Welcome to TreasureNet and the wonderful world of treasure hunting. It's good to have you with us!
You will need a decent detector to start. The Ace 250 is highly recommended by many. I would suggest you look at other makes just to be sure the Ace is best for you. Some lower priced Tesoros are good and they come with a lifetime warranty. You'll need some good headphones so that the batteries in your detector last longer, you can hear the fainter tones (deeper targets), and your beeping machine doesn't irritate the people around you. You'll need a good digging tool, a probe, and an apron or pockets or something for hauling off the trash you dig up and the goodies you want to keep. You'll also want to become familiar with the Metal Detectorist's Code of Ethics, which are available on the Western & Eastern Treasures website (see top of TNet's home page).
For treasure leads and stories in North Dakota, you have many options.
1) You can buy or borrow the following books:
Thomas Penfield's Treasure Guide: Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota
Terry Thomas' US Treasure Atlas - Volume 7
And various magazines that have treasure stories for specific states - look for Michael Paul Henson's articles.
2) You can look for the section in TreasureNet that covers treasure leads and legends for individual US states.
3) You can go to your local historical society and ask for information about treasure stories (although you may get some strange and/or dirty looks).
4) You can read obits in your local newspaper and eventually find some leads to old logging camps, mining camps, potential cache sites, etc. (Often obits will mention where the deceased used to work, grew up, whether or not they lived in town, and whether or not they had any heirs - all leading to potentional detecting sites).
5) Actually, there are some good treasure leads in books that have nothing to do with treasure hunting per se. Let your intuition and imagination be your guide to finding treasure leads.
And don't forget to post pictures of your finds. We here at TreasureNet love to see photos!!! Good luck and good hunting.
