Tag: glacial lakes region

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Dancing with Grebes

Story and photos by Donna Caplinger

Western grebes appear to walk on water during the rush, perhaps the most distinctive element of their spring mating ritual.

My love affair with grebes began when I was a high school biology teacher. During a lesson about birds, I showed my class a movie by Sir David Attenborough, the British broadcaster and wildlife biologist. I was amazed by the beauty and gracefulness of the grebes, with their long slender necks and pointed bills. Their courtship ritual was intricate and complex, unlike any other in the animal kingdom. They repeated each other’s every movement. If there were ever birds that demonstrated love, these grebes put the stereotypical doves to shame.

There are two displays, each including a specific set of steps performed with precision. The first is the rushing ceremony, which begins with advertising as the birds deliver a rolling call. Then comes ratchet-pointing, where they lower themselves into the water and their call becomes more ratchet-like. The next component is dip-shaking, which accurately describes the behavior of dipping their heads underwater and then shaking them from side to side after they resurface. Finally comes the rush, when the grebes run side by side across the surface of the water, necks back and wings up. They are the largest vertebrates on Earth with the ability to walk on water, covering up to 66 feet in 7 seconds through a combination of speed (20 steps per second), splayed feet to help gain traction and an unusual stride.
The weed dance occurs during the mating season. Two grebes arch their backs, stretch their necks and share weeds that they will use to build a nest.

The second display is the weed ceremony. It is equally complex and happens later in the mating season. But it was the rushing that fascinated me. As a part-time wildlife photographer, when I saw the ritual culminate into this beautiful dance across the water, I told myself that someday I would find grebes in the spring and photograph them.

When I retired from teaching, I started going down my bucket list of things I wanted to photograph. Western grebes were high on the list. They do not live in my state of Missouri, so I followed the Central Flyway, a major migration route over the Great Plains that encompasses a large part of the Prairie Pothole Region. Spring rains fill the potholes and they become a stopping point and breeding ground for many species of migratory waterfowl. Ducks, geese, pelicans and grebes take advantage of these pools, which contain a myriad of invertebrates, small fish and aquatic plants for food sources and nesting materials.

I knew about the potholes in South Dakota. Photographers look at each other’s work, and I’m sure I saw a picture of grebes taken in South Dakota. So about six years ago I made my first trip.

I’ll never forget my very first experience. The water was out, like it is in the spring. I had parked and was using a beanbag on the door of my truck. The grebes were coming really close, and that’s when I got my first good pictures. I didn’t get to see any rushing that day, but I went back later and witnessed babies riding on their mothers’ backs. I was hooked.

They usually start in April. I watch for the courtship ritual, which continues throughout the summer. But I keep looking because I’m waiting for the babies, too.

Of the 22 species of grebes, six can be found in South Dakota: Clark’s, western, pied-billed, eared, horned and red-necked. Clark’s grebe is similar to the western grebe; sometimes they are found mingling together. The other species are not as large. The breeding plumage of the pied-billed grebe is not as flamboyant. Its bill is not sharp and pointed and its neck is not long and graceful. The horned grebe has some interesting colors, with gold feathers wrapping around its head and a reddish ring around its neck. The eared grebe is arguably the most stunning of the smaller grebes. It has a golden fan of feathers radiating outward behind its eyes. I love grebes in general, but I think the western grebes are the most graceful and the most beautiful.

Photographers don’t always share their favorite spots, especially when you’re talking about birds. If you let it out where you’re going, then all of a sudden you get a crowd of people, and the birds are gone. I have traveled to South Dakota every spring for six years and have observed five of the six grebes during their migration and/or breeding season. (I have not been able to photograph or view a red-necked grebe yet.) Between the rushing and watching the babies, grebes have so much to offer. For a photographer, they are a dream come true.

Donna Caplinger lives in Fair Play, Missouri.

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

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Birder to Birdwatcher

By D. George Prisbe-Przybysz

Is George Prisbe a birder or a birdwatcher? Yes, he says, there are differences.

