Category: outdoors

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Winter Hike On Black Elk Peak

By Bernie Hunhoff

Climbers who reach the summit of Black Elk Peak can gaze upon four states: South Dakota, Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska.

Want to play like a mountain goat for a winter afternoon? Then hike to the summit of Black Peak after a soft snowfall, picking your way up the rocky, tree-strewn 3-mile trail that leads to the tallest point east of the Rockies and west of the Pyrenees in Europe. You can’t see Spain from the top, but you can easily find Montana, Wyoming and Nebraska.

I started up the trail at high noon on a sunny Sunday. At times it was dark in the deep canyons of the 7,242-foot mountain. More often, the trail led to granite-strewn overlooks so bright that I needed sunglasses to look out on the white and blue landscape.

You can hear the winter wind whispering in the pines, even on a still day. On blustery days, the wind whooshes and roars past the treetops, but down below you’re so protected by trees and canyon walls that you hardly feel a breeze.

Take a walking stick, or pick one up along the trail. A mountain goat would not think of traversing the heights of a snow-slippery mountain path on just two legs, and neither should you. A stick is like an extension of your arm; it might help you catch your balance or slow your fall. Walking uphill doesn’t seem as tricky as walking downhill, and there’s a mathematical explanation; it has something to do with the nonlinear partial differential of miles-per-hour divided by the angle squared. But leave your pencil and paper at home; you’ll understand when you step on the trail.

Few hardy souls climb Black Elk Peak in winter, but our writer met college students Caleb Chapman (left) and Chase Merfeld near the summit.

A stick might also give you a weapon in the very slim likelihood that you meet a mountain lion or wolf. Such encounters are almost unheard of, especially in winter. Wolves haven’t been seen on Black Elk Peak in modern times (Mount Rushmore A.D.), but a young male was hit by a car near Sturgis two years ago and another was caught in a trap in Harding County.

Dave Pickford, a ranger with the Black Hills National Forest’s Hell Canyon District, says lions have been spotted. Sightings are rare, but believable to our friends back down the mountain.

Deer, elk, turkey and mountain goats are common in the other seasons, but they winter in the meadows and thick pines at the foot of the mountain.”You might see rabbits and squirrels on a winter day,” Pickford says,”but you’re less likely to see birds and the bigger animals than in the summer.”

The lack of wildlife, along with the fact that there’ll be no motorcycles or tour buses echoing down below, adds to the solitude that winter hikers like.

Pay some attention to the signage as you go. If you’ve been known to take a wrong turn in Rapid City or Sioux Falls, then you can certainly lose your way on Black Elk Peak. I was on Trail Nine and missed a left turn on the way down; within 100 yards I saw a”3″ etched in a tree, signifying Trail Three so I reversed course. If only making a U-turn was as easy on Omaha Avenue in downtown Rapid City.

After two hours on the trail, I could see the summit. But the last stretch is the most treacherous. That’s ironic because it is the most civilized. The Forest Service created smooth stone steps and a short metal stairway just below a legendary old lookout tower that was built on the summit by Civilian Conservation Corps workers in 1939.

You don’t want to fall off now, not while 7,242 feet in the air. Pickford says accidents do happen on the mountain, and he agrees that the final steps can be tricky.”We have such huge swings in temperature and weather that we tend to get a freeze-thaw effect on the steps, both at the top and all along the trail,” he says.”Especially there at the top, the steps can become windswept and they are particularly icy.”

While the wind whispers down below, it roars on the summit, especially as you climb those last steps to the observatory tower. But it’s worth the wind, even on a cold day in winter, because most of us will never see so much land with our feet on the ground.

Just before you ascend the fire tower, look for the small plate with the inscription”Valentine McGillycuddy.” It’s the name of a man who arrived in the Black Hills in 1875 as a surveyor. McGillycuddy climbed Black Elk Peak to record its height, and supposedly used a pine log as a ladder to reach the very last granite ledge. Later he became an Indian Agent on the Pine Ridge, mayor of Rapid City and dean of the School of Mines. After he died in 1939, his widow received approval to bury his ashes atop the mountain.

Valentine McGillycuddy’s ashes are interred near the top of Black Elk Peak. Surely his resting place is the highest grave east of the Rocky Mountains.

Certain questions come to mind when you’re standing at the top. Maybe the thin air plays tricks with the mind. At first you’ll wonder why the Forest Service and Roosevelt’s CCC workers went to so much effort in 1939 to build the tower on a difficult and treacherous mountaintop. Can you really see a fire better at 7,272 feet than 7,242 feet?

You’ll also wonder why more people don’t climb the mountain in winter. Pickford reports that about 41,000 people make the journey annually; he knows, because electronic counters are hidden along the trail, and they can generally distinguish a man from a goat. But only 3,000 climbers are counted from November to March, and the number of hikers is very small in the dead of winter.

New Year’s Day is an exception, when about 200 hikers climb Black Elk. Pickford speculates that the tradition began with people who wanted to start the year with a positive activity. Eventually it became a holiday routine for some.

You might also wonder, while standing atop the Northern Plains, if widows or widowers other than Mrs. McGillycuddy have brought their ashes here, without seeking approval or disapproval from authorities, and scattered them among the granite boulders that seem more eternal and glorious than any memorial ever carved by man.

And while contemplating the eternal, you’ll wonder, while catching your breath at the top, what would happen if you began to have difficulty breathing, perhaps from a heart attack? It must be terribly embarrassing to hear your name on the evening news while you’re lying in a hospital bed: perhaps one of your children is thanking the Search and Rescue team from Custer for risking their lives to get you off the mountain, and then someone says,”We thought he was in perfect health. He eats right and exercises, but I guess he’s slipping.” It’s always wise to stay off the evening news.

But soon your thoughts are interrupted by the realization that the sun is sinking toward the western horizon. Time to descend the mountain. Carefully.

Mountain Do’s & Don’ts

We asked David Pickford, the Forest Service recreation specialist, for his advice on winter climbs up Black Elk Peak.

ï Check the forecast. Even mountain goats stay off Black Elk Peak during snowstorms.

ï Use sturdy footwear, and in winter consider either ice creepers or shoe chains.

ï Carry along a survival kit with first aid, food, water, etc.

ï Dress appropriately. Wear a synthetic liner next to your skin to keep moisture away, and dress in layers.

ï Let someone know you’re going up the mountain.

ï Cell phones can be helpful, but don’t depend on them at the expense of other preparations because they may not work. Many hikers prefer to leave electronic gadgets at home. It’s an ethical choice, says Pickford.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2009 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Autumn Grasslands

By Bernie Hunhoff

Photography by Stephen Gassman

Emily Dickinson was a great poet but she underestimated an important plant species when she lamented how she longed to be grass-like.

The grass so little has to do, — A sphere of simple green,

With only butterflies to brood, And bees to entertain,

And stir all day to pretty tunes, The breezes fetch along,

And hold the sunshine in its lap, And bow to everything.

Life hasn’t been that simple for grass, especially native grass on the prairies of the Great Plains that were once an ocean of green. In many regions, 99 percent of native grasses have succumbed to urbanization and agricultural development. Blue stem, wheat grass and other varieties have been buried by concrete and asphalt, replaced with domesticated cousins such as corn and soybeans, and swallowed by man-made lakes and forests.

