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From Ashes to Art

By Bernie Hunhoff

Randall Blaze lost his home and art studio to fire, but the Pine Ridge Reservation sculptor is rising from the ashes.

Pine Ridge artist Randall Blaze hurried home from a grocery trip to Rapid City on an April evening in 2020 because he was eager to watch a TV documentary on Ernest Hemingway. Blaze lit a candle and set it on the arm of an upholstered chair. The next thing he knew, the chair was a ball of fire and within minutes the entire house was burning.

Flames were surely visible for many miles around because Blaze’s property sits atop Cuny Table, a mesa on the southern edge of the Badlands. However, nobody was watching. Nobody came to his rescue. The nearest fire truck was an hour away in any direction, and within minutes the entire studio was afire.

In the morning, Blaze surveyed the smoldering rubble. Sculpture tools, brushes, bronze artworks, furniture and business records were all lost. Though the fire didn’t spread across the grassy prairie, it did blacken a cottonwood tree that provided shade to the west side of the house. It was the lone tree on his 100 acres.

Cuny Table was settled by the Cunys, who arrived from Wyoming in 1880. Several of the young men married Native women; 50 years later, more than 100 families called it home. Many were Charles Cuny’s descendants. They had a school, church, dance hall and a few stores.

However, most were forced to leave in 1942 when the U.S. Army appropriated 340,000 acres in the Badlands for a bombing range. Families were given two weeks to pack up and go. Many of the young men joined the military.

Cuny Table and the entire region continued to be a practice range for the U.S. Air Force until 1958, and then was used by the South Dakota Air National Guard until 1974 when tribal leaders began to negotiate with the government for a return of the confiscated property.

Though Blaze was born and raised in Montana, his mother was a Cuny.”It turned out that Mom owned 17-and-a-half acres of trust land,” he says.”She and her family were moved out for the bombing range, and nobody came back. Every time a relative died, the executor of the estate would urge us all to sell, but I always objected.”

Myriad art faces are embedded around Blaze’s land on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Blaze joined the Navy and served on a refrigerated cargo ship during the Vietnam War.”One of the nicest things that ever happened to me was the GI bill, which gave me a month of education for every month I served.” He studied art at the University of Montana and was fascinated to learn about a variety of materials from Rudy Autio, a renowned ceramics professor and artist whose work garnered international acclaim.

Early in his career, Blaze devoted his creative energies to making jewelry, but he grew disillusioned by his customers’ lack of appreciation for the art form.”All they saw was a product, and it became all about the money.” Like Autio, he began to experiment with various materials, including bronze, metal and ceramics.

He also began to explore his Lakota roots at Cuny Table and started to buy his relatives’ small holdings; over the course of several years, he acquired 100 acres. Inspired by the solitude and the natural environment, he dreamed of building a studio and home there in the early 1990s, though he didn’t have the resources. Then came a visitor.

“One day my friend Rich Red Owl stopped over and said, ‘I hear you need a studio.’ I told him that I wished I could build one, but I didn’t have the money,” Blaze said, recalling the conversation.

“Do you have $1,500?” Red Owl asked.

“I have about that much,” Blaze said.

“Then let’s get started,” said Red Owl.

Blaze got a lesson in Indian-genuity. Red Owl showed him how to salvage and scavenge for inexpensive building materials, and before long he was moving into a 3,000-square-foot home that became known as the Oglala Art Center.

His career began to grow. He won fellowships at the Smithsonian and the Heard Museum in Phoenix, and his bronzes were featured at exhibitions in Japan, Germany and Australia. He authored a book, Heartdreams and Legends, on the contributions of indigenous artists of the United States and Australia. Seven Council Fires, a nonprofit that exhibits Native arts and crafts, marketed his sculptures worldwide.

Though he traveled the world, Blaze found that he was happiest when creating art at his humble studio. He rented most of his land to neighboring farmers but maintained a buffer of wild grass between his home and the crops.”After seeing what Agent Orange did to some of my friends in Vietnam, I just wanted some space between me and the chemical sprays,” he explains.

When a neighbor’s cattle trampled his yard and damaged some tipis that he had created as mini studios, he started a fence of driftwood to keep out the cows. Soon he assimilated art into the fence. Often, his pieces show faces of figures, perhaps in a spiritual search. Maybe they represent relatives who were driven from Cuny Table generations ago, or ancestors who were killed at Wounded Knee, which is just 20 miles to the east.

Blaze has gained attention in his home state over the past 20 years as a popular participant in the state arts council’s Artists in the Schools program.”I love working with the kids,” he says.”I am always amazed at what they can do.” He often incorporates his trademark faces into his teaching, and sometimes he takes samples of the students’ works back to Cuny Table and finds a place for them in his fence and wild garden.

When the original studio burned in 2020, he wasn’t sure, at the age of 71, that he had the energy or resources to rebuild. His friend Red Owl is now too elderly to help. But other support has arrived. Someone gave him a camper trailer. He salvaged what he could from the old house and became a regular shopper at Habitat for Humanity’s ReStore in Rapid City.

Blaze built a driftwood fence around his Cuny Table home to keep cattle away from the studio. The fence has become part of the art.

“That place is wonderful. But I was paying whatever they asked for windows and doors until my grandson suggested to me that I could dicker with them,” he grinned.”Guess what I paid for this window? It had been there for months, and I told them it wasn’t selling very fast. I got it for $95.”

In 2023 he was awarded a $5,000 fellowship from the South Dakota Arts Council to help fund the next studio. His adult grandchildren came from Utah to help install windows and start a deck.

He recognizes that his style of architecture and the isolation of living on Cuny Table are acquired tastes. He was married and he’s had several lady friends,”but not a lot of women want to live out here where a toilet is a luxury.” Winters are long, even for the solitary artist; he spent the last few at St. Petersburg, Florida, because he hasn’t yet restored electrical service or plumbing.