I was introduced to the world of birds when I was 31 and living in Aberdeen. My early mentors were both named Dan. One was a degreed ornithologist and bander who zealously pursued birds, the other was a laid-back amateur who perched in a lawn chair and let birds come to him. Despite their differences, both were influential and supportive as I muddled along, convinced that I would never be able to distinguish one sparrow from another.

Those early years of birding were exciting, and my new interest felt natural. I was curious, enjoyed the outdoors and really liked solitude. I also relished competition, so I took to the idea of checklists as a type of scorekeeping. Each check mark came to represent a victory. This concept was central to my motivation to go out and look for birds. In some ways it became more about the birds I had not seen than about the ones I had.

I became that strange, suspicious character stalking the elm-canopied streets and overly manicured city parks of Aberdeen, binoculars permanently collared around my neck. Soon I was migrating to Sand Lake National Wildlife Refuge northeast of Aberdeen at least once a week and peeping down every back road. My home range expanded quickly as I searched for new habitat and boxes to check. Long daily excursions — Sand Lake to Sica Hollow and Hartford Beach, ending with an evening roost at Waubay National Wildlife Refuge — became routine.

Like most birders, I kept a variety of checklists: yard, patch, year, state, life, and even county by county lists. My desire to amass totals culminated in a turning point in my birding life — a quest to see 300 species within the borders of South Dakota in one year.

Then I moved to the northern Black Hills, and I knew that sojourns to the prairie — particularly east of the Missouri River — would be limited, but necessary, if I was to reach my goal. Differences in bird diversity and distribution, especially during migration, would make reaching 300 difficult without winging my way east several times. By the end of that year, successful as it was, I still felt unfulfilled and disillusioned. Unsuccessful excursions, in pursuit of specific species, were discouraging and felt like wasted time, plus I felt pangs of guilt over my carbon footprint. Even successful sojourns, like a day trip to Hot Springs to spot a lesser goldfinch, began to lose meaning and significance.

The trees around Prisbe’s home in the northern Black Hills teem with wildlife, including this northern saw-whet owl.

My appreciation of simply being in the field and observing whatever nature presented had been parasitized by the pace of my quest, my fixation on target birds and list totals. What I had always described as my passionate obsession had lost some flight feathers. How much had I failed to appreciate, or even notice, along the way? Had I become jaded by my search for”good birds?” Was I guilty of a”just a robin” mentality?

It was time to learn from my lawn chair mentor and just let the birds come to me. I established Hanna Circle — a 3 1/2-mile radius from our home at Hanna in southcentral Lawrence County — as my”patch.”

Limiting my range proved difficult. I found myself verdant with envy when reading reports of migrating warblers and shorebirds and species that I was unlikely to see in the Black Hills. The urge to respond to reports of rare or unusual species was difficult to cage.

My focus shifted from searching to observing — from birding to bird watching. Gradually, I began to recognize the rewards of this new and slower pace. I began to appreciate birds as individuals instead of members of a particular species with a corresponding box to be checked. I stopped using common birder expressions like”good birds” and”trash birds,” coming to regard such terms as disrespectful and inappropriate. I now understood my wife’s displeasure every time I said,”just a robin.” My binoculars became judgment free. So complete became my reformation that I would admonish total strangers when I overheard them using the phrase”kill two birds with one stone.” I suggested a substitute:”fledge two birds with one nest.”

I was happy and enjoying birds more than ever. Daily hikes into the diverse habitat surrounding our home became routine, bordering on obsessive. I grew familiar with the area and the activity of its inhabitants. Soon, I was sure that the local birds were becoming familiar with me, too. I kept a daily journal, recording species in the order in which they presented themselves, noting the number, nesting and behavioral activity, weather conditions, and whatever else seemed relevant, such as wildflower blossom dates, butterfly flight periods, and getting down on my knees to inspect fungi and overlooked downscapes underfoot.