South Dakota’s native prairie, though similarly threatened, has fared better than most. West River’s ranching culture depends on the shortgrass prairie; consequently, successful cattlemen develop great respect for the lands on which their livestock graze.

I once saw an old rancher kneel in the summer grass and point to a dozen different species of grass (there are 9,000 in all) that were growing within a few feet of his boots. He listed them by name and knew when they thrive — hot season, cold season, drought and drought-on-the-way.

Thousands of acres of South Dakota’s grasslands are under the auspices of the Nature Conservancy, a non-profit group that has protected over 119 million acres around the world. Its largest tract in South Dakota is Ordway Prairie west of Leola where over 300 plant species and 400 wetlands provide a lifestyle for a herd of bison and other plains wildlife.

State and national parks have also been helpful. Wind Cave National Park encompasses 28,000 acres of prairie grasses and ponderosa pine near Hot Springs in the southern Black Hills. But the National Park Service is the biggest single steward of South Dakota’s grasslands, supervising the 600,000-acre Buffalo Gap National Grasslands between the Badlands and the Nebraska border as well as the 125,000-acre Fort Pierre National Grasslands in the center of the state. Hunters, hikers, bird-watchers, photographers and naturalists frequent the grasslands, but others don’t count them on their”bucket list” of places to see before they die.

However Mary Lata, a self-proclaimed”grass geek,” says attentive visitors to any of South Dakota’s grasslands soon discover that there’s much more than meets the naked eye.”Think of it as a chocolate chip cookie,” says Lata, who spent two seasons as a ranger at Buffalo Gap and now works as an NPS ecologist.”The matrix is the grasses. That’s the dough. And it makes a difference whether you use butter or margarine. Butter is the species you want and margarine is what you don’t want. The chocolate chips are the flowers and forbs that make it look good. The thistles and other weeds are things we don’t want, like fake chocolate chips.”

Grasslands have always been changing — not just from season to season but even from century to century.”The grasslands of the Great Plains exist because of three frequent disturbances,” Lata says. They are fire, drought and grazing.”We might have had years or decades when we had a lot of grazing and lots of rain, and drier times when we had more fires.

“We don’t know what the composition of the grasses was when Lewis and Clark came through. It changed when the Lakota came because they had horses and they used fire differently than it had been used. Then the Europeans came and they did things differently, and they were soon followed by trains and the trains are still causing fires.”

Fire isn’t always bad, she says.”The forest service is very good at putting fires out, but we often don’t have the money to do prescribed fires because that can be very expensive even though it’s necessary to maintain a healthy diversity of grasses. Fire is as necessary as grazing. Some people ask why we don’t just graze rather than burn, but cattle won’t eat yucca or cactus so you eventually get the same imbalance as if you only burned and never grazed.”

The grass geek says grasslands are especially overlooked in autumn.”People don’t come to national parks to see the grass, but when they take the time to look they are usually surprised. They see the blue grama, the Indian grass with its fluffy golden heads, the turkey foot blue stem, and pretty soon they can see that each is different.”

Lata says the grasslands are especially striking in late fall before the first hard frost.”Then you’ve still got some flowers, mostly yellows and purples, on top of the grasses that are starting to change color. And then after the frost, you lose the flowers but the grass colors start to jump out even more.”

We owe a lot to grasses, she says.”As a species, we didn’t stand up straight until we got out of the trees and onto some grass.” So take a moment this fall to appreciate the grasses of South Dakota.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the September/October 2009 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Mysterious Monarchs

By John Andrews

MONARCH BUTTERFLIES ARE just a couple inches long, weigh less than an ounce and flutter through the air with wings as thin as tissue paper, but they may be the most intriguing creatures in South Dakota. When the blaze orange butterflies arrive in South Dakota this spring from their winter retreat in southern Mexico, they will have completed the final leg of a 2,500-mile journey to a place they’ve never seen.

The life cycle of monarchs is six to eight weeks, but the butterflies that hatch in South Dakota in August live an incredible six to eight months. When autumn arrives, they fly the entire 2,500 miles to the Oyamel fir forests, where they hibernate through the winter, often in the same trees as their ancestors. When they reawaken and fly north in the spring, they lay eggs, which dramatically shortens their lifespan. Soon, they die. The process repeats as the butterflies slowly progress northward. The monarchs that arrive here around Mother’s Day are the fourth generation descendants of those that departed last fall.

The migration and monarch life cycle have stumped scientists and butterfly watchers for decades. Why do monarchs that hatch in late summer live four times longer than others? How do they know to fly to southern Mexico every fall? In 1992 the University of Kansas launched Monarch Watch, a nationwide research program devoted to studying the mysterious monarchs. A popular research tool is butterfly tagging. Monarchs are netted and a tiny sticker with a code — no bigger than the nail on your pinky finger — is affixed to a wing. It doesn’t hinder flight, and scientists can track where the butterflies go and how long it take them to reach Mexico.

The Outdoor Campus was the first facility in South Dakota to tag butterflies. Thea Miller Ryan, the Outdoor Campus director, is an avid butterfly observer, though she was hesitant to include monarchs when the facility opened in 1994.”If you want to bring them in and raise them, and you take care of them, and I don’t ever have to look at them, you can do it,” Ryan remembers saying.”They brought them in and six hours later I was hooked. And I’ve never been able to get it out of my system. They are an incredible creature. There’s so much to learn about monarch butterflies.”

Today over 100,000 students and adults across the country obtain tags from Monarch Watch and apply them to monarchs passing through their yards. Every August, Jody Moats, of the Adams Nature Preserve near Elk Point, leads volunteers in butterfly tagging at Spirit Mound. Monarchs cluster by the dozens high in the branches of old hackberry trees. Their wings glow even brighter orange in the light of the sun setting beyond the mound. Children swoop nets twice their height through the trees, hoping to capture and tag the butterflies. Other tagging events are scheduled throughout South Dakota, including one at Palisades State Park near Garretson on Aug. 30.

Monarchs may seem abundant, but their numbers have slowly dwindled in recent years. They face a potentially life threatening challenge: habitat loss. In Mexico loggers are slowly decimating the fir forest, and on the Plains their food source is disappearing. Caterpillars that become monarchs will only eat milkweed, long the scourge of farmers. Thanks to pesticide resistant crops, milkweed has become easier to eradicate. That’s why Ryan and others encourage planting”monarch waystations,” patches of milkweed in yards and gardens that help the butterflies survive.

“People always think of the common milkweed in the ditches, the kind we all had to pull when we were kids,” Ryan says.”But there are a lot of different varieties of milkweed that grow in South Dakota, and you can get those at garden centers. They don’t look at all like common milkweed. They’re really pretty and they bloom in all different colors.”

Monarchs are beautiful to observe, but once you get to know them they become even more fascinating. After all, would you intentionally plant weeds in your garden for any other creature?

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2012 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800)456-5117.

