It’s been three years since I last saw this river, on a brisk November morning at its opposite end. Elena and I cross the Mississippi at the Upper St. Anthony Lock, closed to prevent the northern spread of bighead carp, a non-native invasive which can out-eat any fish that belongs here. The only natural waterfall […]
Monthly archives for November, 2017
Gangland shootouts and breakfast cere...
Seven hours left to drive and I already regretted the morning’s stops: Crazy Horse, Mount Rushmore, the Badlands—I’d have traded them all for a shower and a clean pair of jeans. There is a freedom to living out of your luggage, but laundry is a risky business when you’re on a limited supply of underwear. On […]
Headbutt Practice
Easily 10% of this state is Wall Drug billboards, the remaining 90% grass and casual racism. That a South Dakota shopping mall is famous because its owners decided to slap ads all over the damn landscape is perhaps the single greatest testament to American capitalism since the digging of the Panama Canal, but I have […]
Gutzy
If controversies surround the Crazy Horse Memorial, which at least uses some of its revenue to put native youth through college, then Mount Rushmore, nine miles to the northeast, is one big controversy blasted into the face of a mountain. A monument hewn from sacred land, idolizing four abusers of this land’s original inhabitants. Washington, […]
Work in Progress
Following rumors of a gold finding in 1874, George Armstrong Custer led 1000 troops into the Black Hills. Their discovery of a small amount of gold on French Creek triggered a massive gold rush, and invading prospectors, in violation of the Treaty of Fort Laramie, clashed with the native tribes. In the resulting war, Crazy […]