Tag: winter

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The Beauty of Black and White

By Christian Begeman

Two things have long piqued my interest: history and black and white photography. I stared for hours upon hours at grainy, monochrome images of the Civil War up through vintage World War II film footage. Old family photos and slides were often black and white, too. The seeds of my appreciation for the medium were likely planted because of these, but it wasn’t until I actually learned to develop black and white photos in college that I really began to appreciate the power of black and white photography.

I recently read a description of black and white photography as being romantic. I think abstract is a better word. A scene rendered in black and white is not what an average person sees. Draining the color from an image both simplifies and complicates. The simplicity lies in the lack of color, but complication arises when a viewer’s imagination needs to work harder to figure out the details and mood of the image.

The best black and whites have a true black tone and a true white tone somewhere within them. This allows rest of the gray tones to play out beautifully in between. I’ve always been a fan of the”red filter” look that Ansel Adams made famous. It turns the azure blue sky of a clear day into a strong dark, if not completely black tone. This adds contrast to any white cloud in the sky or light colored object below, which brings drama to the image.

I was keeping an eye on a snowy owl visitor to my neighborhood in northwest Sioux Falls. It was a cold, clear blue, winter sky. I happened to see a large jet passing overhead, so I pointed my camera up to get a photo of the plane and its contrails. The image was OK in color, but the photo really popped when editing in black and white with the”red filter” technique. I tried the same thing with an image I captured of the snowy owl in flight against that same blue sky. I quickly fell in love with how the black of the sky set off the beauty of the nearly white bird in flight.

I think most folks agree that there is true beauty in falling snow and in undisturbed snowfall. The white flakes against a dark background like the Old Courthouse Museum in downtown Sioux Falls or the barren trees of upper Sherman Park are favorite subjects for me. This January, I spent a few hours hiking the Sioux Falls Outdoor Campus during a heavy snow. This time, I took my macro lens to see if I could find new a black and white beauty close-up. One of my favorite images of the day was finding a feather nestled on a tree branch that was catching snowflakes. You’ll find that image in this column, along with few more of my favorite black and whites from this winter and a few oldies but goodies from warmer times and winters past. I hope you enjoy looking at them as much as I have enjoyed finding them.

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

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Winter in Keystone

By Bernie Hunhoff

Officials in Keystone post three-hour parking limits on Winter Street during the busy summer season, but such restrictions are hardly necessary when the weather turns cold.

Tis not the season when you can don petticoats for a picture at Professor Samuel’s Portrait Emporium. Afternoon gunfights at the Red Garter Saloon are done, and nobody roasts prime rib at the Ruby House.

Winter has arrived in Keystone. Life in the busiest tourist town in the West slows to a crawl. The three-hour parking limit seems superfluous on the empty road called Winter Street. Yes, you can almost feel a community-wide sigh of relief as the 327 full-time residents catch their collective breath.

“I do enjoy winters here myself,” says retired tattoo artist Mike Trike, a self-described escapee”from the city of southern California.” He discovered the Black Hills while doing tattoos at the Sturgis Rally, then he”fell in love with this hokey tourist trap and I swore I would someday live here.”

Trike thinks his little mountain town is prettiest in winter.”I take pictures and send them to my friends in the metropolises.” He spends cold winter days working on new designs for his T-shirt shop. On warm afternoons, he might take a bike ride on empty mountain roads — the same roads that lead 2 million tourists in the spring, summer and fall through Keystone on their way to nearby Mount Rushmore. But in the depths of winter, traffic slows to a crawl on Winter Street, and the town focuses on itself. Youth skate on Friday nights at the community center. Adults enjoy a Saturday night dinner and bingo at the senior citizen’s center.

Smoke from wood stoves adds aroma to the chilly morning air. A yellow school bus collects children for a 15-minute ride to school in Hill City. A few locals sip coffee at The Country Store, near an ATM machine and a bulletin board with a notice for a small apartment for $384 and photos of a mountain lion spotted near town. A gas pump has been grandfathered into the wood sidewalk, just outside the store’s front door.