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Sharing Nature’s Wealth

Editor’s Note: Sisters Mary and Maud Adams donated the first parcel of their family homestead to the state of South Dakota in 1984. Today, the Adams Homestead and Nature Preserve features walking trails through prairie, forest and riverbank, restored buildings and hundreds of species of flora and fauna. Here’s the story behind its creation from Mary Adams, who died in 2009.

By Cindy Lange

A dream Mary Adams shared with her sister Maud is developing right before her eyes on the family homestead near McCook Lake in the southeastern corner of South Dakota. The sisters, the last descendants of the Adams family, wanted others to benefit from the land as they had. They saw the land as a gift that they should share so others could learn about the area’s history and experience the beauty and tranquility of nature.

Driven by a love of the land and an appreciation for education, the two Union County natives donated the farm to the state of South Dakota. But this isn’t just any farm. It has been in the Adams family since the sisters’ grandparents homesteaded it in 1872. All told it consists of 1,500 acres of prime real estate — an oasis in a bustling commercial development spurred by Dakota Dunes, South Dakota’s newest city.

Now, more than 10 years after the sisters donated the first portion of land and more than a year after Maud’s death, Mary watches with satisfaction as their donation is being transformed into one of the state’s premier recreational areas.

The Adams’ gift is incredibly unique, said Marty DeWitt, a parks and recreation official who has been involved with the project from the start. “I’m not that familiar with all the offers that come across the table of the department,” he said, “but they are typically donations of land — mainly gifts of farmland or land for game production or wildlife production areas.”

Few can compare to the Adams sisters’ gift in scale or value, DeWitt said. It is more dramatic considering the recreational use of the property. “It’s 1,500 acres of prime real estate in one of the biggest booming areas of the state,” he said. “The reason it came about is because they wanted a place for people to learn, enjoy the natural surroundings and experience what the area is all about. Their vision was that it be protected and preserved.”

As the Adams Homestead and Nature Preserve, that is happening. Not only will it be preserved, but it will serve as a valuable green space in an area surrounded by the residential and industrial development of Dakota Dunes and North Sioux City and growth near McCook Lake, he said.

Deciding what to do with the land took some thought, Mary said. “My father had the land and he is gone. My mother had the land and she is gone. My brother, Stephen Adams III, was killed in World War II. So it was just my sister and I,” she said. “My sister and I were left with the decision. It never entered my mind to sell the land. I thought the land was a gift to me and that I had benefited greatly from the land. I thought it should continue to be shared.”

But that thought did enter Maud’s mind. “At the time the land value was extremely high,” Mary said. Maud considered selling the land and giving the money as chairs to the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. “She was very education oriented, as I was. It became then a question … what form of education,” she said. In the end they decided to give it to the state so people of all ages could learn from it.

The sisters contacted the state. “They didn’t have a clue of what we were talking about,” Mary said. She said they talked in general about the land back then. Neither she nor the state really knew what the site would become.

“Maud would be shocked. The place has become alive with plans and work and there’s a state presence,” she said. “I think that this place will be the only intact piece of land of the original settlers in this part of the state. It’s shocking but it’s true.”

A recent visit by two young children and their father convinced her they’ve made the right choice. A little blond haired boy, about 6 years old, had found a half-awake garter snake. He was so excited and went to the house to ask Mary for a jar to put it in. “He was just thrilled,” she said. “When he left, he said, ‘You’ll save any other snake you find for me, won’t you?'”

“Then the little girl found a tree branch that had fallen and was at just the right angle she could jump over it,” Mary said. The girl shouted, “Daddy, watch me again” over and over. “I thought, well that’s the purpose of the park. They were here a very short time and they had fun and they learned from the earth, the sky and what’s between,” she said.

During the early years, the project was known as the Adams Nature Area and was considered a low-intensity recreation area, said DeWitt, who was stationed at Newton Hills State Park but now oversees Visitor Services for the Game, Fish and Parks Division. Now, with the homestead, historic buildings, interpretive elements and eventual recreational programs, it’s climbed a few steps above a nature area.

Federal funding was secured for trails inside the area but private donations and grants have also boosted the project. That money will enable the state to construct limestone trails and primitive footpaths throughout the property, including a bridge across Mud Lake. A group picnic shelter, a visitor information center and interpretive displays, observation blinds and trailside signs to acquaint visitors with the natural and historical aspects of the area are also planned. The Adams project also will be linked with several trail systems including a bike trail from Sioux City, Iowa.

A 13-acre area will be designated as the homestead site. It will feature historic Adams homes and other buildings. Another 30 acres, not far from the area tabbed for the visitor information center, may be used as an agricultural museum, demonstrating how homesteaders managed to survive and the tools they used. Native grasses also are being planted.

Securing federal funds made a big difference. It allowed officials to take the best parts from the two-phase master plan to create a more complete package of features. That reduced the timeframe of the project from 10 to 20 years to about two years.

Mary’s work is also in progress. Her main project involves moving from the historic Shay-Adams house to the original 1880s Adams farmhouse, which she and Maud had moved back to the property. The Shay-Adams house has been there about 70 years. “It’s a house of two houses,” Mary said. The front part of the house — the front room and two upstairs bedrooms — is the old Shay house.

“It sat about where the Dunes country club is,” Mary said. “The old Missouri River was about to cut the old Shay house into the river so my dad put it up on dollies and brought it here,” she said. He added the back part later. Mary grew up in the Shay-Adams house and Maud grew up in the old red farmhouse.

All three children attended the University of South Dakota in Vermillion. The two daughters left to pursue careers in nursing and education.

Their parents continued to live on the homestead. Their father died in 1959 and their mother lived there alone during the 1960s. When she became ill, Maud, a nurse who had lived in New York for some time, returned in the late 1960s to care for her until her death in 1977. Later when Maud became ill, Mary, who was serving as acting dean of the College of Nursing at South Dakota State University, returned to the homestead to care for her.

Maud died in 1995. Though she never saw their dream materialize, her presence can be seen and felt everywhere. It was her idea to call it a place for inner renewal, Mary said, and it’s very fitting of her and the place.

An old barn, a Union County country schoolhouse and an old rural church from the Platte area, which the sisters moved to the place, remain and have been restored. They are situated on the 13 acres and will comprise the homestead feature of the area.

Mary has learned a lot since returning to the homestead. The first was that there were no closets in the downstairs of Shay-Adams house. More importantly, she has learned just how much the place meant to the family and how much of them still remains. “I don’t know how my father and mother held onto this place during the Depression,” she said. The family lost a lot of land to foreclosure during those years.

“They put three of us through college and two through professional training or professional preparation. I never appreciated what they did until this year,” Mary said, acknowledging it required a lot of sacrifice. “But they believed in education and were great believers in the land and how it could be enjoyed.î

One of her mother’s favorite books was Sea of Grass. “The idea that you could go out and listen to the wheat and listen to cattails in the wind and hear waves,” she said. “Mom’s family came from Norway so that part gave her a closeness to family,î Mary said, with tears forming in her eyes.

“When I was acting dean I traveled a lot in South Dakota and I loved to see the wheat fields from Onida down through Winner,î she said. “You really can see and hear the sea of grass.”

