I wasn't aware that a hunting license was required in 1914, but today we received a packet of information from William Knox in Highmore. He says his Uncle Fred Knox lived near Greenwood on the Yankton Sioux Reservation and that he traded for a gun with a Native American friend many years ago. In the stock of the 1887 Winchester 10 guage shotgun was a 1914 license issued to Frank LaDick of Geddes.


Three notches in the gun barrel apparently represent three bald eagles that were shot with the Winchester. That's the story Frank LaDick told Uncle Fred many years ago. A century-old gun in South Dakota could tell a lot of stories.

We are selling quite a few books and gift subscriptions for the Christmas season -- so many, in fact, that it's almost a full-time job now for our Outdoors Editor to just greet the customers. However, it is becoming somewhat embarrassing because he often likes to lay down on the floor, belly up, and beg to be scratched. The weird thing is that most of our readers oblige him.

Of course, nobody does it like the ladies in Pierre, where our State Capitol's rotunda is beautifully decorated with a forest of trees every Christmas season. But the tradition is spreading all around South Dakota. In our travels, we constantly find another and another.

Recently we were in Highmore, where the rotunda of the Hyde County Courthouse is spruced up with trees decorated by local groups. This week we stopped at the Crossroads Hotel in Huron and came upon trees (shown here) in the large foyer of the new Huron Events Center, which adjoins the hotel.

Watertown has a Holiday Festival of Trees at its events center on the west side of town. Brookings' display is downtown. Are we missing some?

The tree displays have truly become quite an interesting tradition in the state, and if you look closely you'll see that they often reflect our culture in interesting ways: for example, veterinarians decorate their tree much differently than the local cookie club or the Sons of Norway. You'll find humor, patriotism, civic pride, domesticity and many other values and eccentricities on the trees.

So look and enjoy, but don't eat the cookies hanging on the Extension Club's big pine tree in Huron. They're stale.

We just received this news bulletin from our friends at Mental Health America:

Alexandria, VA (November 29, 2007) – Mental Health America today announced a report analyzing depression levels and suicide rates among all 50 states and the District of Columbia, revealing that South Dakota ranked first as the healthiest state with respect to depression status. Following South Dakota were Hawaii, Iowa, Louisiana and Minnesota. Utah was ranked last, with the highest depression levels, followed by West Virginia, Rhode Island, Kentucky and Nevada.

On the other hand, if you are feeling depressed then the news that you are in such a minority here might make you feel very lonely on his cold, windy, cloudy and miserable November afternoon .... so please don't do anything stupid after reading this. Just be happy that you live in South Dakota.

Buffalo Lake Restaurant west of Sisseton was once on the shores of Buffalo Lake, but Charlie and Mabel Almos didn’t own the land their building sat on. When the landowner decided to raise their rent, Charlie put the restaurant on wheels and moved it a few miles away. He said he’d rather raise the restaurant than raise the price of a hamburger.

Charlie has since gone to his reward, but Mabel is still running the place. We were there a few Tuesdays ago for pancake night. Since this is Tuesday, we thought we'd remind anyone traveling way up North to drop by for dinner at Mabel's. Is there anything better than a hot pancake on a cold November night?

Mabel also has bullhead feeds on Fridays. The only thing more plentiful than the food at Mabel's Buffalo Lake Restaurant is the family pictures hanging on the walls. The place is a Glacial Lakes institution.

One of our readers heard Connie Smith sing in Branson a few days ago, and she told him that she was married on the Pine Ridge Reservation to fellow country star Marty Stuart. We "googled" her, and sure enough the two singers were wed on the rez in July of 1997. Marty was then working on an album called "Badlands," a tribute to the Native American culture.

We've long noticed that some of the world's really interesting people seem to pass through the Pine Ridge country — and quite often they do so with little attention or fanfare because there is so little media in southwest South Dakota. Actors, musicians, writers and all sorts of other people seem drawn there by the haunting history and the colorful culture.

We planned to run a "Know your cuts of meat" contest, but Letterman beat us to it so today we're premiering our "Know Your Peaks" contest. Guess the name of this mountain in the Black Hills and we'll send you an autographed copy of our 260 pp. hardcover book, South Dakota Photographed.

Enter your guess in the "comments" below. Cheating is ok in this particular contest because we know it's going to be a tough one.

The first to guess the name of the mountain wins the prize. We'll provide some hints later today, but for starters we'll tell you that it's in the Black Hills.


First Hint: A great battle between two Indian tribes was fought there.

I have two ancient tractors with snow scoops but neither of them runs right now. One doesn't have any spark and the other isn't getting any gas. If I put the two together, I'd have a funny-looking machine that would run.

Considering this predicament, I've been watching the weather forecasts. No big snowfalls have been predicted so I wasn't very worried until last night when this gigantic halo appeared around the full moon.

Old-timers say a halo around the moon predicts moisture is soon to come, and the bigger the halo the more the moisture. I think I'd better go home and try to get one of the two tractors running.