For the past 15 years, I have been able to compare observations day to day, week to week, season to season, year to year and marvel at the serendipity. Not possessing the power of omnipresence — something every birder must desire — I know that many species have escaped my observation, simply because of my many remarkable and unexpected sightings. My Hanna Circle list now totals 210 species, 61 of which are one-time wonders. Another 43 have been observed three or fewer times.

Most birders, at least the ones I know, would be uncomfortable with a year list that is consistently and substantially fewer than 200. I have no qualms with listing or chasing, but it’s not for me. My commitment to observing birds simply cannot be measured by marks on a checklist or miles on an odometer.

Birder or birdwatcher? Is there a difference, or is this a nuanced description of the same thing? To me, they are not the same. I have spent considerable time thinking about my relationship with birds and the natural world. Like birds, we have behavioral traits that define us, and we adapt individually to circumstance. My evolution from avid birder to birdwatcher, or patch observer, is probably a rare morph, but it has brought me to a comfortable place: home.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the May/June 2020 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Lake Legends

By John Andrews

Native American legends, passed to each generation through oral history, are behind the names of many of South Dakota’s glacial lakes. Painting by Ron Backer.

Punished Woman’s Lake and Enemy Swim Lake are just a few of the beautiful names assigned to the Glacial Lakes in northeast South Dakota.

Legends behind the names include tales of lost love, bountiful hunts and bloody battles. And the stories preserve an important part of Indian and South Dakota culture.

The last huge glacier, during the Wisconsin Period (between 75,000 and 10,000 years ago), created the Glacial Lakes that dot the Coteau des Prairies, a rise that covers much of South Dakota’s eastern quarter. In A New South Dakota History, geographer Ed Hogan explains that two glaciers sat on either side of the Big Sioux River, which drains and bisects the coteau. The glacier on the east side melted quickly, leaving valleys, while the western glacier melted more slowly, resulting in lakes and sloughs.

Many lake legends originated in prehistoric times, making them impossible to trace.”Most of what was thought to be reality in those days got changed, or became legends,” says Elden Lawrence, a member of the Sisseton Wahpeton Oyate tribe and former president of Sisseton Wahpeton College.”Legends are kind of a safe haven. They don’t have to be true or false, they’re just there. So a lot of them, we don’t know for sure what they’re based on. Some of them go into mythology, which was part of the old culture. It’s hard to track down what’s authentic.”

Lawrence says legends were an important part of oral history, an integral component of Native culture.”We didn’t have any written books. History was passed down from one generation to another. It’s just like any modern school system. You can tell people things and they’ll forget. But you always remember a story, or a legend. It was a way of preserving a record of certain events or places. To oral history, legends were like a library, and the more you could remember the more knowledge you had. It was their one way, maybe their only way, of preserving history.”

Legends are still revered by tribal elders, but Lawrence believes younger generations don’t have the same appreciation. For years elders and youth gathered on the shore of Enemy Swim Lake so the elders could tell the lake’s story, but that tradition ended.”An elder told me that young kids no longer sit at the feet of the elders, they sit at the feet of the TV,” Lawrence says.

If that’s the case, then perhaps we’re fortunate that history isn’t always oral today. Here are written versions of some favorite South Dakota lake legends.

Enemy Swim Lake

Warring bands of Sioux and Chippewas fought in 1812 at Enemy Swim Lake, northeast of Waubay. Today the battle makes a captivating campfire story for visitors to NeSoDak Bible Camp, which sits on the site where the battle began.

Sioux men danced and sang around a campfire built on a peninsula jutting from the lake’s southern shore. A group of Chippewas on a hunting trip saw the firelight and planned a surprise attack as the Sioux slept.

Sioux warriors guarded the peninsula, so the Chippewas made rafts and floated quietly to a nearby island, then waded in waist deep water. The Sioux heard their splashing and attacked, shouting”Toka nuapi” (the enemy swims) as the Chippewas swam north toward Shepherds Point. The Sioux chased them over land and eventually killed the entire party.

