust.

Pelicans used to nest on two islands on the northwest side until the wet cycle of the 1990s covered that land. The birds used to nest on a peninsula on the west side until fox chased them away.

"We took care of the fox problem, but the pelicans never came back to that area," Buskness said.

The pelicans now nest on two islands on the east side of the lake. Wet, cool weather during the critical times of brooding in June have cut into the population. So has West Nile virus.

This past summer, Buskness estimated there were about 23,000 pelicans.

"If the young make it through the weather, then they get hit with West Nile," Buskness said. "We're just not seeing the production that we did a few years ago."

Buskness tends to think it is nature running its course - which is what the Chase Lake refuge has been all about for the last 100 years.

"One hundred years … that is something," Buskness said. "It's like, 'Hey, look at us now.' It started with 50 birds; now, we have over 23,000. It's one of the few refuges that has held its purpose."