California transplant Mike Trike enjoys the leisurely pace of winter in Keystone. He illustrates T-shirt designs in his shop in the Old Town.

More than two dozen bars and restaurants serve travelers in the summer, but only the oldest is likely to be open in winter. The Halley Store was built in 1895. Halleys and Nelsons have operated it for almost all of the last 120 years. It was a rundown general store when Robert Nelson bought it in 1988. He fixed the foundation and converted it into an antique store. A few years ago, his son Trygve installed a horseshoe-shaped bar and started selling drinks and burgers.

“We’ll serve food anytime anybody wants something,” Nelson says.”If we’re here we’re open.”

Snow sleds hang by Halley’s front door, near a pile of firewood, a chain saw and several shovels. Inside is a raggedy buffalo mount that Nelson bought at auction from the Buffalo Bar in Deadwood.”As the story goes, Buffalo Bill Cody shot the buffalo and donated it to the bar,” he says.”At least that’s what I read.”

Nelson, a lifelong resident of the Black Hills, has dabbled in many trades. He had an antique shop at Piedmont, helped operate a bowling alley at the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology in Rapid City, ran a sawmill and taught school. For a time, he and his family toured the country in a VW bus.

Today he’s happy in Keystone, winter and summer.”We don’t have much winter,” he says.”Just a few heavy snowfalls. Usually not much wind. We’re pretty sheltered.”

Though winter brings few tourists, James Anderson still cuts taffy at the Rushmore Mountain Taffy Shop.

Not far from Halley’s, in a neighborhood known as Old Town, is a tourist mine called Big Thunder that has outlasted and possibly out-earned any of the gold, feldspar, quartz and mica mines that operated in the valley more than a century ago. Sandy McLain has been the owner for 23 years.

Big Thunder is really a museum, restaurant and gift shop. McLain’s staff — including Hayward Halo, Rattlesnake Randy and Claim Jumper Chris — also guided 350 would-be miners on panning expeditions last year. She says 40 percent of the gold in local mines was never found, so there’s still plenty. A full day of panning costs just $65.”It’s a day in the boonies with no bathroom. You stand in water and do hard labor,” says McLain, wondering out loud why the tours are such a success.

Winter gives McLain time for such wonderings, and for planning the next season. She says it’s also a chance for the community to focus on its own needs.”In the winter we do community activities that get pushed aside in the summer,” she explains, starting with Holy Terror Days, a September celebration that includes a parade, ugly truck contest and street dance. The first Holy Terror Days was started in 1899 by pioneers who worked the mines. Proceeds from the festivities help families down on their luck.”It helps us pay for peoples’ heating bills if they fall behind — or groceries, medicine or utilities. Many of our people only work six months of the year and then they’re laid off until spring.” At Christmas, Mike Trike dresses like Santa Claus and delivers toys and food baskets to families who might be having a tough year.

The community also hosts a haunted house in October at a big, old white-frame schoolhouse that was built in 1899 atop a hill in Old Town. The school was designed for 300 students because everyone thought the mining boom would last, but enrollment never reached half that number and then dwindled — as did mining — until the doors closed in 1988. Today the Victorian-style school serves as the town museum after the Halloween ghosts and goblins are put away.

Off-season events help fund charitable causes, and McLain says they’re good for community spirit. She hopes they also help the few businesses that do stay open through the winter months like The Rock Shed, another Old Town staple run by Shawn and Gene Kuhnel, a father-son team of lapidaries. They offer travelers everything from a $4,500 fossil fish to stone bookends and petrified wood for $3 a pound. Linda Haverly works at a restaurant on Winter Street in the summer months. In the winter, she helps the Kuhnels at The Rock Shed.

She says the shop’s online trade allows the Kuhnels to keep the doors open. For her, it’s a nice change.”This is my relaxing job. Summers are busy. It is a madhouse with every table full of people and often people waiting in line. This is peaceful.”