You don’t hear that anymore. The wheat she remembers from her childhood has been replaced with soybeans and hybrid corn. Other things also have changed. “It’s totally different than when I grew up. We always called this place ‘The Place,’ the ‘Adams Place,'” she said. She recalls where the neighbors’ places once dotted the landscape and the days when farming was more labor-intensive. Days before 1939. After that year, the land could be worked by machines or horses.

She wishes a small piece of the past can be returned to her family’s land. “I would like to see on this place, these 13 acres, a garden established to represent the Adams women’s gardens,” she said. It would offer a tribute to her grandmother, mother and sister. “They loved to dig. They loved to transplant. And they loved to water,î Mary said. Though it would take some work to get it established, a century garden representing the plants grown from the 1870s to 1990s would be fitting, she thinks.

As she prepares to settle into the family’s 1880s farmhouse, she busies herself inside the Shay-Adams house packing memories and uncovering family papers no one else was intended to find. Though she’s finding it to be a difficult, task, Mary remains comfortable with their decision to share the land. She said she has studied the meaning of altruism or selfless regard for the well being of others. It was a gift of love, as she puts it.

But that doesn’t make parting with it any less emotional. “When you give a gift it’s not yours anymore,” she said, fighting back tears. “I hope the people of South Dakota enjoy it and keep it up. There are a lot of feelings … here.” She takes comfort in believing her deceased family members would also approve. “I think that the positive spirits of my mother, my dad, his parents and my brother and sister are here,” Mary said. “I don’t think there would be an incompatible voice.”

Mary will continue to watch as the dream she shared with Maud develops into a place to be shared. She’s also looking forward to the peace and tranquility her family loved about the place. All she needs is a little time off. “I retired,” Mary said. “But, honest to God, I haven’t had a day yet that I could say, ‘I’m retired. What am I going to do today?'”

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the July/August 1996 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Eating Wild Cactus

Wild plants like the prickly pear cactus have served many purposes

By Ruth Steil

Prickly pear cactus thrive in dry conditions on slopes and hills, like these yellow flowered cacti found along Highway 1804 near Fort Pierre. Photo by Chad Coppess/S.D. Tourism.

As a young boy Joe Delvaux spent school years with his mother in Yankton and summers with his father in Pickstown, a government town built in the 1950s to house the families of construction workers at Fort Randall Dam. But by the 1970s, Pickstown had dwindled from a high of 5,000 people to less than 100. It could be a solitary setting for a kid who was a”big city” implant.

Delvaux spent hot South Dakota summer afternoons roaming the sun-baked hills surrounding the Missouri River with two older brothers who pointed out plants and insects.”It became natural for me to notice vegetation and to look under rocks,” he says.”It was what we were about and who we were.”

Plants held less interest for Delvaux when he entered high school and later college. But in the summer of 2001, when the National Parks Service opened an office in Yankton, he took a position as a Seasonal Park Ranger.”We were given the freedom to connect an interest to the public and plants were my interest,” Delvaux says.”I got a small library of books to read and took them into the field with me to collect specimens.” He drove back roads and hiked meadows looking for buffaloberry, sumac, sage and chokecherry.

Photo by Stephen Gassman.

His research evolved into a park program called Cultural, Medicinal and Edible Plants along the Missouri River. Delvaux often tells his classes about how Meriwether Lewis was introduced to the benefits of chokecherry. During the 1804 expedition, Lewis became very ill with fever and diarrhea. He’d tried the medical treatments of his time, including bleeding, with no alleviation of the symptoms. But then he made some tea from the bark of the chokecherry. He felt so much better that he hiked several miles the next morning.

Prickly pear is among the edible plants that Delvaux brings for the class to sample. It can be found throughout South Dakota and most Western states. He harvests the cactus pads from plants in ditches by Pickstown, near places he wandered as a youth.

Kay Young says in her book Wild Seasons: Gathering and Cooking Wild Plants of the Great Plains that prickly pear cactus pads and ripe fruits are not poisonous — it’s the spines and glochids (barbed hairs) that pose a danger. She recommends handling the pads with tongs or pliers when washing and preparing them. She singes older pads over a flame to remove spines and glochids before cooking, but cooks young pads just as they are, removing the stickers once the pads have cooled.

Delvaux prepares the prickly cactus for his class by filleting the outer skin off the pads, rinsing away the gelatinous juice, patting the pads dry and then cutting them into bite-size pieces.”I’ve cooked it a couple of times — battered it and fried it, but I really prefer it raw and chilled,” Delvaux says.”Fried it tastes a little like fried green tomatoes.”

Cactus Salad

6 cups prickly pear cactus pads, cut into 1/2 inch squares
3 bunches green onion
7 tablespoons salt
1 jalapeno pepper, diced
2 medium plum tomatoes, diced
1/4 cup white onion, finely chopped
1/2 bunch cilantro, chopped
Juice of two Key limes
1/2 teaspoon Mexican oregano

In a medium stockpot, cover the pads with at least three inches of water. Add a bunch of green onions and two tablespoons salt and bring to a rolling boil. Let boil for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and pour into colander. Discard onions and rinse pads in cold water until cool. Repeat the boiling twice using the remaining green onions and four tablespoons salt. This will remove the slimy stuff from the cactus pads. You will now have half the amount you started with.

Mix diced pads, jalapeno, white onion, tomatoes, cilantro, lime juice, oregano and remaining teaspoon salt. Let stand 45 minutes for flavors to blend.

— Recipe From I.M. Cowgirl Magazine

EDITOR’S NOTE — This story is revised from the July/Aug 2010 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order this back issue or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

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Last Raft Trip Down ‘Old Mo’

Editor’s Note: Almost 64 years ago — before bulldozers dammed the Missouri and changed the river forever — two Sioux Falls men assembled a wooden raft and floated from Mobridge to Pierre. Durand Young and Tom Kilian wanted a last look at the wild waterway traveled by Lewis and Clark and other famous explorers. Kilian, a longtime education and community leader and founder of Kilian Community College, died in April 2014 at age 90. Young, a South Dakota journalist and executive with AAA, passed away in 2013 at age 86. In 1995, the two adventurers dug out their notes, journals and photographs and wrote this story about their five days on the river.

By Durand Young and Tom Kilian

Aug. 3, 1956, 10:54 a.m.: Underway from point on east bank of Missouri, one-half mile south of highway bridge. Difficult to get raft in water. Difficult to steer for west side channel.

1:20 p.m.: Passed east tip of Blue Blanket Island.

So begins the official log of our five-day journey by raft down the Missouri River from Mobridge to Pierre. It was a memorable trek by two then-young native South Dakotans with a serious historical bent and a dash of Huckleberry Finn derring-do.

1956 marked the 150th anniversary of the Lewis and Clark Expedition’s return trip to St. Louis. At the direction of President Thomas Jefferson, the explorers had gone up the Missouri in 1804, spent the winter in what would become central North Dakota, and then continued upstream to the origins of the Missouri, crossed the Rocky Mountains and descended the Columbia River to the Pacific Ocean. After an uncomfortable winter of 1805-06 on the Oregon coast, they completed their historic exploration of the Louisiana Purchase and returned to St. Louis.