“You can get stuck out here for six weeks or more in winter,” he says.”The wind blows all the time, and when it snows it can be incredibly beautiful, like waves on the ocean. St. Petersburg has art galleries and studios and people everywhere, but I get lonely there and by spring I’m happy to get back here.”

He likes being visited by badgers, coyotes, bobcats and deer. A sense of quiet permeates the outdoors; he can hear Canada geese approaching in the sky long before he can see them.

While winterizing the studio in preparation for his trip south, he saw that the cottonwood tree that burned in the 2020 fire had sprouted leaves on its bottom branches.”I thought that was dead after the fire,” he said.

The same might have been said about his studio. Though its reincarnation is primitive by Florida standards ó by just about any standards ó it fits nicely on Cuny Table.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2024 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Nestled in the Badlands

By Chad Coppess

The lights of Interior twinkle against the Badlands wall.

There once was a town called Black on the White River. Black was the name of an area pioneer family when the post office was established in the 1880s. After several floods and a fire that burned much of the town, it was reestablished a mile or two north where the Chicago, Milwaukee and St. Paul Railroad tracks were built in 1907. Postmasters Louis and George Johnson had recently received a letter from the Department of the Interior, which went hand-in-hand with the community’s new location in the”interior” of the Badlands and the town of Interior was born.

The little town’s remoteness has presented challenges. Jerry Johnston, owner of the Wagon Wheel Bar on Main Street, remembers when a dorm next to the school housed some of his classmates from area towns too small to have a high school and from area ranches too remote for daily travel. He also recalls a business called the Peace Pipe, which was a hangout for kids. A jukebox, pinball machines, comic books, burgers and ice cream were offered.”As soon as school was over that was our social grounds,” Johnston says. The owners had the only television in town and let the kids watch it in their home as long as they sat quietly on the floor.

Ansel Wooden Knife operated a cafe famous for authentic Indian tacos in Interior before the fry bread he made overtook the business. So many people asked for it that he began packaging and selling Wooden Knife Fry Bread Mix throughout the region and closed the cafe. He now offers frozen fry bread as well.

Until recently the highway signs at opposite ends of town disagreed about Interior’s population.”They said something like 97 on one end of town and 64 on the other, so it depended on whether you were coming or going,” laughs Johnston. Both signs now read 94.

***

Badlands B&B

Phil and Amy Kruse at the Circle View Guest Ranch.

Before even hearing the term, Phil Kruse had an agritourism bed and breakfast in mind. The third-generation rancher began building his dream lodge on the family place a few miles west of Interior in 1996 with help from his father and family. Circle View Guest Ranch opened in 2000 with eight rooms and a spectacular view of the White River and the Badlands wall.

Four years later his wife Amy came to Badlands National Park with plans of a career in the National Park Service. Instead, she met Phil and,”the B&B became my baby,” she says. Actual babies followed. Their kids are now 14, 12, and 11 and help around the ranch.

A steady stream of visitors enjoys the ranch each summer.”People love seeing the chickens, cattle and burros,” Amy says.”They just eat it up.”

“We do get people who are plum scared after they drive out here, though,” Phil adds.”They ask, ‘How do you live here?’ Covid actually boosted our business. It’s easy to isolate here because that’s what we do.”

Cheaper than Disney

Sue Leach

Located within sight of Badlands National Park, Interior’s economy naturally depends on the visitor industry. Sue Leach, owner of the Cowboy Corner convenience store and cafe for 14 years, says people are traveling differently in the last two years than previously.”As long as you have internet service, they are happy to be outdoors,” Leach says. Her Friday and Saturday night steak specials are well-known around the area, and she expects another good summer season in the Badlands.”We are a lot cheaper than Disney World,” she laughs.

An Eye on Interior

Elsie Fortune

Elsie Fortune grew up on her family’s ranch south of Interior and went to college on a rodeo scholarship. Photography caught her eye and she worked for a wedding photographer, leading to one of Interior’s newer businesses. Now around 90 percent of Fortune’s wedding and portrait customers are friends from the area. That’s just one of many hats she wears. She still helps on the family ranch and is a brand inspector and veterinarian’s assistant at the Philip Sale Barn. Fortune was the 2012 South Dakota High School Rodeo Queen and won the state breakaway roping title that year.

Badlands Guides

Jordan and Casie Donald

Casie Donald’s Hurley Butte Horseback riding adventure business weathered the pandemic fairly well.”In 2020 we didn’t know how it was going to go, but we are at least six feet apart anyway,” she says.”Overall, our business wasn’t hurt at all.”

Donald’s father started the horseback riding business when he offered his teenage children as guides for interested guests at the nearby Circle View Guest Ranch.”We weren’t excited at first, but when our first customer handed us tips, we decided there might be something to it,” laughs Casie. She and husband Jordan now have a full-time gig leading four or five riders at a time across the prairie in addition to ranching.

World champion cowboys frequent Interior’s Wagon Wheel.

See a World Champ

Rodeo has always been important in Interior. In the 1920s Interior hosted the third largest rodeo in the world, Johnston says. Old newspaper accounts and photos hang on the wall in the community center next to the fire hall. The Interior Roundup was so popular that trainloads of tourists would come from Chicago and camp in town. One story describes 100 Native Americans charging through the campsite on horseback, firing guns in the air and leaving stunned visitors in their wake. Pow wow dancing, buffalo and beef feeds, a parade and rodeo events filled out the three-day extravaganzas.

Cowboys still frequent Interior.”Some nights there will be two or three world champion cowboys in here,” Johnston says of the Wagon Wheel.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 2022 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117

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A Spirited Place

By Chad Coppess

Mysterious sights and sounds have long perplexed the people of the Badlands.

