Great Plains Pilgrimage Summer 2025- Minnesota

Have you ever wondered? Wondered about things unseen and misunderstood. How do you get at a truth that has been pretty effectively erased and not necessarily buried, but allowed to sink into the ground and slowly be forgotten?

As an educator, I did my best to work into lessons some forgotten history. Some unbelievably unkind and unfair human practices that don't make the textbooks that we have little to no control over (at least in public education, but I didn't always work the public side).

Let's take war for example. No small topic, no quick and easy explain. Yet humans have been warring for our entire existence. 

Let's also look at power. Throw in conquest, and we are getting at what makes us an ugly species. 

Bring it home to our country; specify the United States, for contrary to what some may think, we are only a small part of North America. Then we can narrow it down.

Have I mentioned genocide? Oh no, not that dirty word. It truly is the dirtiest word in the English dictionary, IMHO.

Once upon a time I did an entire unit on "genocide." One of the essential questions was the poser: Was what happened to the Indigenous Peoples of the United States considered genocide? Boy was that ever a unit! Some folks knew so little of these people, their history, or their current situation. We all sucked up the knowledge like thirsty people who have not had enough water for a long time.

We started with a timeline, went to numbers- compared them to current stats (THEY ARE STILL HERE I kept insisting), then some specific acts, and finished with local history and a field trip around to try to reimagine our landscape. It was powerful stuff.

But we are a small little New England town with a quaint and (untrue) little narrative of the Pilgrims and the Indians that we are fed a history of every Thanksgiving that many want to keep eating from.

Well I don't partake, nor do I eat. I quest. This time it was to the Great Plains region of our country; visiting Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa on my journey.

I start with Minnesota because that is where the plane let me off. 

FORT SNELLING

Right near the airport and right at the confluence of 2 rivers in the twin cities area, this unbelievably quiet place was hard to take in. 

Quiet today b/c the fort wasn't open, but my mind tried to peel back thousands of years and imagine people gathering at this confluence. 

The area was once (and may still be) called Bdote- where 2 waters come together. The Dakota have a long history here; to them this land is sacred- surrounded by spiritual sites and graves of relatives.

It was hard to arrive at the place knowing its history. It's "other history." The Fort is a tourist attraction (rebuilt in the 1960s) when opened + some claim it is the birthplace of Minnesota, heralding the patriotic and pioneering spirit of colonizers, while ignoring the "other history."

In a city/cities that combined has almost 1 million humans, this quiet and nature filled spot seemed almost buccolic...

And it could be if you ignored this sign and the horrid history it contains. This is where the question of genocide first came up for me. And I remind you and myself it is BUT ONE of many places where poor human behavior took place. 

It was a very confusing area with limited signage (b/c the Fort is the draw, not necessarily the trail system or the actual lands of the Dakota or the massacre).

There were other folks hiking, despite the creeping thermometer (upwards of 95 that day). I didn't bother them; instead continued my silent, solemn journey. I bet they made it to the now unmarked concentration camp below Fort Snelling.

This part of the walk was paved so I knew it likely was associated with Fort Snelling and not Dakota.

Hi sentient being! Enjoy your journey!

A useless sign I found. The order of listing told me what I already imagined. As I learned further along in my journey, even the word "Minnehaha" denoting a powerful sacred site to the Dakota was culturally misappropriated by Henry Wadsworth Longfellows, "The Song of Hiawatha," a made up tale made by a white male (not from the area) that made HWL famous with white people. I even saw "Hiawatha" streets! That this "epic" poem has stood for 170 years as a made up piece of literature touted by many makes me sick. I crave real truth, not made up stories. It is right up there with "Uncle Tom's Cabin" by a white woman in fake white woman made up black vernacular that promulgated inaccurate stereotypes. Those 1850's did a lot of damage to the history of our country, IMHO. 

Let me sidetrack for a minute while I am on black folks. One interesting historical thing I found was that enslaved Black folks were also kept at the fort. Two in particular were there, made famous in their historic fight for FREEDOM. Dred and Harriet Scott met and married here. I wont go any further b/c we all know it is a sad story with a sad ending and we can't have too many of them in one blog now can we (It's the dam 1850's era again).  

As I didn't follow the hikers, nor did I have a trail guide, I quickly became lost as the temperature steadily rose. I came upon this structure in a clearing, and knew civilization (and my rental car) was near. I made it back to my car and began again.

I just had to pause and snap- this is how close the metropolitan areas of the twin cities was. Hidden history all over this place.

Swingers in St. Paul.

Another sidetrack- by the time I found Pike's Island/Wita Tanka along a very cool drive across small unpaved roads on an actual island in the convergence of the rivers), and the visitor's center, I saw these, and was ready to give in and give it a whirl. But when the woman told me the marker I was looking for was literally right outside the door, I declined the ride. Just want to note how cool it is that this state park (now I was in St. Paul) had these resources available to folks free for use.