We scheduled our raft trip to commemorate that anniversary year, hoping to stop at night near some of the same campsites Lewis and Clark had recorded 150 years before. And there would be little time left to see the Missouri as the explorers and their party had experienced it. The giant Oahe Dam would soon close off the riverbed and eventually pile up to 200 feet of water over the landscape from Pierre to Bismarck, N.D.

We spent many evening hours planning the trip — securing and studying old river maps and reviewing the Lewis and Clark journals and stories of other early travelers on the Missouri as well as designing our 8-by-12-foot raft. Determined to experience the river in its natural state, we disdained a motor. The free flowing current would be our power and, as we found out along the way, would sometimes play master to our slave.

Having made some previous historic site searches under primitive conditions, we knew something of the logistical needs. However, the constraints of our jobs and families limited the time available to make the trip.

We arranged for Raymond Rheborg, a pickup-owning cousin, to transport us from Fort Pierre to Mobridge very early the morning of August 3. He left us, bag and baggage, on the riverbank around 7 a.m. and we flew at the task of assembling the pre-cut pieces of the raft frame. Twenty penny spikes fastened the green cottonwood 2-by-8s and steel cable secured four sealed 30-gallon steel drum floats in frame pockets at the corners. As soon as the plywood deck was nailed down, we piled our tools, tent, large water cans, blankets, food and other gear amidships and pushed off the bank.

Exhilarated to be afloat, and with the raft well balanced and riding high, we worked our way toward the west side of the river, where the main current flowed. A long, stout pike pole was used to push off from the river bottom and, when the water was too deep for that, we managed to row clumsily with a paddle fashioned from a piece of board.

By mid-afternoon we were having trouble staying in the main channel. When we drifted out of its stronger current, our downstream progress slowed drastically, and eventually we would begin to bump and drag on the bottom in shallow water. As we struggled to keep our cumbersome craft floating in deeper and swifter water, learning to “read the river” far ahead became a priority in positioning ourselves to avoid trouble. We learned how varied shadings of light on the water’s surface translated into varying depths in the river and we learned to “see” trouble ahead. As the river bends, the main channel moves from side to side and our limited ability to propel the raft laterally dictated early action and hard, hard work with our crude paddle and pike pole to stay in swift water.

Our first afternoon wore into evening. Our preoccupation with steering and navigation meant we had not been able to erect our pup tent on deck and get the rest of our gear squared away. Dusk came, then darkness, and our ponderous raft was riding a good current along the west bank of the river.

The river bank for several miles, however, was four to 10 feet in height , a sheer, vertical cut bank with nothing we could tie up to and no shore at water’s edge to beach the raft securely for the night. This presented a clear danger as we could barely distinguish that high bank from the dark of the night sky and could see hardly at all ahead of us. Flashes of lightning from an oncoming storm enabled us to see, in quick glimpses, what lay ahead.

We desperately needed a safe place to moor for the night. By 10:30 the lightning and thunder foretold a major thunderstorm. Finally we were swept into shallower, slower-moving water and grounded on a sandbar. With the temperature cool for an August night and the wind freshening, we got off and pushed the heavy raft as best we could. The storm was now upon us. Bumping along on the sandy bottom, we finally ran aground in a tiny inlet amidst lightning, heavy wind and lashing hail.

In the dark and confusion our maps blew overboard and carried away. We lay, spread-eagled, on top of the rest of our equipment to keep anything else from blowing away and covered ourselves with the canvas tent. From 11 p.m. till 1 a.m. we slept fitfully, fearful we might begin to drift again.

The rain finally eased and the wind dropped. Feeling somewhat safer, but soaking wet and very cold, we “slept in” till around 4 a.m. and then got up, thoroughly uncomfortable. A driftwood fire in our tin camp stove brought warmth and hot bacon and eggs. We pushed off again.

Morning light had shown us we were in a secondary channel between a huge sandbar and the west bank of the river. At 8:15 we passed the downstream tip of the bar and merged with the main channel and faster current once again. The warming sun soon lifted our spirits. We talked with an Indian man on the west bank who told us we were but a few miles from Cheyenne Agency, which meant we were farther along than we had supposed.

About an hour later we were stopped dead in the water, hung up on a partially submerged cottonwood log — a sawyer, the legendary nemesis of steamboat pilots. It projected just above the surface at an acute angle. Because of the tremendous pressure of the current pushing us up the sloping log, the threat of having to abandon the raft and most of our equipment was very real. But rocking the raft and shifting our cargo prevailed and we finally slipped free. Such hazards and others were frequent throughout the journey, but we managed to avoid most of them by determined paddling and poling.

A curious feature of the river, still unexplained, were the “boilers,” sudden upsurges of water rising from 6 to 18 inches above the surface like giant air bubbles seeking escape from the water.

At 4:50 the second afternoon we passed beneath the old highway bridge at Whitlock Crossing. By 7:30, having had supper on board, we were moving in midstream, working our way toward shore and a hoped-for safe mooring a few miles below Cheyenne Agency. Another storm was approaching.

We landed on a sandbar at 8:30 and tied up to two large logs with the raft setting on a mud bottom. High winds and a bit of rain hit us again, but this time we were prepared. Our tent, erected on deck, kept us dry and comfortable.

The hot, burning sun of daytime hours, magnified by reflections off the river, and the strenuous physical effort needed to maintain our forward progress left us ready to sleep at night. The hard work notwithstanding, we spent much time observing the passing scenery — the land and sky, wildlife and plant life. Majestic great blue herons, magpies, hawks, buzzards and eagles were our companions, as well as the usual small prairie and shore birds. To lift the spirit, what can compare with a meadowlark’s song?

Our movement on the river’s surface caused little or no concern to wild animals, though we learned the sound of the warning slap of beaver tails on the water. Except for the sound of birds’ and coyotes’ nighttime chorus, there was no noise save the little we made. Fox, coyote, deer, antelope, beaver, muskrat and skunk were unperturbed, as were the many cattle grazing near the banks. At one point we exchanged close-up stares with a badger drinking at water’s edge.

We fished daily, routinely, without any luck. Four decades ago the Missouri ‘s water was far from the clear blue and green of today. Instead, it was a muddy brown, said to be too thick to drink and too thin to plow. That, along with its untamed power and unpredictable ways, was about to come to an end. Oahe and the other great South Dakota dams — Big Bend, Fort Randall and Gavins Point — would permanently change its color and its unique character.

Our third morning found us drifting near the east bank, and as morning wore on, the landscape became more rugged.

August, in those pre-dam years, was a time of low water on the Missouri. While summer storms brought needed moisture to the prairie grasslands, little of it ran off into the draws, ravines and creeks that split the land. Most of the creek mouths we passed were dry.

Riverbanks often rose steeply above the summer water level. The high banks showed clearly the effects of much higher currents of spring and early summer. There were frequent trees hanging by their roots from current-eroded banks, their trunks and branches extending into the water just where the fastest current flowed. We called them “sweepers,” for they could sweep our raft clean, down to its deck, unless we were alert to spot them ahead and to succeed in maneuvering around them. That was not always certain and never easy. One time, all our strength and a large measure of luck were required to free ourselves from a particularly hazardous tangle of tree branches and flotsam, in which we were held by a swift current.

