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Writers on Wind
May 17, 2017
By Katie Hunhoff
Wind is an omnipresent force in South Dakota. We notice the rare absence of wind almost as much as strong gusts that ruin a summer picnic or dangerously carry snow during blizzards. Our state is consistently ranked as the fifth windiest by the National Weather Service.
Throughout South Dakota's history writers have written about our wind, trying to capture the sound, the bite ...
Our Conspicuous Monuments
May 3, 2017
... 173.
Bates and crew worked their way quickly across the Sisseton Wahpeton Reservation and the high Coteau des Prairie, past the low, flat James River valley to the Missouri Hills. In November, a blizzard slowed them down, but the crew continued on to the Missouri River and placed the 190th mile marker on November 18, 1891. Then they broke for winter.
In spring of 1892, Bates arranged for several rail ...
Firmly Planted in South Dakota
... In those days there was no local doctor who would operate on a woman in this condition, so Hansen frantically wired to Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. A doctor agreed to come, but was held up in a blizzard, and arrived too late. Emma’s appendix burst, and peritonitis set in. She lingered five days before dying in mid-December, 1904.
Heartsick with grief, Hansen now found himself unable to care for ...
Snow Day
April 13, 2017
Leek and spinach soup is the perfect remedy for a South Dakota spring blizzard.
Disappearing Gravel and Other Weighty Matters
March 23, 2017
... videos and pop tarts. Then the accursed stuff must be shoveled. Aching backs. Heart attacks. Those who own snow blowers are spared the shoveling — if their infernal machines, ignored since the last blizzard, will start.
After the snow comes spring. As you may recall from junior high science, snow plus warmth begets water. Water, in turn, begets mud and much sulfurous language. Clueless children and spouses ...
High Mountain Gardening
... deer, elk, coyotes, Ponderosa pines and sky. We call our acreage "Southern Exposure." The sun shines here when it shines nowhere else. And the wind blows, sometimes as a gentle Chinook, sometimes as a blizzard whirlwind.
My mother once sent me a postcard with a greeting that read, "The roots run deep when the winds are strong." That phrase from Charles Swindall has many meanings, but it could have been written ...
West River Oasis
... Catholic churches and sometimes faced frontier-like conditions in traveling from one to another. On foot outside Newell in 1916 or 1917, he found himself in danger of freezing, desperately lost in a blinding blizzard. But, he later recalled, “God was with me and guided me to a barn, where I found myself draped around the neck of a cow.”
Karen Swan and her associates at K-J Leather Company ...
Light Through the Storm
December 28, 2016
This year’s Christmas blizzard was ugly for many South Dakotans, but bright spots could still be found.
Beware of Long Hollow
December 21, 2016
... to visit the Herigstads. When they left it was a warm, sunny winter day. But when they returned in the late afternoon, the sky became dark, the wind rose and suddenly they enveloped in a full-fledged blizzard.
Disoriented by the poor visibility, they veered off their usual path. The sled hit a boulder and broke. Throndson was a tough Norwegian who had immigrated to the area 11 years earlier. He unhitched ...
Gateway to the Sandhills
... to keep ahead of it. That evening when the wind changed, it looked like the heavens were on fire. The light showed above the smoke and dust. Some people believed the world had come to an end.”
Blizzards were another worry. Joy Fairhead wrote in the history book about a 1919 spring storm so furious that, “you couldn’t see your hand in front of your face.” The Fairheads helped a neighbor. ...
Spooklight Road
... through the light, but Lester didn’t see it.
A salesman used to stop by the farm twice a year to service Harry’s hearing aid. The salesman was there late one winter afternoon shortly after a blizzard. The road to the north of the farm was open, but eight-foot high snowdrifts covered the road to the south. The salesman stayed for supper and was invited to spend the night. When he went outside to get ...
Peace Medallion: A Work In Progress
July 18, 2016
... period. Sam Brown, of present-day Browns Valley, rode in the winter to Fort Sisseton to warn of an Indian uprising. Upon reaching the Fort and learning that the news was in error, he rode back into the blizzard to warn locals and avert possible bloodshed. Brown lost his legs to frostbite, and is locally referred to as the Paul Revere of the Midwest.
The Fort was located, ostensibly, to protect the Native population ...
The Golden Oldies
... tale of Norwegian immigrants trying to conquer the Plains, follows Per Hansa and his wife Beret as they homestead in eastern South Dakota in the 1870s. They encounter drought, grasshoppers and blinding blizzards that bring tragedy. “It’s not only one of the great frontier novels,” Roberts says. “It belongs in the top rank of novels written in America. If you want to be well read about ...
A Farmer’s Story
... on my next trip to Roberts County.
Sisseton, a tidy little city of 2,600 people, sits on flatlands just below the Coteau Hills. Sometimes in the winter, the sun is shining in Sisseton while a fierce blizzard rages in the hills west of town. Atop the Coteau, three markers have been erected to memorialize three separate incidents involving travelers lost in such storms.
The Sisseton area has a lot of variety ...
Untamed Harding County
April 19, 2016
... mesa in the Cave Hills that has attracted people for centuries.
Another gravesite in the Slim Buttes is a reminder of South Dakota’s vicious winters. During the notorious Children’s Blizzard of January 1888, Otis Bye, a scout and trapper, was away from home. His wife ventured outside to save their horses. Her frozen body was found days later, watched over by the family dog. Decades later, ...
Buffalo Berries
... house as you make morning toast, slathering it with butter and buffalo berry jelly. The jelly brings the flavor of summer heat to your tongue, a sheet of sweat to your shoulders; even as you watch the blizzard, it reminds you of spring fragrance and the cool nights of fall.
And there's something more. Buffalo berries are symbolic, to me, of the answer to the question all plains people are eventually asked.
"Why," ...
Farmhouse Refuge
One farm family saved dozens of high school basketball fans during the ferocious Blizzard of 1966.
Christmas On The Farm
December 16, 2015
... all my presents wrapped and under the tree, or locked in the storage room.
We have debated the “best” way to do Christmas morning, and the discussion usually turns to whether or not it will blizzard on Christmas Day. My first year as a new wife I spent sitting in a pickup watching gates while the guys moved piles and piles of snow from our feed yards. That night we cuddled on the couch with frozen ...
Lake Legends
... 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 ...
On with the Shows
August 13, 2015
... memories of Vermillion’s little movie theaters, the Coyote Twin and the Vermillion Theater. My favorite is when my husband — then fiancé — and I decided to see a film after a huge blizzard. We first had to clear the driveway to our small trailer, and weren’t sure we’d make the start. Jeremy called the Vermillion Theater. “We’ll wait for you,” the employee assured ...