Online and wholesale trade also enables The Rushmore Mountain Taffy Shop, one of the town’s signature businesses, to stay open in winter. George Stverak bought the candy factory in 1967, including a quaint 130-year-old taffy cutter that can be seen from the street. Candy maker James Anderson lovingly tends to the machine, lubricating its 50 zerks with vegetable grease just in case any drops on the taffy.”The taffy puller is where you add the color, the flavor and air,” explains Stverak.”If you don’t add air it’s hard as a rock.”

Although the Rushmore Borglum Story is closed, this statue of Abraham Lincoln still receives attention.

The Stveraks, transplants from East River, stay open every day, regardless of the weather, except for Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. They make special eggnog taffy for the holidays, one of more than 100 flavors they’ve developed. Cinnamon is the all-time favorite.

Near the taffy shop, Dean and LaVeta Giannonatti keep their Black Hills Gifts and Gold shops open as well, largely to keep their staff employed year-around. Their two shops — one on either side of Winter Street — are a special joy to visit in the off-season because the Giannonattis have more time to talk. They know and love West River history. LaVeta was born to a mining family and attended the old school. Dean was a Harding County rancher before they bought the store in 1983. He has collected record racks of elk and deer, including the”King of the Bucks,” a whitetail shot by Francis Fink in Marshall County in 1948 with an 18×13 rack, a state record and one of the largest in North America. He also has a monstrous rattlesnake skin, two fighting rooster pheasants and a record elk rack among a big taxidermy collection that’s displayed on the walls.

On winter Sundays, the Giannonattis bring a TV to the shop so visitors and other Main Street workers can tease one another about NFL football.

Just down Winter Street, the Uhrigs also keep a souvenir shop open. Called The Indians, the store was purchased by Eugene and Lucille Jelliffe in 1970.”It’s the only job I’ve ever had,” says their daughter, Kathy, who now runs it with her husband Bruce Uhrig and their three sons. In winter, the family members clean, inventory and re-stock.

A quarter of their sales comes in July, and 90 percent from May to October, but a few travelers straggle in on winter days unless snow is forecast.”Then the visitors don’t drive, especially if they are not used to mountain driving. But by November we’re ready for a slower pace anyway,” Kathy says.

Further up Winter Street near the Rushmore Borglum Story, someone dresses a statue of Abraham Lincoln in a knit cap and scarf. The sun fades beneath the mountaintops by mid afternoon. Soon the children will be back from classes in Hill City. The taffy shop and the rock shop will close for the day, and the town that hardly sleeps in summer will say an early goodnight.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the November/December 2015 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Blizzard in a Small Town

Photography and story by Bernie Hunhoff

A winter storm overwhelms a small town, almost as if the North Wind is flapping a mile-wide blanket of gray goose feathers overhead, rudely muffling all the streets and houses.

The intentions of the few citizens spotted outdoors in a blizzard are immediately obvious. They are walking the dog. Rushing from the grocery store with plastic bags. Shoveling the front steps to maintain the”you’re welcome here anytime” look that’s exhibited on most small town houses in South Dakota. Dawdling is done indoors on days like this.

We waited out such a storm in Freeman (pop. 1,200) and watched the town come to a crawl. Activity was inversely proportionate to the growing speed of the howling wind. Gusts blew to 50 miles per hour, ignoring 30 MPH street signs that poked above the snowdrifts.

The clerk at a variety store on the edge of town lamented that she hadn’t been able to get home to Marion, just a dozen miles away, for two days. She was staying with a cousin. A hair stylist at the Mane Attraction was on the phone, switching appointments from rural people who couldn’t get to town with city dwellers hardy enough to venture a few blocks.

The grocer at Jamboree darted out of the store in a green sweater every hour or so and quickly shoved the snow from his sidewalk. Customers parked near the store’s front door and usually left their engines running as they dashed inside. A desperate thief could have had his pick but no one in Freeman fit the description that particular day.

