Crazy Horse Memorial

It snowed in the beautiful South Dakota Black Hills on Saturday and Sunday. I woke up to a foot of snow, and a lot of it melted on Monday. You can tell how dry the land is since it absorbed all that snow so quickly, and no flooding. S-l-u-r-p-p-p-p-p.

On Tuesday I set out to tour. I went to Mt Rushmore and Crazy Horse Memorial. I have been to both of these before, but saw some real changes. Mt Rushmore has developed the area quite a bit. I walked in with a woman who works there. She said there used to be a few benches. Well now there is a bookstore, 6 parking garages, gift shop, flags of all the states and of course the noble men carved into the rock. And an additional bonus of some mountain goats on the way out.

I remember seeing the Crazy Horse Memorial in 70-71. I love it - the concept, the history, the actual carving, the passion of the sculptor and his family. The sculptor was sitting at the bottom when we were there in 70-71. I don’t think he had brought any heavy equipment up to the top at that point. The sculpture was begun in 1948. What a colossal undertaking this is. I can see the changes through the years, but I can also see the amount of work to be done. The major work already done is the removal of millions of tons of rock. The complex also houses the Indian Museum of North America, the Indian University of North America and a medical training center. Crazy Horse Monument is not funded with any government support.  Most of the funding comes from the admission fees. Sales at the complex and donations from individuals and groups make up the difference. They have thought of so many ways to make money, selling this, selling that, now bus trips up to the bottom of the sculpture. But the best way is to sell rocks taken from the mountain. You can buy a rock and you get a card describing the type - an authentication so to speak. I hope they get to sell at least a million ton of these.

In Mitchell, South Dakota I went to the George McGovern Memorial Library. I always liked George McGovern. He stayed true to his ideals and worked for the American people. Even now the family asks that if you want to give a donation in the name of George McGovern please give it to this organization which combats hunger in the US (or SD). When he ran

I think Massachusetts was the only state to vote for him. I remember, although my brother would never admit this, he and I were the only 2 votes for McGovern in our home town.

I stayed in Hinckley, MN for quite some time. I enjoyed the Swedish history of the area. I also loved the campground. I stayed in the campground connected to the casino in Hinckley. The sites were big, and the amenities were great and the cost was reasonable - at least before the Memorial Day holiday. They had over 100 campsites and I thought I’d stay over the weekend so I didn’t have to be on the road. They could accommodate me Tuesday through Friday, and Sunday through Monday. So I just had to go find a place for Saturday, which wasn’t too bad. But I lucked out and found a campground with only 30 sites which would take me Saturday through Monday. Being at the campground at the casino reminded me of being at Swansey. “Hey, Jim, how was your winter?” ” Laurie, Grandpa’s here. Come see him.” I guess a lot of them come back each year.

While in Hinckley I explored my Swedish routes. I visited 4 towns which had Swedish heritage. One of them had a great museum. It had buildings put up by Swedish immigrants, including a house, barn, church, etc, and this year featured Swedish handicrafts. I was told many years ago they were filming a movie in Sweden about emigrants to the US. They sent Ingrid Bergman to this museum. There were a number of pictures of Ingrid Bergman doing handicrafts, smiling, etc. There were people from Sweden visiting the same day I was. All in all, I loved the museum. Of course, years have passed since the first Swedish immigrants came. I asked a number of people before I went, about the towns (one called “Little Sweden”), the big round barn, and other things I had heard.  Not one person I asked knew anything about anything Swedish. Driving down the road I saw this big sign that said Swedish Mall, and drove in and parked. There was a memorial for the first Swedish immigrants to land there. It said there was a restaurant and gift shop, among other things. I went in to the big mall building and found no gift shop. One shop owner said he didn’t know there was one, but directed me to the owner of the mall building. She told me it was in the restaurant, and there I saw 2 short shelves last dusted in the 50s, on the wall with “Swedish-looking” articles like those little red wooden candle holders with a couple flowers painted on them.  So much for roots. But I did find the big round barn, the water tower built like a Swedish teapot, and the mention of immigrants from Sweden, Finland and Norway. They must have sought out the snowiest areas of the country.

In Hinckley I visited the Fire Museum.This was very sad. On Saturday, September 1, 1894, a fire storm raced through the area. The fire wall was 4 ½ miles high. In 4 hours it destroyed 6 towns, 48 square miles of pine forest, and killed 418 people. Of course at this time they only kept records of the white settlers. There are no records of how many native Indians also perished. The most interesting thing I learned here was that 2 trains saved hundreds of people from Hinckley. They piled all the people they could on the trains. One raced through the fire storm. One couldn’t go forward and had to back up. Once it couldn’t go any further, the people jumped out and into a mud flat/swamp area. There were sad, sad stories and stories of heroism. Another interesting fact was that the state set up a relief committee which provided modest homes and basic furniture to families. They had an example at the museum. Another interesting fact is that the soldier who shot and killed John Wilkes Booth apparently died in this fire. It really is a small world.

My next state was Wisconsin. I stayed in Superior, first town on the Wisconsin side beside Duluth, MN. I went to the downtown waterfront of Duluth. It had typical tourist restaurants and shops, but it also had a lift bridge. On the news I had seen huge ships coming in, dwarfing the people watching beside them. While I was there only fishing boats went through, but it was fun to see the bridge lifted.

When I was at a tourist information center I picked up a brochure of the Apostle islands off the shore of Wisconsin in Lake Superior. The officer at the center told me not to miss these. They were really something. So I booked a boat ride to see the islands. The history of the islands was interesting. We went by a fish camp on one. All the trees were about 50 years old on another. We found out that was because they logged the island until all the trees were gone. We heard about an enterprising young realtor who offered a house for sale with a sunken living room, dining room and kitchen. This was his house which he had built and attempted to move over the ice one winter. It had sunk to the bottom of the lake. But the islands were green wooded pieces of land. In other words, I wasn’t impressed. I’m not usually negative about things I see, and I wondered why. I kept waiting to see the islands as they were shown on the brochure. I think what they did was display a picture taken by someone standing in the water in front of Devil’s Island.

There were caves on this island, which looked interesting. But from the boat they were not as big or the rocks as high as on the brochure. When I got back to the pier I went to the restaurant, Pickled Herring, and had - you guessed it - pickled herring. Mmmmmm, it was good.

On my travels this whole trip I have not seen a lot of wildlife. I’ve seen mountain goats, deer, pronghorns, rabbits - one that was really big. I might have thought it a jackalope, but it had no antlers, so I guess it was just a jack. I heard a lot of coyotes a couple camps back. I picked up a Ranger’s book describing all the harrowing visits from bear. My next stop is an area well known for moose and bear. Hopefully I’ll see something, like maybe a moose or bear.

The Upper Peninsula is pretty because of all the water. I keep calling Lake Superior the ocean. I don’t feel too bad though, there are scads of SEAgulls, so they got it wrong too.