The state of the monuments reminded me when I traveled long and far distances in search of black folks history to find weathered and old signage, as if the obligatory effort was built to fade fast so memories would fade + disappear too.

The inscription states:

This memorial honors the sixteen hundred Dakota people, many of them women and children, who were imprisoned here at Fort Snelling in the aftermath of the 1862 U.S.-Dakota Conflict. Frightened, uprooted, and uncertain of the fate of their missing relatives, the interned Dakota suffered severe hardship. At least 130 died during the cold winter months of captivity.

In May, 1863, the survivors from the camp were crowded aboard steamboats and taken to Crow Creek in southeastern South Dakota. Those who survived Crow Creek were moved again three years later to the Santee Reservation in Nebraska.

The pipestone in the center of the memorial was placed here by Amos Owen of the Prairie Island Indian Community during a ceremony in 1987. Please be respectful of this sacred place.

This memorial honors the 1600 Dakota people, many woman, children, and elders that were held in the concentration camp erected below Fort Snelling (which I probably would have perished trying to find without walking sticks nor hydration) after the Dakota War of 1862. This is the pipestone piece placed at the center on the memorial in 1987 by Amos Owen of the Prairie Island Indian Community.

As the inscription stated, a genocide took place here. Persecution continued with court cases, hangings, and even continues to this day, as the contemporary Prairie Island Indian Community has lost land to controversial construction projects and currently only has holdings to approximately 5 square miles, none of which is in the spot of the memorial.

I said my mea culpa's, bowed my head in shame, wiped my very sweaty head, and went on my way. Day one, hour one, and I already felt so heavy with the burdens of the past as I traversed the scarred lands of the Great Plains. 

In the Spirit of... Utah State Hospital Summer 2022 (posted 11/2025)

 Driving around Utah is not like driving around new England. The canyons, valleys, and land masses are so different. 

As we sought out our site the day turned to night and the difference in driving was striking.

East Provo on Canyon Road

Deer Creek State Park in Provo Canyon

Provo- Brigham Young University

A hard concept to take in as we traveled around the mountain west region was to be in one place of great conflict one day (Battle of Little Bighorn) and on another in the land that some folks are now beholden to and call "Mormon Country." We did not stop at any Mormon places per se, nor did we go to any of the national parks here; we had a different agenda. Sites of persecution can be defined in many ways, and I guess those folks who got behind Brigham Young probably felt that way. I mean the dude Brigham came here when this place wasn't even a state yet. It was a territory. Somebody else's land. A man on a mission, rising in status and power, I think, has univision (did I just make up a word?). He led "his" people into a desert canyon, and well known and documented exclusivity (aka racism), had to deal with the "Laminites" (Indigenous people according to the Book of Mormon). That old "kill or be killed" adage usurps the missionary focus of this religious sect. For battle they did. 

I did not have to ask, "What would BY do" in relation to the internment camps we visited. Not his day, not his watch, not his time (WWII), irregardless, I do not think I would have liked a megalomaniac with 56 wifes. I can't even ask him about the site we did visit, which is in the back yard of the school he founded. BY died in 1877, the territorial insane asylum was founded in 1885.

Some background info:

"The asylum was originally conceived as a place for individuals to be rehabilitated and returned to public life. However, the training and resources were insufficient and the institution soon became a human warehouse with terrible conditions."

A shift in attitudes toward the institution was signaled in 1903 when it was officially renamed the State Mental Hospital. Later in 1927, it was again renamed the Utah State Hospital in a further attempt to remove stigma. 

  

Remains of the day... One of my favorite travel things to do. This site, once upon a time, was separated from the town by swamplands and a dump. Now it is neighbors with BY University and has a campus of 312 acres.

Was it overcrowded? Yes. Peak population circa 1940= 1,100 in a place built for 700. Does it still exist? Yes, although we could not see any of the current site, nor the museum they have there.

The original site

And what's left:

What is circled is where we went. The remnants of the "old hospital." The modern campus is quite large + houses 312 patients. We could see little of this campus. We were happy/lucky that the campus security person directed us to the old part in the back. 

The original hospital building, a large Richardson-Romanesque style building (now you know part of where/how my curious mind wended here) was demolished in 1981. 

For a video on the Castle Ampitheater go here:

USH Castle Ampitheater

What hubby Peter + I were trying to sleuth out was the plaque that told who built this awesomely creepy in the night structure.

All stone and built on a hill; doesn't this sound like a wise idea for recreation (insert sarcasm)? This is an 800 stone-seated ampitheater that mostly was unused after being built in the 1930's.

It is impressive and spooky and currently used  (1970's rehab opened it back up) for public events.

This structure was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1986 (now you know what we were looking for!).