The Lakota people called the rugged landscape of southwestern South Dakota mako sica, or”bad lands,” because rocky terrain, lack of water and extreme temperatures made it difficult to traverse and nearly impossible to inhabit. But it has become fertile ground for ghost stories.

A new board game called Horrified: American Monsters includes a character named the Banshee of the Badlands, which made us wonder: Is there such a creature? And what exactly is it? Our quest to track down the legend and its origins led us to other mysterious stories and encounters from this rough country.

The earliest written records of a Badlands Banshee come from Myths and Legends of Our Own Land published by Charles Skinner in 1896. Jason Offutt’s 2019 book Chasing American Monsters also includes the banshee along with other South Dakota tales like the Lake Kampeska Monster and the tiny devils of Spirit Mound.

Mateusz Wosik, a paleontologist at Misericordia University in Dallas, Pennsylvania, spent two summers as a park ranger in Badlands National Park. He used the banshee as the basis of an evening program for visitors in 2012 and 2013.

“I’m sure I scared the bejeezus out of little kids,” Wosik says.”It was a very popular program with the amphitheater full most Friday nights. There was definitely a big interest.”

Wosik approached the myths, legends and ghost stories with an explanation of how such tales get started. He believes many legends are a misinterpretation of fossils. For instance, the first discoverers of an ancient mammoth skull could mistake the hole in its center, which accommodated its trunk, as an eye socket.”So that’s where the legend of the one-eyed cyclops began,” he says. It’s also within reason, he suggests, to discover fossil remains of a real dinosaur but exaggerate them into a dragon.

The Badlands contain one of the largest deposits of fossilized prehistoric mammals in the world. Dinosaurs there became extinct around 30 million to 65 million years ago, Wosik says. Around 40 million years ago, what he calls”version 2.0″ of mammals began, creating animals much closer to what we know now.”Before that they were very weird,” he says.

One of the early mammals was the titanothere, or brontothere, a large animal similar to a modern rhinoceros that lived in the Badlands and contributed to the region’s legends. South Dakota’s Native American tribes have different stories about”thunder beasts.” The combination of fossil brontotheres and modern bison most likely blended into these”thunder beings.”

Mateusz Wosik often incorporated the Badlands Banshee in talks while working as a ranger at the national park.

As Wosik interviewed Badlands-area inhabitants for origin stories, he found that the tales vary slightly from person to person, but there was a connection between”thunder beings” and”water monsters.” A basic story tells of a father warning his son not to wander off, which of course the son ignored. A storm blew in with rain and lightning, a great battle between”thunder beings” and”water monsters.” Fossil remains of pterodactyls are the thunder beings that threw lightning bolts to the earth, which we find as fossil baculites, long pointy-shelled creatures. The water monsters would be what we now know as mosasaurs, whose fossilized skeletons have been found throughout South Dakota. They defended the earth in these great battles by throwing large boulders into the sky. The battles still create the immense noise we hear during thunderstorms. At the end of the tale the father found the boy sitting on the bones of a prehistoric water beast, one of the mosasaurs.

The folklore story of the Banshee of the Badlands came after these legends but doesn’t seem to have roots in Native American mythology. Wosik hasn’t determined if the tale is just a product of Skinner’s imagination or is based on stories he heard while in the area.

Skinner portrayed the Badlands as”hell with the fires out,” inhabited by rattlesnakes and a very unfriendly sounding place. Near a butte called”Watch Dog,” which Wosik has been unable to identify, the banshee appears to unlucky travelers. The shrieking transparent figure of a woman is common in ghost tales.”Think of the first ghost in the library at the beginning of Ghostbusters,” Wosik says.”Or the character in the video game Mortal Combat.”

Skinner described a typical encounter with the Badlands Banshee.”If war parties, emigrants, cowboys, hunters, any who for good or ill are going through this country, pass the haunted butte at night, the rocks are lighted with phosphor flashes and the banshee sweeps upon them,” he wrote.”As if wishing to speak, or as if waiting a question that has occurred to none to ask, she stands beside them in an attitude of appeal, but if asked what she wants she flings her arms aloft and with a shriek that echoes through the blasted gulches for a mile she disappears and an instant later is seen wringing her hands on her hilltop.”

“It’s like she’s wanting something, but not knowing what she wants,” Wosik explains.”It feels like a haunting, but she’s only wanting to communicate.”

Adding to the creepiness, the banshee sometimes has a companion skeleton who seeks out music. Attracted to the melodies around cowboy campfires and settlers’ cabins, the skeleton seizes any violin left in his reach and plays throughout the night. His music at times leads people into”rocky pitfalls” and eventually steals the listener’s soul.

Wosik’s interviews with Native American people from the area concluded that the skeleton must be the banshee’s loved one.”The banshee and the skeleton seem to be stuck in curses where they can’t communicate,” he says.”Maybe he’s trying to steal a soul to give her.”

Wosik enjoys incorporating established fossil knowledge into folklore.”I suspect there is a basis in the banshee tale from something like the bison and titanothere connection to ‘thunder beings.’ With the banshee there is no fossil evidence, but if we apply the other stories, it makes sense. Most of these legends are based on something real, quite often fossils misinterpreted.”

The Badlands Banshee has appeared in books and games.

How did an obscure legend turn up in a board game? Mike Mulvihill of Seattle, Washington, is responsible for the design and development of Horrified: American Monsters.”We knew that we wanted to highlight the monsters of the entire country,” Mulvihill says.”For source material we chose the book Chasing American Monsters by Jason Offutt. In looking at our map we felt we needed something in the Great Plains. When we read about the banshee, its concept was so intriguing from both an image and gameplay aspect. As we discovered more about the banshee’s background, we found out about the skeleton that accompanies her. This image of a violin-playing skeleton and the banshee is what really sold us on including the character in the game.”