Late in the afternoon of our third day we neared the entrance to the Little Bend. There a party of men and boys in two aluminum canoes passed us, heading downriver. It was a Boy Scout group from Miller. Jim Graham, one of the leaders, said they had put in at LeBeau and were headed for Pierre.

At 7:30 we moored to a heavy log on what was then the south bank of the river. Another storm was in prospect, but we were spared the worst of it. A brilliant lightning display and a brief wind squall with no rain allowed a good night’s sleep.

Next morning we rose at 5:15 and were under way at 5:38, choosing to prepare breakfast on board as we drifted on through the Little Bend. Our small tin stove mounted on the stern was a great convenience. The sky was patched with clouds and a few raindrops fell as we ate. For another of countless times we went aground on a sandbar but, jumping overboard, we worked our way off with little trouble. A fresh, cool breeze gave temporary relief from the daily August heat and broiling sun.

Passing the mouth of the Cheyenne River, we spoiled a group of nine tents on a high slope along its south bank. It was headquarters for an archaeological survey party. As plans for the system of dams on the Missouri were developed, a salvage archaeology program was undertaken by the Smithsonian Institution to sample locations of historic and prehistoric significance — Indian villages and burial grounds, fur trade posts and military sites.

That afternoon a strong wind from the southeast pushed us toward the west bank, away from the deeper and swifter current. We pushed and paddled steadily for several hours to keep our raft moving downstream. Evening promised yet another storm and once again we were running along a high bank, this one of caving sand and clay, with no place to tie up. Finally, at 8:15 we moored to a sheltered log amidst light rain, continuing thunder and lightning. Nonetheless, we turned in by 9 o’clock and had a restful night.

Next morning we wasted no time, resuming the trip at 5:14. Two hours later we were caught in shallow water along a large sandbar. Standing in the water, we had to heave and tug on the raft to get through. We then clawed our way across the current to the main channel near the east bank. By mid-morning we were paddling constantly to keep from being swept into fallen trees and snags.

Early in the afternoon the flattop of Oahe Dam came into view. We were proceeding southeast on a rapid current, but a strong southeast wind countered much of our speed. At 3:10 we passed the head of Wood Island. The dam cuts across the lower portion of Wood Island, and the remainder now lies deep beneath the surface of the reservoir.

A V-shaped opening in the nearly closed dam marked our passage. Heavy earth-moving machines, dwarfed by the massive dam structure, were busy narrowing the cut with huge loads of rocks and dirt, the main flow of the river having been diverted through a temporary channel that made an end run around the west side of the dam. We passed through at 4:25, still fighting the southeast wind.

It was nearly three hours later when we floated beneath the old Highway 14 bridge connecting Pierre and Fort Pierre. As we moored our craft to two huge cottonwoods at the north edge of Fort Pierre a few minutes later, another thunderstorm was building in the west.

Those days on the river — the Old Missouri, before it was corralled and calmed by the Corps of Engineers — will never be forgotten. In those days the river simply went its way, eating up land here and spitting it out to form new land somewhere else. It served up catfish, bullhead, occasional northern pike, needle-like gar, prehistoric-looking sturgeon and other species to the relatively few who fished its turbid, snag-filled waters.

We were among the last to see it and its quiet, serene border lands before boat ramps, marinas, camping sites, resorts and bait shops came. The price of viewing it as we did was hard work in the burning August sun and nightly thunderstorms. Yet we found time to reflect on those who had gone before: Lewis and Clark, Manuel Lisa, Hugh Glass, Pierre Chouteau, Jr., George Catlin, Prince Maximilian and, before them, the Sioux, Mandans, Arikaras and Yanktons. We thought about them and the many others — fur traders, explorers, vagabonds — whose highway had been the Missouri.

Around sundown, cross-legged on deck, as we made coffee over driftwood fires and sipped it from tin cups, we were stilled by the beauties of sunset, lightning and the sparkling, star-filled night sky, each of which confirmed our role as a part of it all.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 1995 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Let There Be Less Light

By Linda M. Hasselstrom

Here where I live, 25 miles south of the second largest town in South Dakota, I enjoy walking visitors outside at night. If they insist on taking a flashlight, I pocket it. They look up, gasp, and tell me they have never seen so many stars.

I may remind them the same stars light their sky.

We walk easily in darkness as visitors learn that tall prairie grasses seem to gather luminance from the stars, sprinkling it around our feet. With snow on the ground, the night is so bright we could run, or read a newspaper.

I’ve spent my happiest daylight hours on the prairie, working while surrounded by the unique native grasses, flowers, birds and wildlife. Night is a spiritual event, a pilgrimage to the sanctum sanctorum, the holy of holies.

Ambling through the dark, I hear the song of ancient grasses, redtop and big bluestem whispering to the stars that have shone here for millennia. Inhaling clean air, I exhale the day’s tensions. In summer, the rich ooze from a pond teases my nose with bouquets of growth and decay, flowers and mud. A duck squawks and splashes, perhaps escaping a prowling badger. Some nights, I can smell the badger’s musk as he lumbers along, swinging his head, sniffing for mice. His whistled signal to other badgers may set off a sleepy refrain from meadowlarks or redwing blackbirds, rippling through the dark. This is South Dakota, not the Serengeti; I know a mountain lion might hunt this darkness, and trust her instincts lead her to smaller prey.

Coyotes howl; a great horned owl hoots from the juniper trees, freezing a rabbit under a bush. A flock of grouse chuckles, alarmed. A deer flings her head up, her eyes like small moons, her soft ears swiveling to scoop sound from the air. When she leaps the fence, the top wire twangs against her hooves.

Looking up, I feel star heat, like a hand lightly brushing my forehead in blessing. On the prairie at night, who could doubt that the Creator of all this wonder is watching over us?

To the north, though, it looks as if each of Rapid City’s 70,000 citizens has a personal spotlight trained on the sky. Instead of directing light to the spots where visibility is needed at specific times, city street lights blaze upward all night long, wasting light and energy, interrupting the natural lives of animals, and profaning this cathedral of darkness.

West of my house stands a subdivision where families moved to escape the noise and bustle of the city, to enjoy the freedom, independence and beauty of country life. Each house is announced by its”security light.” If we look at those lights from a mile away, we are night-blinded.

As I give thanks for the life that makes my darkness pulsate with life, I feel sorry for the subdivision residents. Surely they moved here to love what I love, to experience the real prairie, yet all I can see is their fear. Properly directed and timed lighting could deter both thievery and the few dangerous animals, like mountain lions, which prowl past. Instead the misdirected lights create deep shadows where any predator could hide. Their security lights signal:”Hey! Here we are, rich enough to waste money on unnecessary lighting. The nearest law enforcement agency is thirty-five miles away on a winding road. Help yourself!”

We still have choices. If I hear suspicious noises, I switch on floodlights positioned to throw light where a predator might hide. When I turn them off again, the blessed darkness flows back.

Editor’s Note: Linda M. Hasselstrom lives and writes at Windbreak House near Hermosa. This story first appeared in the March/April 2010 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 1-800-456-5117.