A little boy in a ski mask came out of the store with two sacks, apparently on an errand for mom. He playfully scaled a 15-foot-high pile of snow in the middle of Main Street before he hustled home to deliver staples to the family kitchen.

Most of the town’s businesses were still open as darkness settled beneath the howling gray blanket. Lights stayed on at the Freeman Courier because it was deadline day and the Waltners were not going to delay the weekly newspaper for a blizzard. The new library was open next door. Flags whipped wildly over a local bank. A snowplow operator skimmed the streets. Fensel’s Motel on the edge of town had rooms available.”Take Number Seven,” said the clerk.”The key is in the door.”

An awful assault of high winds, snow and cold could feel evil to someone suffering its clutches. But a small town is a good place to wait out a storm. Freeman’s citizenry seemed to accept the blizzard as nature’s due for the privilege of living in South Dakota, and that attitude seemed sensible. The storm was a nuisance that would pass. And sure enough, the morning dawned calm and clear.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2011 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Winter Wonderland

By Christian Begeman

A couple weeks ago I wasn’t sure this column was going to happen. Since October I had planned on taking the full week off before Christmas to spend some time in the Black Hills, camera in hand. Early winter in the Hills is a magical time. Fresh snow, active wildlife and very few people make great reasons to wander places like Spearfish Canyon, Wind Cave National Park and Custer State Park. This year, however, things were looking grim for a peaceful vacation in mid-December when little to no snow was on the ground and the massive Legion Lake Fire was tearing through Custer State Park and portions of Wind Cave National Park.

Thankfully, through great work by local and regional firefighting teams and some much-needed snowfall, the fire abated and the parks re-opened just days before my scheduled arrival. I was nervous about what I might see as I arrived on the evening of Dec. 21. I had spent the majority of the day in the Northern Hills waiting for the snow to end, and then cruising Spearfish Canyon as the sunlight broke free of the clouds and danced along the high ridgeline. The play of light and shadow through one of our state’s most scenic byways was worth the trip by itself. By the time I arrived in Custer State Park it was nearly dark, and I could smell the faint odor of burned grass and timber, but otherwise all was quiet and peaceful.

The next morning, I accidently turned off my alarm when attempting to hit the snooze button, so I missed my planned rendezvous with the sunrise. But the morning was not lost. Just outside the window of my room at the Creekside Inn a flock of nearly 30 blue jays were calling, flying and digging in the snow. Beyond the creek a lone deer crossed the road. On the flanks of the far ridge, a flock of wild turkeys slowly made its way eastward and at the top of the same ridge, the early morning sunshine began to kiss the tops of the snow-covered ponderosa pine. It slowly enveloped the entire ridge as it chased away the blue-tinted shadows with warm, yellow-hued light. The scene before me was truly a winter wonderland. It was a special kind of peace and quiet that I think only the Black Hills can provide.

Later that morning, I made the rounds on my favorite park roads looking for wildlife and trying to measure the extent of the fire damage. Enough snow had fallen to cover the blackened ground and singed trees, so I had to look closely to spot fire damage. About mid-afternoon, snow-laden clouds rolled in from the north and west. I found a group of old bison bulls along the southern curves of the Wildlife Loop road, and those same clouds let loose. While taking bison portraits, my camera and I both had a hard time finding true focus through the snowflakes. Even so, the out-of-focus shots were cool too, showing the extent of the snowfall with the bison silhouetted in the background.

As I was leaving the park on Dec. 23, I stopped at the Game Lodge chapel to snap a photo. Just a week before, I had seen an image on social media showing the fire line behind the chapel and cabins. Now the whole valley and park lay under a peaceful blanket of snow. The fires were out and the beauty and peace of winter in the Black Hills had once again fallen over the landscape. All seemed right again — at least for now.

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

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The Truck Stop-Titanic Connection

By Paul Higbee

It’s recorded that as the Titanic began slipping beneath the Atlantic waves, a passenger confronted a crewman.