In 1918 Jack Rommel built Camp Dacotah, a hotel and fishing resort, on the peninsula and decorated it with Indian artifacts found around the lake. The site became NeSoDak Bible Camp in 1942, one of five camps operated by Lutherans Outdoors. Rommel’s hotel is NeSoDak’s main lodge and Rommel’s cabin houses campers. A stone fireplace in the lodge features grindstones and arrowheads, and the cabin boasts a large native stone chimney.

Punished Woman’s Lake

When homesteaders settled around Punished Woman’s Lake in Codington County, they found two huge stone effigies lying atop a grassy mound three miles south of the lake. Indians had used 104 boulders to create a 13-foot outline of a man lying on his back with outstretched arms. About 40 feet away was the slightly smaller figure of a woman, lying in the same position. They likely memorialized the sad tale of Wewake and Black Bear.

The two were in love, but Wewake’s father opposed the union. Four times Black Bear brought gifts to Wewake’s father, but he refused them. Instead he accepted offerings from White Tail Wolf, a 60-year-old chief, and gave his daughter to him. The young lovers eloped and fled to the knoll south of the lake, where warriors from the tribe captured them. White Tail Wolf killed Black Bear and tied Wewake to a tree. She declared her love for Black Bear until the old chief stabbed her in the heart. White Tail Wolf prayed that the two be buried dishonorably, and crafted the stone effigies as a reminder of his unfaithful wife. The Great Spirit heard him and sent a bolt of lightning from a clear blue sky that killed him.

Archaeologist T.H. Lewis sketched the effigies in 1883, but they were almost completely destroyed by 1914. Today South Shore community members re-enact the legend at the Punished Woman’s Pageant. An Indian chief tells the story to children as local actors recreate the scenes. An exhibit is also displayed at the Overland Country School and Museum in South Shore.

Lake Kampeska

When the water is low around Stony Point, on the southeastern shore of Lake Kampeska near Watertown, you can see a rocky island surrounded by buoys to protect unsuspecting boaters. It is a popular resting spot for water birds and the place where centuries ago a young Indian maiden named Minnecotah was left to die.

Many warriors from her tribe wanted to marry Minnecotah, but she was in love with a Wahpeton hunter. To satisfy the locals, Minnecotah said she would marry the man who could throw a stone the farthest into the lake. The men spent days heaving tiny pebbles and huge rocks, but the waves tossed them until no one could tell who won. They threw so many stones an island formed. By then they realized the contest was a ruse, so they kidnapped Minnecotah and placed her on the rocky island with no food. She survived with help from a white pelican that brought fish and berries. Her lover returned to rescue her and they went to live near his home in Wahpeton country. The warriors, discovering that Minnecotah was gone, believed that the sun god had sent the white pelican to take her away.

Stony Point was once an Indian campsite; arrowheads are still found there. And the legend of Maiden’s Isle has become an important part of local culture. Florence Bruhn, a former high school art teacher, adapted it to establish Ki-Yi Days, Watertown’s homecoming celebration.

Lake Tetonkaha

Lake Tetonkaha is one of eight connected glacial lakes that surround Oakwood Lakes State Park, northwest of Brookings. The place was once a summer camp and popular gathering place for Indians. One summer a group of Sioux warriors stayed late into autumn because a large buffalo herd was there. They became trapped when an early blizzard caught them off guard. Wood was scarce, so the hunters built a huge community tent.

They stayed the entire winter. When spring arrived they removed the buffalo hides they used for shelter, but left the poles standing. Indians who saw the poles called the place Tetonkaha Bde (the standing of the big lodge house), and the lake became known as Lake Tetonkaha.

In 1869 settler Samuel Mortimer built a cabin nearby that still stands, and the park visitors center displays Indian artifacts found around the lakes.

Long Lake

There are several Long Lakes in South Dakota, but the one northeast of Lake City in Marshall County might hold treasure. A Santee Sioux named Gray Foot told his sons on his deathbed in 1910 that he buried a flour sack full of gold coins worth $56,000 between two willow trees on the lake’s east shore.