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Winternight Blossoms

By Dianne Gloe

Near midnight, sleepless, I walk outside into this ghostly world of winter. Above me is the lilac, which has endured more than half a century of winters. Thousands of black branches lie like shadows on the seemingly even plane of the sky. This winter night near midnight the old lilac, bare of leaves, is blooming. The brilliant blossoms shine like stars.

Who is the artist with courage to paint this night? Vincent Van Gogh, who killed himself, would have tried:”I often think that the night is more alive and more richly coloured than the day…” But this winter night is brushed only with strong yet simple starwhite and gray and black.

Watching the stars filter through branches, eerily, I sense that my stare is being met by another pair of eyes. All the while I have looked at the lilac, eyes have watched me. The moonlight colors them an unfamiliar gold. Or does night betray my sight?

The owl flies.

I have read that some cultures believe the owl to be an evil omen. I’m not convinced, but I am uneasy.

I walk on the road toward the colder north. The wind against my face is like the breath of someone dead. Before I reach the narrow bridge, an odd-shaped head on a bony neck appears. I do not recognize the ashen face. I cannot see what expression it wears. I hesitate. Will it greet me “Good night” with a sunken, toothless and lunatic grin? Or with anger at my intrusion?

The apparition is my neighbor’s mailbox.

My footsteps disturb a woman who sings under the bridge. Ghastly and lovely is her song. I try to convince myself that the music is water. I know it is not; the stream is frozen. Why is she, too, outside on this winter night? I recall the owl, the omen of evil.

Her song explodes. Her dress unfurls, rises white-gray-dark above ground, and whirs away on pigeon wings.

By taking this midnight walk, I did not intend to test my heart for strength. On my right a snow-packed trail leads up a hill, seeming to beckon me. I resist following that line of snow on the leeward side of the fence. I turn toward home.

I look again at the tree. I almost wish Van Gogh could visit my home and paint the winter lilac, a shadow of branches blossoming with stars. But, I do not wish aloud. On a night like this, he might come knock-knocking on my door.

Whether to linger outside or go inside — I am like the moon that has never made up its mind how dim or bright to shine. The cold decides.

In another season the quiet lilac will explode with heart-shaped leaves and purple fragrance. But for now, no color is warmer than the light, golden, behind the window of my home.

Editor’s Note: This tale by Dianne Gloe, a Hartford, South Dakota native, originally appeared in the Jan/Feb 1988 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 1-800-456-5117.

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Close Encounter at Choteau Creek

By Roger Wiltz


When I fell through thin ice into Choteau Creek, I thought deer hunting was over for the day. My only hope was to escape the icy water alive and retreat to home and hearth.

As I settled into the water, I instinctively raised the rifle over my head. Maybe I did it because I had read about outdoorsmen who were saved from drowning when their rifle or shotgun straddled a hole they had made in the ice.

My stupidity bothered me almost as much as the cold water. Any fool should know a creek with moving water might have thin ice. By good fortune, my accident occurred in a creek less than 15 feet wide and shallow enough that my feet hit bottom while my head was still above water, which I am sure is more pleasant than a full bath.

Still, hypothermia didn’t feel far away so I wasted no time in wading toward shore. The depth didn’t change much with the first step, but I was pleased that it became more shallow with the second and the third. I broke ice with the butt of my gun as I proceeded to shore … or should I say, to the icy wall.

The creek bank was so steep and slippery that repeated attempts to climb onto solid ground seemed futile. A rope would have been good. I looked at my rifle sling and decided it wouldn’t be much help to a cowboy catching a steer but it might be enough of a rope for me.

I took the sling off my Ruger and threw the rifle onto the bank. To add some length to my rope I took the belt off my pants. (You probably don’t know this, but it’s not easy taking a belt off wet trousers with cold fingers.) Finally, I connected the belt to the sling and my first cast at a close-by tree branch was successful. I pulled my frozen self onto the snow-covered bank.

I had propped myself up on my elbows and was wondering whether I could make it to the farmhouse a half-mile away when I heard a crash in the brush and looked up to see a big whitetail buck charging my way. He was less than 30 yards away and it seemed he was intent on running right over the top of me.

Maybe all this reads like a scene from an Indiana Jones adventure but I was a high school principal in Wagner at the time, and went hunting and fishing to get away from the routine stresses and strains of small town life. I had been looking forward to the East River deer season for weeks and my father and I spent opening day together, hunting Missouri River bottomland. We held out for bucks but all I saw were does, a two-pointer and coyotes.

The temperature dropped with the sun on that November Saturday afternoon and the stirring winds and ashen-grey sky suggested snow. Sure enough, I awoke Sunday to a foot of snow and a raging blizzard. Only a fanatical hunter would consider venturing out in such conditions. I pulled on my boots and stepped outdoors.

I knew of an abandoned farmstead northeast of town where a four-point buck often bedded down. Certainly he would seek shelter there in this storm. I didn’t plan to drag the deer back home in the minus 50 degree wind chills. I’d just field-dress him and hang him in one of the vacant buildings.

The half-mile hike into the wind was brutal but I knew it would ensure that I arrived ahead of my scent. There must have been 100 pheasants in the jungle of cedar, lilac, mulberry, honey-suckle and Russian olive that formed a perimeter on three sides of the farm place. The birds were reluctant to fly and they dodged behind or under the boughs. I’d never seen pheasants act like that.

After a thorough search, I realized the buck was not there so I returned home, with the wind. The storm howled all night and continued Monday. No school for this principal. The house across the road was nothing more than a fleeting mirage. The Dakota winds played eerie notes into the night on our home’s north rain gutter.

But, as with all prairie storms, it stopped as quickly as it had begun. The dead stillness was accented by bitter cold and starlit skies. County and township snowplows would start their rounds at daybreak but school was called off for Tuesday.

Thus it was that opening weekend of the deer season stretched into a fourth day for me.”What luck,” I thought to myself as I filled the pickup box with snow so that the added weight would keep my back wheels gripping as we headed for Choteau Creek. There was not the faintest whisper of a wind and the 15-degree temperature felt unseasonably warm. Against the white background of fresh snow, I expected to see deer everywhere. But after three hours of checking favorite whitetail haunts I hadn’t seen any.

A South Dakota blizzard will leave 10 feet of snow in protected areas while open areas will be relatively free, so I was able to walk over open prairie that separated the wooded bottoms from the giant bluffs that overlook the Missouri River.

I wondered whether ducks or geese were sitting on the river, and how much of the water was still free of ice, so I hiked to the bluff’s top, momentarily forgetting about my search for deer. From my high vantage point I soon discovered why I hadn’t found deer earlier. They were all gathered together in a cattail slough about 40 yards below me — maybe 50 in all.

Taking a shot was out of the question. There would be no practical way to retrieve the deer. More important, my license was for Charles Mix County and I was standing on the wrong side of Choteau Creek, in Bon Homme County. However, I figured the deer might work their way to the mouth of the creek and into fields of alfalfa stacks and corn piles where I had permission to hunt so I took a stand along the most likely route.

I waited for two hours … more than enough time to wonder whether I knew anything about deer and their habits. Finally, I begrudgingly worked my way back to my pickup in the yard of the Soukup family farm. I half-heartedly worked at slipping my rifle into its case when I caught some movement on a hill above the creek — a half-mile to the south. My naked eye told me it was a deer and reflected sunlight off an antler indicated it might be a big buck.