“I was assured,” said the passenger, “that this could not possibly happen.”

The crewman replied that, all human assurances aside, the ship indeed was going down and that the matter was entirely in God’s hands.

Flash forward 80 years to Kennebec, South Dakota, where an eerily parallel conversation played out at Moore’s truck stop during a fierce October blizzard a few years back.

“I was assured,” said a man from Atlanta who was delivering a friend’s car to Washington state, “that no way, no way, could this happen in October.”

“It’s happening,” said an elderly gentlemen whose demeanor suggested he’d lived through South Dakota blizzards beyond count. “It’s happening, and only God can stop it now.”

I was among those waiting out the squall, and I chatted briefly with the man from Atlanta — briefly, because he wasn’t exactly in a chatty mood. He had visions of the car, like the Titanic, disappearing entirely, retrievable in theory only by casting cables into the cold depths. As it happened, though, the storm broke up after a couple hours and the man sped off down Interstate 90. And I do mean sped.

It’s unlikely, but maybe someday he’ll realize what a fine slice of Americana he experienced in Kennebec: South Dakotans stranded in a truck stop analyzing blizzards, exaggerating about blizzards past and creating clever and often obscene blizzard metaphors. I’ve waited out winter storms not only in Kennebec, but also at Rapid City, Sturgis, Pierre and Murdo truck stops, sometimes for as long as 48 hours.

Mostly I’m quiet during truck stop blizzard conversations, because I admire these storms for their strength that transcends human affairs. Expressing that sentiment in a roomful of people blown hours or days off schedule by snow is never wise.

So I keep quiet, but once I almost spoke up to endorse an Oregon truck driver at Rapid City’s Windmill Truck Stop. Just an hour earlier he ‘d totaled his rig on fresh snow, and now he waxed reflective.

“Sometimes I don’t take South Dakota blizzards seriously, because they’re pretty,” he said.

“No such thing as a pretty blizzard,” growled another long distance hauler.

“The way snow starts out here as snow, not rain, and swirls across the dry highway is pretty,” insisted the first man. “An ugly blizzard would be in Texas, where it starts as freezing rain that turns into a foot of ice, with a little snow sprinkled on top.”

That raised a choral response. I’m not sure any of the driver’s fellow truckers agreed that South Dakota blizzards are pretty, but they were unanimous in their hatred of Texas storms. The gentlest word I heard used to describe a Texas blizzard was monster, and the adjectives attached to the word that afternoon made it far from gentle.

But back to South Dakota blizzards. I could have supported the Oregon driver by saying something like, “There are other ways South Dakota blizzards are pretty, apart from their swirling. How about the way the Black Hills are absolute black just as the first flakes fly, and how they turn grey as flakes fill the air? Then the Hills slowly fade away as the storm intensifies, like Brigadoon or something.”

I could have said that, but of course I didn’t. I might say it to the man from Atlanta if I ever see him again, which I won’t. I’m pretty sure he’s south of the Mason-Dixon line this winter, maybe recounting his South Dakota adventure like a Titanic survivor.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 1997 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Surviving Wind Chill

By Linda M. Hasselstrom

Chores need doing, even at 40 below.

“Wind chill is 70 to 90 below zero.” I shrugged as I snapped off the radio. I moved cattle on horseback one day when the wind chill was 60 below. Once it’s that cold, what difference can a few degrees make?

I found out. Exposed flesh freezes in well under a minute. In the time I took to open a gate, the naked skin behind my glasses began to sting. I think my nose is shorter — frozen off when my scarf slipped down as I hacked at six inches of ice on the cattle tank. When I stepped out of the pickup my often-frostbitten hands began to ache at once, and didn’t stop until hours later. My eyes burned for several days. My face felt sandpapered. My lungs ached, in spite of the scarf.

I followed all the well-known rules for living through cold weather. I kept a little water running, flushed the toilet frequently, checked the sewer vent pipe for frost, hauled in an armload of wood every time I went outside, plugged in the truck heaters. I called a neighbor before I went out to do chores, and called her when I got back safely.