A group of Santees, including Gray Foot, raided the agency in Martin, Minn., on payday during the Sioux Uprising of 1862. Some soldiers were killed and the government payroll chest looted. When Gray Foot heard the War Department declare that anyone found with gold from the chest would be hanged, he buried it. His sons tried many times to find the hidden gold, but left Long Lake none the richer.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the July/August 2010 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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All Good Things Must End

By Bernie Hunhoff

South Dakota’s rural solitude is church-like to many of us. I don’t know how many farmers and ranchers have told me through the years that they’ve felt closer to God on the land than in a pew.

When cowboy troubadour Kyle Evans sang “I’m in Heaven on a horse on the wide open prairies of Dakota …” he spoke for everybody who has ever chewed on a blade of blue stem.

But as church-like as the prairie might be, it seemed even holier at Blue Cloud Abbey in Grant County — a picturesque little monastery that grew into a popular retreat center for all sorts of people, including South Dakota’s reflective writer Kathleen Norris.

The true story of how the monks came to locate near Milbank is as sweet as the prairie grass. The priests and monks at St. Meinrad Abbey in Indiana wanted to establish a new monastery in the Dakotas so they sent four brothers to scout the area in 1949. They liked a spot above the Missouri and James Rivers near Yankton, but WNAX’s tall radio towers obstructed the view so they decided to drive to Fargo, North Dakota.

On the way (this was before I-29 was built) they stopped outside the tiny town of Marvin and saw a rolling, wooded string of hills above Grant County’s Whetstone Valley. The land was rocky but they liked it so they went to nearby Milbank to inquire. They were directed to the Milbank banker, who told them that they land had just been listed for sale within the last 30 minutes. He offered them 300 acres at $22 an acre.

Their good timing and the banker’s name were signs they couldn’t ignore, so the Benedictine monks immediately inked the deal. The banker’s name? Effner Benedict.

There were 40 founding members, but their numbers have now dwindled to a dozen and three are over 90. “What else can we do?” asked Abbot Denis Quinkert, as he solemnly spoke of the monastery’s plan to close the doors.

Abbot Denis hopes a religious group will take over the monastery, but no one knows what will happen to the beautiful facility. The only thing we know for certain is that the same spiritual quality that was discovered by the Indiana monks 63 years ago — a spirituality that is very familiar to all who love the land in South Dakota — will be there to await the next tenants.

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The Cottonwood Slough

By Bernie Hunhoff

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the March/April 2008 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.

Marvin and Connie Piotter felt their 400-acre Roberts County farm was unusual when they bought it in the early 1970s, and they later found out why.

“Sometimes I would make a cup of coffee and go out above the lake at 4:30 or 5:00 in the morning and listen to the world wake up,” said Connie. She listened to the songbirds, saw ducks and geese lifting off from their overnight stay and spotted deer as they looked for daytime nesting places. Nature also has a violent side. She once saw a bald eagle lift an adult Canada goose off the lake and fly away with it.

The Piotters’ native grass pasture is on the southeastern border of Lake Bde-Sake (Dakota for”Dirty Water”), but Marvin and Connie eventually learned that the lake has other names. Eons ago, the 11-mile stretch of water was part of Lake Agassiz, the world’s largest glacial lake. Only archeologists and Roberts County residents are likely to know that. Local people call the area Cottonwood Slough or Dry Run.

The lakes eventually drain into Jim Crick below the Piotters’ farm; Jim Crick flows south for a mile and feeds into Lake Traverse, which flows northward into North Dakota and the Red River Valley.”They drink our water in Grand Forks,” said Marvin.

Canadians far to the north might also drink rainwater and snowmelt that begins to collect in the Cottonwood Slough, because the slough constitutes the southern tip of the massive Hudson Bay watershed.

All the rest of South Dakota drains into the Gulf of Mexico, via the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. The two watersheds are separated by one of the North America’s five great continental divides — ranges of hills and mountains that send the continent’s waters to the Pacific, Arctic and Atlantic oceans, and to Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Mexico.