A children’s version of the Badlands Banshee story is featured at a podcast called”The Cryptid Catalog.”

Badlands rancher Joe Amiotte hasn’t seen the banshee, but he has plenty of unusual stories.”About 25 years ago me and my wife and my cousin were camping by the creek roughly 15 miles south of Interior,” he recalls.”We were sitting around the campfire having a few beers and we decided to make ‘bigfoot’ noises, or at least what we thought sounded like that. We did that for about half an hour and then quit. Not too much later we heard something that wasn’t a mountain lion, not a wolf. It was growling and branches were breaking. Well, it had taken us around 20 minutes or so to set up camp, but it took us exactly five seconds to break camp and get out of there. It was a growl, a deep bark that I’d never heard before. I’ve heard mountain lions scream, I’ve heard wolves howl, it wasn’t that.”

They returned the following day to retrieve camping equipment and saw no signs of anything.

“We’ve had a neighbor who saw something in a human form from the waist up standing about 500 yards from his porch,” Amiotte says.”By the time he drove up it was a mile away, so he didn’t go after it any farther. That was in the middle of the day.”

Aaron Kaye, who serves as Chief of Interpretation for the Badlands National Park, says the area has moods.”If you walk around in the Badlands at night, you’re going to see and hear things. I’ve heard blood-curdling screams. I’m sure they were big cats, but Ö.”

He’s heard stories of the”Badlands yeti.” A local rancher who is now deceased reported multiple sightings of a brown, bear-like creature and finding hair from it.”He was quite convincing,” Kaye says.”For me it was just a campfire story to tell kids. And the story may change a little every time I tell it.”

Kaye also says maintenance employees at the Badlands National Park visitor center once encountered a ghostly woman in a white dress in the building after hours. She hasn’t materialized since a remodel of the center a few years ago.

There appear to be no recent banshee sightings, but other ghosts do seem to inhabit the Badlands.”Every now and then when it’s really clear out by this old homestead place you can hear kids like they are playing in the creek nearby,” Amiotte says.”It’s never scared a horse, but we can never find anything when we ride over there. Sometime in the 1930s or ’40s there was a cholera epidemic. They lost some kids, and they were buried there, so we are pretty sure it is those kids’ spirits. They are friendly though, never doing anything to scare anyone.”

They leave that for the banshee, or the yeti, or any of the other mysterious creatures whose legends live in the Badlands.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the September/October 2023 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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A Photographer’s Playground

I’ve never outgrown my fascination for toys. A few years back a friend asked me to lead a workshop photographing toys. My first reaction was,”Who’s going to sign up for that?” He suggested I do a Google search and it opened a whole new creative doorway and reason for collecting toys. I discovered there are thousands of people around the world creating very fun photographs with toys.

Toys now accompany my camera on just about every trip. These images are some of my favorites from around South Dakota.

Chad Coppess is the photo editor for South Dakota Magazine

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Finding Fall

By Christian Begeman

Fall has arrived in South Dakota, although in some places a few winter blasts have already tried to push autumn out. These same locations that have seen snow are some of my favorite early autumn haunts. The high country of the Black Hills is always a treat in late September. The last week of the month is typically the most colorful time to cruise the backroads and do some leaf peeping.

That said, Badlands National Park lies between my home and the Black Hills, and I cannot resist getting off the interstate to spend time there. This West River spectacle sparkles in early autumn with wildlife active around dawn and dusk. The golden light accentuated by the season’s dry and dusty air makes great photography opportunities.

After staying the night in Wall and driving to Sage Creek Wilderness on a crisp morning with temperatures in the low 40s, a low fog hung in the bottomlands as the first light of day struck the tops of the formations. The resulting scenes were otherworldly. I’m not a morning person, but a view like that will get me up well before sunrise any day.

After saying farewell to the Badlands, I arrived in Custer State Park about four days before the Buffalo Roundup. The trees in the draws were just starting to turn and the mountain bluebirds were flocking along the southern reaches of the park. I spent a good hour watching at least a dozen juveniles and adults prowl a prairie dog town on the hunt for insects. Occasionally two or three would squabble and take flight to show off their airborne acrobatics, the blue wings flashing like azure electricity in the early autumn air. The afternoon was quite warm, which made the insect activity abundant and the small stream where I parked a favorite pit stop.

It was cold again the next morning. Mist and low fog hung over the small lakes. Bismark Lake was particularly beautiful as dawn approached. Just enough frost clung to the small bushes and brush on the back side of the water that each leaf looked sugar coated.

Later in the day, I ventured to the Spearfish Canyon Scenic Byway. It was the middle of the week, but as busy as I’ve ever seen. Wanting a little more solitude, I traveled into the high country to discover some quieter autumn scenes. There is a place where the Tinton Road converges with both Wagon Canyon Road and Schoolhouse Gulch Road that offers an exquisite view of aspen and birch, and I had arrived in peak fall color. Later, as I returned to my cabin near Legion Lake, I saw three white-tailed bucks near the Badger Hole. The largest, a four-by-four, was just starting to gain girth in the shoulders and neck for the upcoming rut. For now, it simply grazed in the tall grass just north of the road and paid me little mind. I wonder if it understands how lucky it is to call this little corner of South Dakota home.

Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midco he is often on the road photographing South Dakota’s prettiest spots. Follow Begeman on his blog.

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Pilgrimage for the Soul

By Lex Talamo

Lex Talamo became immersed in Lakota culture as she spent several years teaching writing to middle schoolers on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

I was 22 when I struck out from my home in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, for the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, teaching license in hand. My assignment seemed simple: teach 80 Lakota middle school students how to love writing, and to write well.