For nearly 3 decades (1971-1997), the site was used for an annual "Haunted Castle" by the community.

It is hard to conceive as a recreational center. Not sure what the thinking was at the time.

It looked forbidding and like a fortress to lock people in. 

Yes this looks awfully like a possessed spirit, but it is merely me. Back in the day, I would have been committed for "social nonconformity" (yup, a discriminatory practice that existed).

We didn't find this marker, nor the national historic brown one. A quick note; Utah was hit hard by the depression, and had an unemployment rate of approx. 36% (4th highest in the country in 1933). So this project, although probably ill-conceived and impractical, is a cool reminder of a, IMHO, good federal program to put people to work.

For more info: USH Castle Ampitheater

A pictoral essay in Utah Hx'cal Qtrly: https://issuu.com/utah10/docs/uhq_volume78_2010_number2/40

A good article about the "Haunted Castle Days: The Complex Ethics of a Haunted House Starring Psychiatric Patients

A hokey radio-type ghost story piece: Is the Utah State Hospital Haunted by Echoes of Its Dark Past? | Paranormal Deep Dive

We did not find any paranormal experiences, no plaques, and no humans either. This was the only sentient beings we saw silently moving about. They were awfully cute, and could care less about us.

Big Sky Country Summer 2022 (never finished until 2025)

 It takes a while. These visits to places and spaces in the United States that leave me so conflicted that I can't immediately process all that I take in.

So many events, both good and bad, of cultural and historical relevance. Today I revisit a place visited 3 summers ago and as I plan another summer trip I have to pause and ask, "why are you always drawn to these places of conflict?" 

I think I have injustice baked into my dna. When I see, sniff, or hear about it, I want to go to it. I have some sort of impulsion to try to right all injustices, even if in a seemingly small and irrelevant way. After all, it is my soul work and perhaps I emit psychic energy up into the universe that will mean something going forward. I certainly know that I can't change the past. At least I can say, "I'm sorry."

That's what these trips across the Nation have become. Healing hops. AND shame on you's- that's right I also spit on and wag my finger too!

So today I reflect on the healing hop to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. Where I'm sorries we doled out and spit happened.

Starting with a name and borrowing from another blog. The National Parks Conservation Association had a post by Nicolas Bruilliard in 2020 that stated:

"Less than three years after the victory of the Lakota, Cheyenne and Arapaho over the troops of Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer in June of 1876, the site of the Battle of the Little Bighorn was preserved to protect the graves of the U.S. soldiers who died there, and the site was named National Cemetery of Custer’s Battlefield Reservation. Until 1991, Little Bighorn National Monument was still known as Custer Battlefield National Monument, and the name change is part of a larger shift in the interpretation of the site."

Viewing the site and imagining the heart-hurt of being pushed off your land, it would have really pissed me off to have the site named as it was in 1876. That it took 115 years to correct blows my mind. 

In the back of my mind as we cross this Nation, trying to hit all states and occupied spaces, the mantra that stays with me is the title of the Nat'l Parks blog post and also a take-off of white Woody Guthrie's beloved song (This Land is Our Land), 

"This Land is THEIR land." Period. Stop. End of Story. Or... it should be. Yet, it is only the beginning.

What draws me back to this visit, that blog, and now here, is the grappling with the Land Back Movement and what it means to me- a lover of National Parks and despiser of Teddy Roosevelt (yeah I know- trying to hold these 2 truths has caused me a livelong head-hurt).

So more on what Nicolas Bruilliard wrote in 2020, the same year the Indian Collective put forth their Land Back Manifesto:

"In 2003, the Indian Memorial was dedicated to the Native American warriors who perished in the battle, and with that dedication, the park moved further away from simply being a tribute to Custer and his troops to a more balanced portrayal of the battle, which was the Plains tribes’ last armed attempt at preserving their way of life."

I go back now and look upon this big sky country site of vast open land and it is just... just... wow.

It was odd to be staring out on such vast wide open, and silent, land. Trying to imagine such chaos and carnage. Why do we fight? Such a complex question.

 Native American prayer ties, often made with tobacco or cornmeal wrapped in cloth, are left on trees or in sacred places as offerings of prayers, intentions, and gratitude, and all who come in contact with them are blessed by the prayers

From Brittanica Kids:

"The bronze sculpture Spirit Warriors (2003), by Lakota artist Colleen Cutschall, commemorates the Native American warriors who fought at the Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876. The sculpture is part of the Indian Memorial at the Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument."

It was a powerful monument to walk up to and immerse oneself in. 

1928- almost one hundred years and still the struggle persists. For recognition, land, sovereignty, and as I learned from my visit= the fact that they are STILL here. The power of place can not even be written about adequately. Get up, go out and experience as many different spaces as you can is my belief. Glad I came.