Roberts County citizens are familiar with the geology of the divide, but only a few probably recognized the watershed’s international importance before the National Park Service sent scientists from the University of Colorado to study the site. They concluded that the wetlands were a buffer zone that divided the tall grass prairie from the eastern deciduous forest country.”It is among the top natural areas in this part of the country for concentrating and production of waterfowl,” they concluded,”and one of the best natural riverine wetland complexes remaining…”

Scientists found the rare piping plover, a tiny bird listed on the endangered species list. Further exploration indicated that Native American artifacts and burial sites lay in the hills above the lakes. In 1975 the National Park Service declared the lakes a Natural National Landmark.

The landmarks program identifies unique geological and biological lands owned by either public or private parties. Less than 600 have been found in the entire United States. Cottonwood Slough is one of a dozen such sites in South Dakota. Some others include Sica Hollow, a prairie forest northwest of Sisseton; the Castles, a series of sandstone spires in Harding County; the Fort Randall Eagle Roost, west of Wagner; the Mammoth Site in Hot Springs; and Bijou Hills, north of Platte.

Mike Gallagher, a now-retired NPS staffer who was involved with the National National Landmarks program, said Roberts County farmers and landowners who surround Cottonwood Slough have done an excellent job with the property.”This is a perfect example of what we hoped to achieve. The goal wasn’t to have public ownership of these unique land features, but to work with private owners to preserve and protect the land.”

The Cottonwood Slough begins just east of the little town of Victor, near the North Dakota border, and meanders below farmsteads and cattle pastures before narrowing into the crick and then into Lake Traverse. The Cottonwood valley is about a half-mile wide and constitutes 5,400 acres in total. Its tiny lakes, marshes and potholes are rimmed and intersected with a thick growth of cattails and rushes. The foothills on both sides are thick with cedar, cottonwood, ash and box elder trees.

“The park service just raised our pride in what we already loved,” Connie said.”It should remain wild and natural. I’d hate to see it built up with resorts and lodges.”

Living by the lakes has been entertaining and educational for people like the Piotters.”When we first moved here, I remember watching some young Indian boys playing in the water,” Connie Piotter said.”They would grab onto the gills of these huge carp in the shallow waters, and then they’d ride them a little ways before they’d fall off. It was something to see.”

Several species of fish swim up from the Red River (upriver is south for this country), and they spawn in the Cottonwood Slough.”First come the northerns,” said Marvin.”Then it’s the bullheads and the carp.”

Ducks and geese visit by the thousands in spring and autumn.”It’s not always pleasant to live along the flyway,” Connie said.”The geese have been so thick that they’ve turned the hills white with droppings. We tried to grow sunflowers but the blackbirds just decimated them. There was nothing left to harvest.”

Eagles, rarely seen in Roberts County 30 years ago, are now common. A few are starting to nest in the trees. They are a noble sight, but pesty.”We had cows calving near the slough, and the eagles would fly down and eat the afterbirth when a cow had her calf,” Marvin said.”That would cause the cows to go nuts, but the eagles never did bother the calves.”‘

The Piotters graciously share the hills and lakes with others who show an interest. In fact, they’ve signed an agreement with the National Park Service”to protect, use and manage the site in a manner which prevents the destruction or deterioration of its nationally significant problems in managing the area.”

The Piotters raised four daughters and two sons on their Roberts County land, and both of the sons — Matt and Daniel — farm with them.”We want to preserve it for them and for our grandchildren and beyond,” Connie says.”We always knew it was special.”

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Small Town Saturday Nights

By Katie Hunhoff

Music has been connecting people since a caveman made a flute some 50,000 years ago. Small towns in South Dakota are using the power of music to strengthen community ties.

In the 1990s the small town of Peever in northeast South Dakota badly needed to replace their community center. The old hall held only 70 people and was falling apart. But Peever is not a wealthy town. The streets are gravel, the buildings worn and most of the citizens are retired or wage-earners.

