Pipestone National Monument

"So what's there to see here?"

I hear that on a daily basis. It's a good question, and the answer is long. Even though it's a small place, that just begs a person to look closer.

I started work at Pipestone National Monument this past week and have been jamming information into my brain all week. I've been cramming info like where the road used to be, exactly where I need to write things down in triplicate and where to put the copies, and the ins and outs of the Treaty of 1848.

This post won't be able to cover everything that's significant about the site, but I hope to add more about certain aspects as time goes on, especially on the topics of culture and tradition.

Pipestone National Monument is approximately 300 acres of tallgrass prairie, oak savannah, and oak woodlands, home to at least 300 plants including the threatened western prairie fringed orchid (I've not seen one yet). Birdwatching is very good, and I've seen several species that are not on the park's list, including a rogue blue-gray gnatcatcher. I had never seen one before, but I knew it was a gnatcatcher at first glance. I guess studying does sometimes pay off.

The natural side of the monument is more of an accident than it is a primary purpose for preserving the site. The real reason for preserving Pipestone National Monument is to preserve the resource - pipestone - and the tradition of quarrying and carving the rock. The site was originally held as an "easement" for the Yankton Sioux, who, in 1848 agreed to move onto a reservation 150 miles to the west of Pipestone, so long as they kept the right to quarry the sacred stone. Without getting into all the details, a combination of conscientious squatters, disputes over land use rights and who owned just what, then a railroad right-of-way issue culminated in the Yanktons being bullied to the point where they chose to sell their rights to the land, taking home approximately $150 per person in the tribe. Immediately, there was pushback to preserve the site some other way, and at the time, the National Park Service seemed to be appropriate.

It is unusual for a national park to preserve an active tradition. Usually, sites like Mesa Verde or Devils Tower that still have cultural significance are not utilized in the same way they were traditionally. However, Pipestone preserves the rock itself, the quarrying tradition, and the tradition of pipemaking. American Indians of any tribe can apply for a permit to quarry in the park, and there are between 30 and 40 quarries that are used within the monument. So far, I've met four quarriers.

The park has a small museum that desperately needs modernizing: the signs are still the old, hand-painted variety. However, in the back section of the museum, there are craftspeople/demonstrators actively making pipes, effigies, and other trinkets out of the pipestone to be sold in the gift shop. This allows people to ask questions and see the tradition as it is actively being carried out within the monument, an initiative undertaken decades ago to make the tradition more a centerpiece of the monument's story rather than having people set up shacks by the quarries or along the park boundary.

The site is a little island of prairie in a sea of agriculture and wind farms. It's really sad to think that so much of the midwest used to look like that, but is gone. It's really strikingly beautiful. At some point, Pipestone Creek was channelized to "improve" the drainage of fields east of the park, draining a lake. Part of that effort was to channelize right down through the waterfall itself, lowering the waterfall by about ten feet and eliminating a natural cascade. It's still an attractive waterfall, but not what it was when George Catlin painted it in 1836. Theodore Roosevelt came to mind: "Leave it as it is...The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it."

Winnewissa Falls

I'll deal more with the cultural aspects of Pipestone National Monument later when I have had more time to study them. I have not asked any of the people who work with the stone to take their picture yet because I don't want to seem weird as we have all just met.

Even though I grew up in the midwest, the plants are still mysterious to me. Sure, I can find you some sumac, strawberries, and violets, but it has been a challenge for me to identify much else. The first two days I was there, the spiderwort was blooming. It blooms for one day. The resource management chief told me that it's also called "snotweed" because if you pluck it, a stringy, gooey mess comes from inside the leaf.

Spiderwort

One of my jobs is to go out and check the river level every morning, then make a subjective rating of 1 to 5 for the clarity of the water. So far, I've always given it a 2 - pretty clear, but not mountain stream clear. It's nice to find the red-eyed vireos, Tennessee warblers, house wrens, grackles, robins, yellow warblers, and orchard orioles chirping away in the morning. I even scared a deer out of the woods one foggy morning.

Pipestone Creek

Among my childhood memories are playing catch with dad in the back yard in Iowa until it started to get too dark, which was about the time the nighthawks come out. So there is a bit of nostalgia when I see nighthawks. Half a dozen have been flying around all day long, making their buzzy "beert" sound, and chasing one another. It must be breeding season.

Common nighthawk. Distinctive white patches under wings and throat, and overall shape make ID easy.

We also discovered a robin nest that's easy to see into. There are currently two chicks in the nest. When mom shows up, she sits on them and is motionless, like a rock, hoping not to be noticed. With visitors, it works more often than not.

Robin on nest, a study on motionlessness. Notice the ants crawling up and down the tree. The sound of rushing water is, indeed, rushing water on the waterfall.

Although I've been doing a lot of reading for work, including the daunting Administrative History of Pipestone National Monument and the Pipestone National Monument General Management Plan, my recreational reading project has been "The Worst Hard Time" by Timothy Egan, a look at survivors of the Dust Bowl. Really great reading. I got it on sale at the UW Bookstore when we were in Madison. I also met author Paul Goble in the park. He writes children's books, many of them American Indian tales including "The Legend of the White Buffalo Woman," which relates to Pipestone. I had no idea who he was when I was just chatting with him and his wife on the trail. Later he told me who he was, went into the bookstore and bought his own book, and gave it to me, signed. What a guy.

That's it for this week.