Fresh excitement came over me and I decided to walk down the Choteau Creek so I could hide as I advanced. Yes, I checked the firmness of the ice with my first few steps, but my worries were forgotten as I neared the spot where I thought the deer might have been.

I was looking for a place where I could climb onto solid ground when the ice broke. I thought my problems were over for the day as I finally crawled out of the cold water and prepared to rise up and hustle, as quickly as frozen legs would allow, toward the pickup.

That’s when the deer charged. I grabbed for my rifle when I realized he was going to run over the top of me. Much of the rifle was covered with snow. Would snow in the barrel cause the gun to rupture if I fired it? It’s funny how many questions enter your mind when you’re in a hurry.

I raised the rifle and held it at arm’s length with my right hand while supporting myself with my left elbow. The buck was close enough to detect his bad breath when I squeezed the trigger and a four-pointer tumbled, literally, at my feet. Soaked as I was, a warm feeling swept through my body. At the farmhouse, dry clothes and a warmed-over Thanksgiving dinner offered still more relief.

Was the buck the same one I had seen earlier? I don’t know. I didn’t retrace his steps. Did he see me lying in the snow? Was he going to intentionally run over the top of me? I don’t know that, either. I’m guessing he just happened to be running full-out. Perhaps he felt like running after being huddled down so long in the storm. Deer are like kids in that respect.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the Nov/Dec 1991 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

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Big Shots

South Dakota’s ring-necked pheasant population has lured out-of-state hunters for years. You may even know the names of some of them — Clark Gable, Carole Lombard, Kirby Puckett, and Dick Cheney have all taken aim here. These celebrity hunting trips were short, but the South Dakotans who hosted and guided them will never forget the experience.

E. Boyen Beckel remembered Ward Bond, the star of 1950s television show Wagon Train, visiting Madison in the 1940s.”I had the privilege of guiding Bond on one of his trips, and despite my young age, partied with Bond and his group at the hotel by the depot on Egan Avenue. Bond knew how to hunt, but even more, how to party.”

We checked the South Dakota Magazine archives and found the following tales of fame and pheasants.

Oh Sure — And I’m Babe Ruth

By Merland Howe


The thirties were a decade of dust, blizzards and poverty. But there was relief from grim times at the Center Store, located in northern McCook County, especially during pheasant season. Locals and out-of-staters gathered for gas, soda, ice cream and shotgun shells.

Everybody knew Bob Feller, who pitched for the Cleveland Indians. He hunted every fall between Center and Howard with his uncle, who delivered gas and oil to the store. But nobody recognized the stocky, middle-aged hunter who strolled in one day.

Kenny Knutson was there when the stranger appeared. He’d stopped on his way home from a baseball game in Salem, still wearing his uniform.”I see you’re a ball player,” the visitor said.”I used to play a little ball myself.”

“Yeah, when?” Kenny asked, looking at the old hunter with doubtful eyes.

“It was a few years back. Maybe you’ve heard of me. I’m Ty Cobb.”

“Oh, sure,” Kenny replied,”and I’m Babe Ruth.”

Cobb, who had retired in 1928 after 24 seasons with the Detroit Tigers and the Philadelphia Athletics, and who in 1936 came in first in the first ballot for the National Baseball Hall of Fame, didn’t say another word. He just pulled out his hunting license and presented it to the gape-mouthed Kenny.


Hemingway’s Lake County Hunt

Adapted from the Sept/Oct 2006 story by Ardyce Habeger Samp, Eugene W. Larsen, Sr. and Roger Holtzmann

For author Ernest Hemingway, hunting was a celebration — of life and death and his own manhood. But he didn’t want to let everyone in on the party when he came to the Girton Lodge near Wentworth to hunt pheasants in 1936.

Lodge owner Bill Girton and Ole Hagen, the Lake County game warden, had hoped to promote hunting in Lake County by inviting celebrities to visit during pheasant season. Hemingway accepted,”but the plan to use his visit as a tourism promotion fell flat,” said Eugene W. Larsen, Sr., author of Hemingway in South Dakota.”Hemingway insisted on complete privacy, with absolutely no press coverage.” The Wentworth residents Hemingway met complied with his wishes.”It was a real hush-hush situation at the time,” recalled Helen Pringle, the widow of Warden Hagen.

A few locals got to know the famous author on his ten-day visit. Eugene Larson was nine when he and his father, farmer and Girton Lodge guide Alfred Peter Larson, met Hemingway’s entourage at the Wentworth depot. Hemingway’s baggage included a box of bear meat that he promised to share with the party, though no one really appreciated the gesture. He loved it; the rest thought it was stringy and greasy. Hemingway also brought along a supply of Havana cigars, which he handed to Larsen with instructions to take care of them.”A black man put the luggage into our car, and Hemingway told Dad the man was his chauffeur,” said Larsen.”I didn’t know what that meant, but I found out the man intended to drive our car.”

Hemingway’s personal chef was also present, but he wasn’t ready to cook for such a large party, so Larsen’s mother was pressed into service for the first evening’s meal. With 13 children of her own, Mary Larsen was used a crowd around the table. She provided fried chicken and apple pie, and Hemingway provided the entertainment: he regaled his fellow diners with the tale of how he killed two grizzly bears before coming to South Dakota.

“Hemingway was always the center of attention,” remembered Gene’s older brother, Carl.”He loved it.”

The hunting was good in 1936 — an estimated 1.75 million ring-necked pheasants were taken that year. Lake County was abundantly favored with birds, with the Girton property’s drainage ditch being an especially promising hunting spot. This ditch and the adjoining farm lands were reserved for Hemingway’s group during his stay, though not everyone got the message.”One day the lodge hunters, including my father, were stalking a corn field,” says Gene Larsen.”Unbeknownst to them, a group of hunters was trespassing the field, walking crosswise to them. One of these illegal hunters heard rustling and shot toward the Hemingway group. Pellets came flying through the air! My dad had his gun up and at least a dozen pellets hit his gun and stuck in the wooden stock. Some of the shot hit Hemingway’s hunting vest. He let out a string of expletives. After hearing the screaming and swearing, the unseen violators quickly disappeared. I still have Dad’s gun and the pellet marks are quite visible.”

Hemingway’s trip looked like a vacation, but looks can be deceiving.”He said he had just ‘put his Morgan novel to bed’ in Wyoming, and that he’d handwritten 50,000 words…working like a bastard,” said Larsen. (The novel was later published as To Have and To Have Not.) Even though he wasn’t busy with any particular project in South Dakota, Hemingway never stopped accumulating the images and ideas that were his stock in trade. He took an interest in every detail of the prairie environment,”land contour, flowers, plants…things most people take for granted,” said Larsen. After evening meals he would sit in a corner and scribble notes on this he wanted to remember.”

But all vacations must end, and Hemingway’s prairie idyll was no exception. One evening the Larsen boys came home from school, and Hemingway was gone. He left Alfred Larsen $19, a small fortune in those days, and a hunting jacket that became a treasured family keepsake.

Editor’s Note: These stories are revised from the July/August 2003 and Sept/Oct 2006 issues of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.