Pine Ridge, among the poorest places in the United States, soon assailed me with unanticipated problems. Many of my students’ home lives were marred by violence, poverty and abuse, which often resulted in unruly classroom behavior. My isolation, two hours from Rapid City, led to many”dark nights of the soul” that threatened to swallow me. I had fallen into a slump of dreading the mornings, the days, the rest of my life, and I didn’t know how to refocus my energy.

One afternoon, the Lakota Studies teacher wheeled his squeaky cart, complete with feathered rod and buffalo skull, into my classroom. His lesson was about the seven sites he said were sacred to the Lakota. “There is still power for our people in those places,” he told the students.”That is why our people still make pilgrimages, to this very day, to reconnect with the Great Spirit and pray for healing.”

I copied the list: Wind Cave, Sylvan Lake, Black Elk Peak, Bear Butte, the Badlands, the Black Hills and Devil’s Tower. I promised myself I would visit them all.

***

I decided that Wind Cave — the origin place of the Buffalo People, according to Lakota legend — would be the perfect place to start. The 115-mile trip would take me about two hours from the village where I taught. I spotted only a handful of cars as I followed Highway 18 west through a land of windswept beauty that left me dazed. Tawny prairie dogs barked and bustled around their colonies and several majestic buffalo grazed nearby as I arrived in Wind Cave National Park.

Bison, the noble beasts at the core of Lakota culture and once on the verge of extinction, still dot the West River landscape.

I signed up for a cave tour, which our guide began by recounting the story of Alvin McDonald, an eccentric teenager who moved with his family to the area in 1890. He had trouble making friends, so he sought sanctuary within the cave’s uncharted depths. Our guide flipped a switch in the large room, plunging the space into absolute darkness.”Think about that,” she said.”Think about exploring this cave, with its sudden drop offs, by yourself, and with only a candle for light.” She flipped the switch again, illuminating the water dripping off cave formations and cratered walls.

McDonald rolled out string as he explored so he could find his way around the cave, she continued. He left little puzzles — strings of letters — along the cave’s walls with the candle’s flame. Our guide showed us sooty markings on the cave ceiling, and then beamed her light into a crevice in the rock wall.”But my favorite story about Alvin involves this room and this passage,” she said.”If you’ll look toward my light, you’ll see a rare and beautiful crystal formation. Alvin knew there was a passage behind this, but to get there, he would have to destroy the crystal. He chose to leave the passage unknown, and the crystal intact, out of his respect for his cave.”

After the tour, I found McDonald’s grave, marked by a bronze plaque, near the natural entrance to Wind Cave. A Native American proverb popped into my mind:”Give thanks for unexpected blessings on their way.” McDonald’s story had sparked something in me, made me feel alive and reminded me that every day could hold unexpected blessings, as long as I showed up.

***

My next pilgrimage took me to Black Elk Peak, the sacred mountain where the Lakota welcomed the Thunder Beings each spring. KILI radio, the single station my car picked up, blared from my stereo as I tore down Highway 44. The road to Sylvan Lake, from which I could access the mountain trailhead, meandered through such tight turns above sheer rock precipices that my palms were sweaty and white. I reminded myself of what Reagan, my teacher friend on the Rosebud Reservation, had written to me once:”The hard stuff is always the good stuff. The hard stuff is what makes the story.”

Prayer flags adorn tree branches near the summit of Black Elk Peak. Photo by Paul Horsted

Halfway around the lake (really a manmade dam), I found a trailhead leading to Black Elk Peak and veered off the paved path. The way was steep and rocky, with giant metal handrails posted in one haphazard section of boulders. Jumping from craggy rock faces to the trail below, I felt like a child. I felt free. Unhindered. The sunlight on my face, which I missed so often due to the long hours I put in at school, invigorated my spirit. The solitude of the trail also strengthened me; I passed only a few people on my ascent.

I reached a point where the dirt path led to a wash of tangled woods; when I retraced my steps, I could not find the trail. I was still lost when the sun set and the temperature dropped. I found a cave-like crawlspace under an outcropping of rock. It was at least 10 degrees warmer inside than out, so I crawled in. I listened to the wind shriek past my sanctuary. I resolved to sleep if I could.

The sun’s rays peeked into my cave at dawn the next morning. I crawled from the space and tried to find the trail. Hours passed. Miles passed. When the sun shone directly overhead, hot and heavy in the sky, I abandoned all efforts to find a path. I picked a direction and ran. I did not stop until I heard the sound of a highway. I burst from the woods and found myself on an endless stretch of asphalt that gave no clue as to my location. No signs. No cars. No people. Then, a red sedan. I stayed by the side of the road, waving my arms above my head in distress. The car sped up and rushed past me.

I had no watch, no phone and I was out of water. I am going to die out here, I thought. Then a white minivan appeared on the horizon, making slow but steady progress down the hill. I prayed there were nice people inside. Then I stepped into the center of the road, waving my arms wildly. This time, the vehicle slowed and stopped.

I knew I must look crazy. My arms were scratched and bleeding from my crazed run through the woods. I had bits of leaf litter and twigs in my hair. I kept my hands loose and visible by my sides as I approached the minivan.

“Hello,” I tried, when the driver’s side window rolled down an inch. My voice came out choked and scratchy. I tried again.”I was hiking and I got lost …” My voice cracked. I took a step back, wanting to show that I was harmless, terrified he or she would leave me.”I was hoping you could point me in the right direction,” I said.”I’ve been wandering for the last 14 hours. I had to spend the night on the mountain.”

The window rolled down to reveal a pale-skinned couple in the upper bounds of middle age.”You poor thing,” the woman said. She sounded British.”You must be frozen. It was 34 degrees last night.”

Arriving at Sylvan Lake proved to be a turning point in Talamo’s pilgrimage.