But I survived. And that amazed me. I went outside often, though the radio was advising people not to, because I had work to do. I carried 50-pound sacks of cake to the cows, chopped ice, ducked behind a windbreak when I could, put my free hand inside my shirt when it hurt too much, and drove back to the house more often to warm up. I walked slowly, so I wouldn’t gasp for deep, dangerous breaths.

Once I went out when I had nothing to do, really — just to look at everything with new eyes: to see how the animals were staying alive. Grouse clucked at me from bushy branches of a cedar, an owl dropped silently out of a broken barn window. The cows had gone over a hill to a gully on a south slope and didn’t reappear until two days later. Their eyelashes were frosty, but their month-old calves were fine. I resisted hunting for them in the deadliest weather, remembering my father’s rule:”A cow can stand more cold than you can.”

That’s what amazes me: that humans survive at all. We are so dependent on our machinery and our miracle fabrics, so overconfident about our often-wrong interpretations of nature, that I don’t understand how we’ve lasted this long. A freight train barrels into a town, out of control and speeding because the air brakes didn’t work. Anyone who has heard her own footsteps on a 30-below morning knows cold air is thinner. Misguided folks feed starving deer and chase them away from hunters, thinking to help. They fail to see that starving deer mean too many deer for available grass. They should thank hunters for killing them mercifully instead of letting them be smashed on the highway. Our lives are so nearly automated that a problem requiring thought can kill us — because we are not used to thinking.

And if you’re not thinking when the wind chill is 90 below zero, you can be dead. I reached above my head to pull a bale of hay into the pickup. Two dropped, knocking me backward. I was quick enough to roll over the side of the pickup. But heavier bales might have knocked the wind out of me, broken a bone, made me fall on my head. Later I could think of a half-dozen ways I might have been badly hurt. Ten minutes of lying in the snow would have killed me. Next time I didn’t stand below the bales. Another of my father’s rules flashed through my head:”When you’re handling cows, it helps to be smarter than the cow.” Or a bale of hay.

Editor’s Note: This story is revised from the January/February 2005 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Ready For Anything

By Roger Holtzmann

Winter driving in South Dakota can be hazardous if you aren’t properly prepared.

Kit-Kat bar, miniature (8)

Cup, styrofoam (2)

Kleenex, box, small (1)

If you had to guess, what would you say the above items have in common? Go ahead, guess. You’ll never guess. Not in a million years.

Okay, I’ll tell you. That’s the winter survival kit we carry in our car. You know. For emergencies. Out of all the things in this world, from shoes to ships to sealing wax, I’m not sure how we ended up with those three. But I do know this: We’re ready for anything.

Unlike most of my columns, where I write whatever pops into my head without regard for the facts or common decency, I actually did some research on what is supposed to be in an Approved Winter Survival Kit.

Flashlight. Extra batteries and bulbs. Spare alternator drive belt. Ice scraper. Jumper cables. Warning triangle. First aid kit. Warm blankets. Spare clothing. Food. Fire extinguisher. Tow rope. Maps.

Spare alternator drive belt?

What planet are those people from?

I doubt we’ll ever have an Approved Winter Survival Kit in our car. I don’t think we could even manage the flashlight. It’s not that we don’t have one. We have at least a dozen in the Put The Flashlight Away When You’re Done Using It So We Can Find It When We Need It I Swear To God You Kids Never Put Anything Away It Makes Me So Mad How Would It Be If I Made You Buy One With Your Own Money drawer. The problem is none of them work. Or you flip the switch and there’s a feeble little glow deep within the bowels of the bulb — which is less than useful when you’re trying to locate a remote control under the couch.

In that same drawer we have roughly 3,000 batteries. A, AA, AAA, C, D and those big honkers with springs on top. None are any good, but I can’t bring myself to admit that. I need a flashlight. I try one. It doesn’t work. Of course, I yell at the kids, which is my standard response to anything bad. Then I take out the batteries.