But Peever’s people know how to sing and strum the guitar, so monthly jamborees were held to raise money. “I’d say per capita Roberts County has more musicians than most any place in the country,” Don Backman, a retired dairy farmer told us awhile back. The musicians donated their time and a freewill donation was taken at the door. “We just asked people to give what they wanted,” Backman said. “If they were really short, they could take a little out.” Despite the generous spirit of the jam organizers, they had enough money for a new hall within a few years.

Soon the Glacial Lakes towns of Revillo, South Shore and Roslyn started similar events to raise money. South Shore donated jamboree earnings to the Salvation Army after the organization helped their town following a wind storm. Revillo raised enough for a new community center. And in the 1990s South Shore hosted country music concerts to restore Punished Woman’s Lake.

Peever, after 16 years, stopped their jamborees in the spring of 2010, but Wilmot picked up where they left off and began the Whetstone Jamboree. Several of the Peever musicians show up to carry on the tradition. Edean Landmark was a favorite musician at Peever and now his daughter, Wendy Landmark, is a regular at the jamboree circuit, including the new one in Wilmot. “What’s fun about it is that it is a family show and the strong community involvement. People come from miles away to enjoy our local musicians. There is a lot of local talent.” Wendy grew up singing country music in Peever, but now sings the blues with the Watertown band “The Bluezz’l Do.”

A typical jamboree starts with a featured band. After the band plays a few numbers, it turns into a house band and performers take turns doing two songs each. Young, old, experienced and inexperienced musicians are all welcome to take the stage

“I like the opportunity it gives young people to get that feel for performing in front of an audience as well as with a backup band,” says Cheryl Rondeau-Basset, an organizer of the Whetstone Jamboree.”I hope it encourages young people to be interested in music. Music is something you can enjoy all your life.”

Musicians interested in performing should arrive 30 minutes early to sign up. The audience is treated to coffee, snacks, door prizes and a few jokes from the announcer.

The same spirit of sharing music and bringing people together inspired similar gatherings in two small Black Hills towns. Weekly bluegrass jams in Rochford and Rockerville are laid back rituals with no admission fees. Any musician can join, but only with an acoustic instrument.

“They just enjoy each other, teach each other and share each others’ music,” says Betsy Harn, owner of the Moonshine Gulch Saloon in Rochford.

In southeast South Dakota, Doug and Judi Sharples have transformed Gayville’s old grocery store into a little Branson. The Saturday night entertainers — which often include the popular Poker Alice Band and the McNeills from Springfield — especially focus on old time, folk and country music.


Glacial Lakes Jamborees

Roslyn: First full weekend of the month on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. Roslyn Creamery Company.

Revillo: Third Sunday of the month. Community Center.

South Shore: Fourth Saturday of the month. Community Center.

Wilmot (Whetstone Jamboree): Second Saturday of January, April, July, October and December in 2012. Community Center.

Black Hills Jams

Rochford: Every Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m., Moonshine Gulch Saloon.

Rockerville: Bluegrass jam every Thursday at 7 p.m., Gaslight Saloon.

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Danger: Thin Ice

By Bernie Hunhoff

The other day, a nice dog fell through the ice on the James River just east of Yankton. Rescuers were able to get him out alive.

We’re hearing stories like that every day. Debbie Hemmer of the Grant County Review reported this week that ice shacks are falling through the ice into Big Stone Lake, and huge parts of the lake are now open. Randy Stuckey, whose family ran the Bay View Resort for nearly 30 years, said he’s neer seen anything like it.

Apparently, a husband and wife on an ATV fell through the ice on Goose Lake. They were also pulled to safety.

GF&P officials recommend that ice fishermen not venture onto the lake alone. The 50-degree January days can melt the ice in a hurry.

I just got off the phone with Gary Block of Waubay, a Day County commissioner and jack-of-all-trades. He was in an ice shack on Bitter Lake. He says the ice there is a foot deep so he thinks he’s safe.