I waited while the British gentleman searched for Sylvan Lake in his phone’s GPS.”It’s that way,” he said, pointing down the hill. I asked how far. He said,”Thirteen miles.” I started crying. The woman twisted in her seat and started clearing out the back of the minivan.”Get in,” she said.”We’ll give you a ride.”

The man got out of the driver’s seat and opened the door for me. I slipped inside, babbling my thanks.”I promise I’m not a serial killer,” I said. They laughed; the man assured me they were not serial killers, either,”just an old British couple eager to see the great United States of America.”

They seemed at ease with me. They were also chatty. They asked what I did for a living. I told them I worked as a teacher in a reservation school. They showed genuine interest.”How is that?” the man asked.

“It’s hard,” I said. The woman asked how I coped, if I believed in God. I told the woman I did not know.”God is my answer to just about everything,” she said.”I trust that the people He puts in my way will be the ones I am supposed to meet and learn from.”

About 5 miles later, the Silver Bullet came into view.”There!” I shouted, way too loud.”That’s my car!” The man pulled into a parking spot near mine. They refused money when I offered. The man thanked me for”adding some excitement” to their lives. The woman said, softly,”I can’t wait to tell our friends that we picked up a hitchhiker.”

I waved as they drove off and thought, too late, that I had not asked for their names. I turned and looked out over Sylvan Lake.

The pilgrimage’s mission was accomplished. I had never been so glad to be alive.

***

In November, temperatures plunged. I knew I had only a short amount of time left to explore before blizzards, with their shrieking winds and bone-chilling cold, ravaged the state. After Sylvan Lake, I was terrified of getting lost while hiking by myself. But I wanted to continue my journey.

I took my scathed soul to the Badlands. The sky was a wet, watercolor blue, in sharp contrast to the sand-colored rocks and white cliffs I passed on the way into a parking lot by an overlook. The rest of the parking spots were empty.

I chose Notch Trail, the shortest of three trails detailed on a brown sign. The trail led to a breathtaking vista — layers upon layers of striated rock, sharp angles, peaks like steeples stretching out to specks on the horizon. I found a rock crevice that cradled my body perfectly. I sat down. I put my palms flat against the rock. I closed my eyes. I felt the increased pulse of my heart, and through my hands, the heartbeat of the earth. I felt the strength of the land lace up my palms, through my body. When I opened my eyes, the world seemed three shades brighter.

The Badlands hold significance for the Lakota and several other indigenous tribes. Photo by Paul Horsted

“Thank you,” I told the winds, the earth, and whatever might be listening.

I walked back to my car, believing I had completed a successful hike. Then the wind blew, so fiercely that it turned me around toward an exhibit sign that declared,”The Baddest of the Badlands.” I spotted the first trail marker, a stubby yellow pole about a foot high just beyond the sign, and I felt a hunger so sharp and fierce it surprised me. I wanted the challenge. I started forward.

Mushroom-like formations sprouted from a sea of craggy rock. I felt alive, following this trail across the beautiful land of extremes. My walk became a symbolic act of spirit. I was not sure where I was going or how much farther I had to go, but I was willing to take the journey. Going one step at a time, I reached the final yellow marker, identifiable by a corresponding red stripe at the top. Another canyon vista stretched out to the horizon. Below, the rock dropped steeply away, leaving me dizzy from the height.

I stood on the precipice, lost in the savage beauty surrounding me, until the wind buffeted me away from the edge. The sun was sinking, and I beat a reflective retreat to my car. Blown by the wind, now caught under one of my car’s tires was a crumpled Badlands brochure.

While my GPS calculated my route back to the reservation, I flipped through the brochure, with its colorful photographs of narrow-leaf yucca, prairie dogs and black-footed ferrets. My eyes settled on a quote, attributed to author Kathleen Norris:

“The prairie is not forgiving. Anything that is shallow — the easy optimism of the homesteader… the trees whose roots don’t reach ground water — will dry up and blow away.”

The trip left me feeling empowered, eager and unafraid for what might come. That night, safely ensconced in my school-issued housing, I emailed my principal.”I feel very grateful and blessed to have this job,” I wrote.”I would like to stay for a third year as the middle school writing teacher, if you think I am doing a satisfactory job.”

I looked at what I had written, felt a trill of fear in my heart, and hit”Send.”

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 2019 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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The Badlands in Winter

Thousands of visitors pass through Badlands National Park during the summer months, but swing through during winter and you see a different side. Sioux Falls photographer Scott Korsten drove the Badlands Loop Road in early February, a day of constantly changing weather and scenery.”It was a quiet day, and I was nearly alone in the park,” he says.”With its colored layers slightly frosted in snow, every turn in the road provided a new perspective to appreciate. These were just the type of scenes I’d hoped to see and as usual, the park did not disappoint.” Here are a few photos from that day.

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Embracing Darkness

By Christian Begeman

The days of darkness are here. No, that is not an ancient prophecy now come true. Nor is it some scare tactic about the state of the world. It is simply the time of the year when I leave for work in the gloaming and return in the dark. As we head into winter once again and the daylight shortens, one may think that finding good photo opportunities diminishes with the light, but that is not entirely true.

I first notice the shortened days in early autumn. My custom is to take a fall colors trip West River and I’m always a bit surprised how soon the sun sets in the first days of October compared to the usual long days of summer when I typically visit places like Custer State Park and the Badlands. This year I wasn’t ready to quit making photographs when the sun set, so I set out to try something new. I tried to find interesting roads with curves in the respective parks and then set up my tripod for long exposures and waited for the day to dim.

My interest in night photography has always been strong. The problem is that as I get older, the more I loathe giving up sleep. Last summer, something happened in the northern sky that renewed my willingness to overcome the loss of sleep and make images in the small hours of the night. Comet NeoWise graced the sky for a few short weeks in July. With that celestial object, my night photography interest was renewed. Fast forward to late February 2021 and you would have found me taking long exposure sequences of Sioux Falls city scenes to make short time-lapse videos for Midco Sports coverage of the NSIC and Summit League basketball tournaments. A long exposure (anything longer than a couple seconds) at night allows you to capture moving cars with the headlights as streaks of light.

