|
Deane and Norm's Motorcycle Trip to Northwest Territories & Nunavut | |
|
August 31 - Interior, SD to Sidney, NE - 310 Miles |
|
Today was a good day for visiting places despite riding in the rain off and on for most of the day. My odometer turned over 6,000 miles since I left home on this trip. My three things I wanted to visit were "Wounded Knee" on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation, the "Trapper Museum" at Chadron, Nebraska, and "Car Henge", near Alliance, Nebraska. Ever since I read the book "Wounded Knee", I have wanted to actually go and see the site of the terrible 1876 US Army massacre of Sioux and Minneconju Indians. This was one of the saddest chapters in our country's history, when the US Army massacred 146 Indians, men, women, and children, and in the process probably killed many of the 36 soldiers who died, by "friendly fire" from cannons after these soldiers had just disarmed the Indians. Nobody knows who started the shooting, but it was deadly. This happened on Wounded Knee Creek, within the Pine Ridge reservation. I found my way through the large Pine Ridge reservation, and was surprised at what a beautiful part of Nebraska this is. I just stopped at the monument for a few minutes, and looked around at the now peaceful scene. The next interesting thing was to visit a little "Trapper's Museum", in Chadron, Nebraska. I had visited it a few years ago but didn't have enough time to really absorb all of the fascinating exhibits they have. Its a small volunteer museum which has displays of the trade goods that Traders used for trading with the Indians, and the skins, furs, and handmade articles the Indians would bring in to trade. They have many, many displays, from what was traded on the East Coast very early, to the Great Lakes area, to the Midwest, to the West, to Canada and Alaska. It is the most interesting museum of its type I have ever seen. It is located on the site of an actual trading post that operated from 1837 to 1849 by a white trader and his Indian wives. (He had two wives, the two daughters of a Sioux chief - no doubt this helped trade.) The little log cabin which housed the trader has been reconstructed so one can see how tiny and cramped it was. Its well worth an hour if you are anywhere near Chadron. The item of sheer fun was to see "Car Henge" again. "Car Henge", you say - what is that? Well, a Nebraska man had the idea to create something similar to "Stone Henge" in England and he did it with old cars! I had found this by chance a few years ago, and wanted to come back again. It is funny, and worth driving up Highway 87 just north of Alliance, Nebraska to see it. The man who created this actually worked in England for a while, was interested in the real Stone Henge, and made measurements so that Car Henge is on the same scale. When he built it in 1987, the town of Alliance, just two miles away, almost had a fit, and gained the legal condemnation to remove the structure. However, when they found it was a tourist attraction, they changed their minds. Now there are a few medium sized signs advertising it on the adjacent highways, and about 85,000 people a year stop to see it. The artist/builder encouraged other people to create metal sculptures, made from car parts, to add in the pasture. The next one is one by Canadian artist, titled "Salmon Laying Eggs", and in the background the dinosaur is made entirely of car parts
Then there are other "sculptures" added since I was there in about 1996.
All in all, a fun place to visit. |
||