“Oh, I gotta go. A fat perch is biting,” he said.

Enjoy the winter, everyone. But you might want to wear a life jacket instead of a parka.

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Yes, I Gambled for Gobblers

By John Andrews

Tomorrow your homes will be filled with Thanksgiving smells: turkey roasting, gravy simmering, pies baking. You probably bought your Butterball at the grocery store weeks ago, but when I was a kid I don’t think we ever purchased a bird until we’d played turkey bingo.

We briefly discussed turkey bingo, more commonly known as a”poultry party,” a few weeks ago during an office meeting. Some staff members responded with quizzical looks.”You used to play bingo for meat?” their incredulous faces seemed to shout across the table. Well, yes I did. In fact I remember the old Lake Norden VFW Hall being packed to the gills with townspeople every fall for our annual poultry party. Young and old alike braved the pre-winter chill for one of our town’s most anticipated traditions. It was a good night if you went home with a couple of turkeys and maybe a chicken or a ham.

Apparently the idea of poultry parties is unique to the Glacial Lakes region, which is my home country. We think of South Dakota as being a unique place within America, but there are also distinct cultural pockets within our borders. Each has its own food, terminology, activities and traditions. I’d never heard of”taverns” until I moved south. Back home, they were always barbecues. And earlier this fall my grandmother requested a recipe for kuchen, a dessert she’s never made and rarely, if ever, sampled. That’s probably what makes South Dakota so special.

For those unfamiliar with a small-town poultry party, it went like this: Each game cost you a quarter a card, so during the day you’d head uptown to the bank and get a roll of quarters. You needn’t worry about supper, because the VFW Auxiliary always had barbecues (not taverns), pie and coffee. You’d grab a card or two, our local veterans would circle the building sliding quarters off the old wooden tables and into their apron pockets, and Morley Hauschildt’s booming voice would start calling the numbers. There was always good natured grumbling and gentle ribbing when someone shouted”Bingo!”:”I know where I’m going for supper Saturday night,” or”You can’t carry that many turkeys home. I’ll take one.” Sometimes we played late into the night, and the blue haze of cigarette smoke grew thicker as it hung in the air.

Of course some years we left the VFW Hall empty handed. Somehow, I don’t recall it ever being a disappointment. Still, that bite of turkey on Thanksgiving Day tasted just a little better knowing you’d won it fair and square.

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Nine Mile Lake

Shaped by glaciers. Rounded by time. Preserved by the people of Marshall County.

Story and photography by James E. Johnson

Nine Mile Lake’s unique shoreline inspired James Johnson‘s photography and other visual projects.

As an artist I was smitten with the Marshall County topography of high hills surrounding secluded Nine Mile Lake when I arrived in the valley many years ago.

At first glance, the 282-acre lake seems untouched by civilization. But its calming landscape has a history of utopian development based on a concept of keeping the area as green as possible. That goal was ahead of its time in the 1960s, when a group of investors developed building covenants that are in place today.

Still, that’s not too much to ask for a lake whose history can be traced back 20,000 years, when glaciers pressed today’s topography. Huge chunks of ice were left behind as the glacier retreated. The ice slowly melted, slumping the land and leaving large round holes that became northeast South Dakota’s glacial lakes. There are more than 62 such lakes in Marshall County alone.

French explorers came in the early 1800s and called the rolling ocean of grass and wildflowers”prairie,” meaning meadow. Joseph Nicollet coined the term”coteau des prairies,” which is still used today.

Nine Mile Lake was named in territorial days because of its distance from Fort Sisseton, where soldiers were stationed to protect settlers. Other nearby waters are called Two Mile Lake, Four Mile Lake and Six Mile Lake. The names aren’t fancy, romantic or quaint, but their practicality fits the local culture.

The place has become my perennial source of inspiration — my wellspring.

EDITOR’S NOTE — This story is revised from the May/June 2011 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order this back issue or to subscribe, call 800-456-5117.