I wanted to try this same concept in the parks this fall. The goal was to find interesting stretches of road with passing cars and shoot them at dusk to create unique images. It was a learning experience, as I discovered that a strong night breeze plays havoc with a long lens even when it is on a tripod. If you look closely at the image of the Big Foot Pass road at Badlands National Park, you’ll notice the taillight lines are not smooth. Wind on my lens caused this, not crazy driving. I also tried this technique along Needles Highway and Spearfish Canyon National Byway. My favorite image is from the canyon. A small white tour bus came by, and with its lights positioned higher, gave an added vertical element to the streaks.

One last note about shooting night scenes in winter. With the air turning colder, the normal humidity and dust particles in the air are reduced, so the stars are seen more clearly. Add in the fact that the solar cycle is turning active again and there are new possibilities for glimpsing (and photographing) the elusive northern lights while gazing out and up into the night.

Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midco he is often on the road photographing South Dakota’s prettiest spots. Follow Begeman on his blog.

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Autumn in the High Country

By Christian Begeman

Autumn always comes early to the high country. While late summer lingers across the rest of the land, the high coulees and upper draws seem to consistently show the first real signs of the season. The last week of September is normally the peak of fall color in places like Spearfish Canyon, the Slim Buttes and even Sica Hollow in the northeast corner of the state. For this reason, I regularly find myself wandering the back roads and trails of the high country every year about this time. It’s not that I welcome the end of summer, but it’s hard not to love autumn around here.

The beauty is fleeting, admittedly. When the weather patterns switch in this season of change, it brings strong winds that rob the trees of their dying leaves. That’s a lesson unto itself. There is beauty in endings. Sad though it is, it helps that there is promise of new life returning after the long winter.

This year I started around Sica Hollow during the golden hour on September 26. I was a bit early for fall color peak, but the color that was showing in the late afternoon and evening light seemed to accent the autumn beginnings quite wonderfully. A couple of days later I hit Badlands National Park, where the upper draws of Sage Creek were brilliant. One thing I learned is that yellow-leaved trees make for interesting visuals in a black and white image. They look nearly white.

After spending a day and half wandering around the Badlands, I made my way for Custer State Park. Needles Highway offers unique autumn color combined with winding roads and sweeping vistas. The fall foliage along the park’s creeks also offers colorful hues. From Custer State Park, I headed to the high country of Lawrence County by way of the Mystic and Rochford roads, finally ending up in Spearfish Canyon by late afternoon. This scenic byway is a must-drive in autumn. One extra perk this year was a small herd of mountain goats grazing near Bridal Veil Falls.

I finished up my tour of the high country in the first days of October by traveling north to the Slim Buttes and Cave Hills of Harding County. These areas are part of the Custer National Forest primarily for their stands of evergreens atop the buttes and hills, but they both offer great stands of deciduous trees along the draws and valleys. These places have become an autumn favorite for me. This year I missed the peak at the Slim Buttes as the color was nearly gone when I passed through, but the Cave Hills were nearly perfect. It goes to show just how fleeting fall’s beauty can be here on the high plains, even within a single county. Even so, the drive and views were worth every minute. The good news is that now the rest of the lower country as well as city and towns should be starting their autumn transformations. So, if you couldn’t make it to the high country, you still have a chance to get out and enjoy the rest of the season.

Christian Begeman grew up in Isabel and now lives in Sioux Falls. When he’s not working at Midco he is often on the road photographing South Dakota’s prettiest spots. Follow Begeman on his blog.

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Bombs Over the Badlands

By Paul Higbee

Once in a while, in or near the Badlands, a hiker will chance upon a gleaming, fully exposed, big caliber shell casing on the white hardpan ground. Sometimes the discoverer guesses it to be a remnant of the frontier wars, maybe from a great Gatling gun.

In fact, it’s a remnant of 20th century military exercises. More than 300,000 acres in southwestern South Dakota were designated by the federal government as a gunnery and bombing range, active from the 1940s into the 1970s.”The Badlands were littered with .30 caliber and .50 caliber shell casings,” says historian Phil Hall, author of Reflections of the Badlands.”And I’ve found some unexploded shells.”

He’s also come across scattered pieces of tin that, brought together, form the shape of World War II era bombs, a couple feet long with fins.

“Dummy bombs,” Hall says.”They looked and flew like real bombs, and they were filled with sand so they had the weight of real bombs.” It was possible, he adds, for dummy bombs to incur real damage, like one that slammed through a church roof in Interior.

Much of this debris was cleared away in recent years, but not all. What remains is easier to find than first-hand accounts of gunnery and bombing action during World War II. The range was cleared of people and livestock in 1942, although some ranchers didn’t hesitate to briefly sneak cattle back when grass conditions were good. There were no reports of civilian ground deaths, and only rumors of animal fatalities.

With a world war looking likely in the late 1930s, South Dakota’s congressional delegation pushed for developing an Army air base within the state. Preliminary plans took form in 1941, and moved into implementation phase after Japanese bombers hit Hawaii that December. By the fall of 1942, Army Air Corps pilots were flying B-17 bombers out of spanking new Rapid City Army Air Base — today’s Ellsworth Air Force Base. Much touted empty land immediately to the southeast helped South Dakota win the base and bomber mission, because airmen-in-training could pelt the rugged terrain with bombs and smaller ammunition.

Only the land wasn’t empty. The Rapid City Daily Journal in 1942 assured readers the range sat south of Badlands National Monument so that tourist travel wouldn’t be impacted. A curious reader could glance at a map and see south of the national monument meant the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. More than 100 families across the reservation’s north side lost homes and ag land when the federal government declared eminent domain.