I put them back in the drawer. Maybe it’s a bad bulb, I think. Or this cheapo flashlight. I can’t risk throwing away good batteries.

I try different batteries. They don’t work. I put them back in the drawer. I get two more. From the drawer. The flashlight still doesn’t work.”Okay,” I tell the kids.”Two of you lift up the couch while the other one looks.”

Even after devoting considerable mental energy to the subject, I still can’t see any flaw in this process — nothing to explain why we never have a flashlight that works. If by some miracle we ever came to possess an Approved Winter Survival Kit, with an actual functioning flashlight, it would be borrowed quicker than a desperate child can wail,”Where’s the remote? I’m missing ‘Sponge Bob Square Pants!'”

Now that I think about it, we already have some of that other stuff in our car. Ice scrapers? At least four, crammed underneath the seat, all cracked, along with the pieces of a couple more. Jumper cables? A brand new set, guaranteed to be a foot shorter than necessary. Warning triangle? We’ll send the kids out with a red rag to wave. First aid kit? Seems like a waste of money. Blood congeals pretty quickly in the cold. Problem solved. Warm blankets? Got it covered. We have one that’s been in the trunk for years — it smells like dust, spare tire and gas. Spare clothing? This I don’t get. You’re stranded in a howling blizzard. Wind chill 800 below. You ran out of gas an hour ago. At that moment you decide you want to change clothes?

Food? Got it covered. Kit-Kat bars are what kept the Donner Party going. Fire extinguisher? The problem with having a fire extinguisher in your car is that, most of the time, your car is what’s on fire. It would be better if everybody else carried a fire extinguisher and you could borrow theirs. Tow rope? Sorry. Every rope we’ve ever had gets whittled away piece by piece. Put up a tire swing here. Drag your sister on roller blades behind the bike there. Pretty soon there’s not enough rope to hold up a pair of pants. Maps? Why? You’re in the ditch or stuck in a snowdrift or your engine’s going rrr-rrr-rrr-click. You’re not going anywhere, so you don’t need to know how to get there.

I guess we’re set, winter driving-wise. If you happen upon us by the side of the road — whether we’re stuck, on fire, rolled over or whatever — don’t bother stopping. We’ll be fine.

Editor’s Note: This column is revised from the January/February 2003 issue of South Dakota Magazine. To order a copy or to subscribe, call (800) 456-5117.

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Coldlands Beauty

By Katie Hunhoff

The Badlands are a solitary destination even in temperate seasons, but frigid temperatures ensure more privacy. Photographer Carl Johnson likes the Badlands for its seclusion, in summer or winter.

Johnson has explored the Badlands since he was a kid living in Rapid City. Now a professional photographer in Anchorage, Alaska, he still comes home to photograph and explore the unique landscape.

His fascination with the Badlands grew from his early interest in paleontology and mineralogy. He searched canyons and gullies throughout the Black Hills for rocks and fossils. At age 10 he showed some of his finds to the professors at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology.

“It’s an island of strangeness in the middle of the prairie, and so unique and isolated. Once you’re there, there are so many unique places to go off the road system of the park. It’s an otherworldly place you can explore for the sake of exploring or to get your creative juices flowing. It’s great for inspiration.”

Johnson’s forays in the Badlands, and other favorite haunts like Black Elk Peak and Grizzly Bear Creek fostered a love for wild places. Photography came, unexpectedly, when he joined the Navy after high school. He began working as a photojournalist while serving as ship’s photographer for the U.S.S. Haleakala and U.S.S. David R. Ray, photographing everything from re-enlistment ceremonies to missile firings. He continued taking photos while attending the University of Minnesota. A stint working at the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota got him interested nature photography.

He admits that as a youngster, he didn’t fully appreciate the benefits of solitude in the outdoors. Years later he read Whitman, Thoreau and Sigurd Olson.”They made me think about the outdoors in ways that hadn’t occurred to me, and it changed how I see wilderness and what I do with my photography.”