“My grandfather had an allotment from the time the reservation was started, and in 1942 he and my grandmother had six kids and had just built a new house,” says Clifford Whiting of Kyle.”He had about 400 acres and was given 15 days to get out, and got very little money for the land.”

Unless they were able to enlist, many of those forced out had great difficulty finding work. In the case of Whiting’s grandparents, who had created a sophisticated irrigation system and spring cellar, the reservation lost a key dairy supplier.

None of which, of course, diminished the courage and commitment airmen demonstrated in the skies over the Badlands and reservation. They learned the functions of big four-motor B-17s, manned by crews of 10. Additionally pilots, typically 21 or 22 years old, were expected to develop qualities so they could effectively lead their crews into combat. Full crews included a pilot and copilot, navigator, radioman, engineer, bombardier and gunners. All jobs were tough to master; failing and”washing out” was a universal worry. What’s more, crew members learned as much as they could about one another’s jobs so they could step in when in-flight emergencies struck. Crews who demonstrated top proficiency departed Rapid City for eventual combat stations around the world, including England to become part of the Eighth Air Force as it destroyed the German oil industry and supported the Normandy invasion. Late in the war B-29 bomber crews also trained in Rapid City.

The public always grasped what bombardiers did but sometimes forgot that B-17s and other bombers were also armed with machine guns. Quality machine gunners were essential, and the Army was surprised by how difficult it was to train them. Even country boys who bragged they could dispatch a rabbit at 300 yards found aircraft gunnery — firing at aerial or ground targets from a moving plane — a whole different challenge. Lots of .50 caliber machine gun bullets were spent fixing the deficiency. Hall thinks flaring tracer bullets that accompanied volleys of machine gun fire largely accounted for grassfires that occasionally ignited during maneuvers. Sometimes incidents happened far off the designated range, in surrounding counties and on the Rosebud Reservation. Crews found the vast prairies a navigational challenge.

Whether it was a bomb that wasn’t a dummy, or a tracer bullet, something from a plane triggered a fire half a mile from Sand Hill School east of Wanblee, recalls Joe Stratton. He was a student there, 12 or 13 years old, and he heard no explosion.”It was a grass fire,” he remembers,”but it was early spring or late winter and it didn’t amount to much.” Another time an entire plane dropped from the sky near Wanblee, making a safe landing after an apparent malfunction. Stratton says it was able to fly away off frozen ground after mechanics arrived to make repairs.

Airborne, the B-17 was an impressive sight.”Some of them were quite low, maybe 500 feet or lower,” Stratton says. Future U.S. Senator Jim Abourezk recalled the novelty of seeing a bomber fly over his hometown of Wood when he was a boy. In December of 1943, a B-17 crashed at Soldier Creek west of Mission, killing the crew.”I was awed by the stories of the kids from Mission who had hurried out to pick up pieces of the airplane as souvenirs,” Abourezk wrote in his autobiography. That set up a dilemma for him. He found himself hoping for a bomber crash near Wood, but couldn’t imagine how it could happen”without killing one of our service men.”

Or many more than one. A B-17 accident never rocked Wood, but planes did crash at Rapid City, Kadoka, Soldier Creek and other South Dakota locations, typically resulting in the deaths of all 10 airmen aboard.

After the war ended, the bombing land wasn’t offered to those who previously owned it. The matter of cleanup had to be considered, the federal government said. In the 1960s the South Dakota National Guard gained permission to train there. That was the era, Hall believes, when the use of live ordnance peaked, more so than during World War II. By the 1970s something else explosive played out across Pine Ridge. As more and more residents embraced the idea of tribal sovereignty, questions were raised. What were the feds thinking, repurposing reservation land after the national emergency that justified eminent domain passed? How was it the federal government’s prerogative to invite the state National Guard in, and to eventually transfer part of the bombing range to the Interior Department for creating the Badlands National Park’s south unit? Memories of the government’s assertive presence decades ago still colors discussions about land use today, with issues ranging from grazing leases to a proposed tribal national park.

Eventually some families, including Clifford Whiting’s, were able to repurchase land — at much higher prices than what their parents and grandparents received in 1942, of course.

Ansel Wooden Knife, who ran a cafe at Interior for many years, became a go-to guy for stories about the bombing range. He recalled his mother-in-law’s description of shells hitting her house along Highway 44 during World War II. Wooden Knife found artifacts, sought out abandoned installations and could guide curious people to historically significant sites. A lonely site some consider the epicenter of bombing range history sits north and west of Potato Creek. A hilltop is ringed with 80 or 100 old cars, forming a circle a couple hundred feet across. It was an aerial target.

Wooden Knife directed photographer Mike Heintz to the cars several years ago. Heintz recalls”driving and driving across probably 15 or 16 miles of raw prairie. When I got there it was windy so the grass was lying down, and the cars were creaking.”

Heintz thought of the spot as an isolated, metallic memorial to airmen who once passed overhead. It’s appropriate that there’s somewhat of a mystery to this eerie place. Some histories and press reports say the cars were hauled here for National Guard exercises in the 1960s, but most local people interviewed for this article believe the big target dates back to World War II. Car bodies from the 1930s are dominant, but Heintz photographed at least one post-war model. Is it possible an original group of cars took hits from World War II airmen, and that the site was expanded with more cars brought in years later?

Either way, Wooden Knife thinks, this place that feels like a memorial should be considered an actual one.”I think everything should be preserved,” he says.”They’re reminders that there’s a price for freedom.”

During both World War II and the Cold War, South Dakotans enlisted at high rates. That was especially true for the Lakota people. And even on the home front, their loved ones experienced the sights and sounds of warfare, literally in their back yards.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2016 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.