When searching for Badlands wildlife Johnson doesn’t just capture an image, but tries to understand and picture the animal in the place where it lives.”You see things more holistically when you combine that understanding with a photographic vision,” he says.

The wide-open spaces in the Badlands don’t provide a lot of cover while searching for wildlife.”A lot of it is just luck. For example, I was photographing some rolling hills and looked over and saw a coyote,” he says.”Otherwise, a lot of it is understanding the subject and how to behave. And the luck factor, that’s important.”

Johnson recently married an Anchorage native, Michelle. His family has left South Dakota, but he still returns home to the Badlands.”There is something wild and open and inviting there,” he says.

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

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Island Winter

Two islands lie near Pierre — Farm Island and LaFramboise. They’re most popular in fair weather, when visitors most comfortably enjoy their lush nature, varied wildlife and miles of hiking. But snow and ice lend a different perspective to their beauty. Photos by Lance Bertram.

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Light Through the Storm

By Christian Begeman

This winter has started ugly. There have been snow storms all across the state, record wind chills and to top it off, a major ice storm and blizzard over Christmas. This column is about finding beauty in the midst of that raging holiday storm. I tread lightly because I know the storms we have experienced are deadly at worst and stressful in the least. With that in mind, I first want to say thank you to the electric cooperative linemen, snowplow drivers and friendly neighbors who quickly lend a hand to help those who are suffering.

Our winter weather the weekend before Christmas was coupled with dangerously cold temperatures. I had planned on driving to Mobridge to watch my nephews play basketball, but the wind chills changed my mind. I stayed inside most of Saturday, and by the middle of the afternoon I had a major case of cabin fever. So I went to my dresser to find long johns, down to the garage closet to knock the dust off my coveralls and out the door. The snow drifting right outside my living room window was the first subject followed by Jack Frost’s handiwork on my storm door window. I ended that cold day with a -7 degree sunset in northern Minnehaha County.

My Christmas break started Dec. 22 with an afternoon drive to Day County to look for birds. Pickerel Lake Recreation Area is said to be a good place to find winter birds. I was unlucky in that I only found a flock of black-capped chickadees and heard a bluejay. I did see a nice group of white-tail deer trying their best to avoid me in the campground. They were quite successful, since their skill in managing shin-deep snow is far superior to mine.

I made it to Isabel on Dec. 23. Dad and I took a drive south to Red Earth Creek the next morning in foggy, frosty conditions and found grouse, turkey, pheasant, a hairy woodpecker and a large flock of goldfinches among the trees. On Christmas Day the mist, rain and sleet started. I went out mid-morning and found around an inch of ice built up on anything stationary like fences, highwires and even crested wheat grass. Right before Christmas dinner the rain turned to snow and the wind picked up. It howled all night and well into the next day. About an hour before sunset on Dec. 26, my mom and I ventured out to try to capture a few images of the winter wonderland. Luckily, a neighbor had cleared our driveway. Otherwise I’d still be shoveling.

We drove about 2 miles south of town, noting the drifts and the horned larks who seemed unaffected by the cold. I stopped to shoot the ice buildup on a woven-wire fence with the setting sun. To do this I had to cross a ditch that was completely filled with snow. My mom had a great laugh inside the warm pickup cab watching me get high-centered in nearly waist-deep snow. It took a few minutes but I negotiated my way back to the road as my dear mother wiped tears of laughter from her eyes.

We headed back in time to see a herd of 30-plus deer emerge from a tree lot on the edge of town. When I got out to shoot a photo, they bounded off into the snowswept prairie like the nature footage you see of reindeer in Lapland. It was all quite an adventure, and as ugly as the weather turned, if you looked hard enough there was always beauty to be found. We thankfully had power throughout the holidays, but I know many didn’t. It isn’t always easy living in God’s Country, but I truly do think the beauty that surrounds us makes it worthwhile.

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