Adventures in LauraLand Research Travel: Prologue

Recently, a post at Beyond Little House (http://www.beyondlittlehouse.com, official website of the Laura Ingalls Wilder Legacy and Research Association) came along which reminded me of my first venture into LauraLand a few years back.  Before I knew it, my mind was wandering to the night when I got my first real taste of the Dakota landscape...and, most particularly, discovered that Laura's many tales of unpredictable weather were indeed no exaggeration.  


Case in point: October, 2009.

...The first time I went to Dakota I flew into MSP and rented a car to drive around visiting the northern Laura sites.  I had spent a few days wandering in Lake City, MN and Pepin, Wisconsin before ambling over to Walnut Grove, Minnesota.  After exploring the LIW Museum in town, I trotted over to the dugout site at Plum Creek and tumbled through the fields like a five-year-old on the first warm day of spring. 

This was something I'd waited decades for, and here I was, a thirty-something grown woman throwing herself headlong down the hill so fast it is amazing no bones were broken.  I dropped to the ground as I pictured Laura and Mary and Carrie and Baby Grace, playing all over the land. In my flight of fancy, I imagined some of the stray cereal grains growing in an otherwise grassy field might be distant descendants of one of Pa's crops.  I tasted the barley and wheat and I settled back, lying completely down to stare up at the enormous sky through the prism of tall grasses.  I was enamored of this place!  I contemplated how wonderfully different the landscape was from what I'd expected to find, yet, at the same time, through Laura's stories it was just so completely familiar, too.  The land, the creek, the wildflowers, the day--all were simply too beautiful to put into words.


As I left Walnut Grove, I found the evening would prove to be equally beautiful, but in an entirely opposite way...

Old roadbed near the Ingalls property at Plum Creek, Walnut Grove, MN.

That evening I left Walnut Grove, continuing to follow Highway 14 (also known as the Laura Ingalls Wilder Historic Highway), and had not quite made it out of Minnesota before the snow began. Strong winds were blowing the little rental car all over the dark, narrow, nearly-deserted road; as I fumbled for the wiper switch and squinted through the windshield I was suddenly reminded of October Blizzard, a chapter in Laura's The Long Winter. I recalled the many vivid descriptions Laura gave us of the suddenness and severity with which the weather would change, and the numerous accounts from her and so many other writers of the souls lost in the blinding snow of the Great Plains. I started to get a little nervous. 

"It's just flurries," I told myself. "You've done this hundreds of times." After all, I'm a native New Englander. I've been driving in snow my entire life.                                                    


I tried to reassure myself...but the harder and faster the snow fell the more nervous I became.  I was supposed to get to Zeeland, North Dakota, that night.  It was Friday, and the museum in DeSmet was closed over the weekend, so I had a plan to fill in a couple of days exploring things off the beaten path.  A friend of mine who had gown up in Montana was visiting her parents that week.  The older couple had just sold their business and retired to a tiny town amid sprawling bison ranches and long-abandoned homesteads near the wide Missouri River.  My friends were going to show me the "real" Dakota, so I could get a better insight to Laura's environs and experience some of the natural wonders which remain, it would appear, virtually untouched in that corner of the world.  What an adventure!  I was anxious to get there.  But the snow wasn't slowing down and Zeeland was still almost 300 miles away.  I had to make a decision before I lost cell phone service, which I had been warned--and had already discovered--was rather patchy out here. 

This bison was kind enough to allow a portrait.

I considered my options.  
I could call my sister and ask her to find a hotel for me in the nearest city--Brookings, South Dakota.      
                      
It would help to have her as company through the next 25 miles or so. 


Of course, I could stick it out and keep going. I wonder how long before I lost my cell connection?


My friend in North Dakota had asked me to keep her updated on my progress, and I didn't want to worry her...but SHE had grown up in this territory, and might not understand my hesitancy at trucking through. 


It was just a few flurries, in the dark, after all. Then I saw the temperature. 
27*.  
Yikes.  

The pre-storm sunset at a windfarm in Minnesota. 

And only about 7 o'clock.  What would it be like overnight?




I was just about to cross the line from Minnesota into South Dakota; best I could calculate, Zeeland was five hours away, at least.  The GPS couldn't locate my destination, or really pinpoint my current location within better than a ten-mile radius, so I had to rely on my atlas to determine the ETA...it wasn't looking good. 

"Hole in the Mountain" marker at the MN/SD state line.

I stopped briefly at the state line, where an old bronze-colored marker with a large red spot in the center told the tale of the "Hole in the Mountain" and how this road had been explored in the 1870s.  My mind began to wander as I marveled, as I always do, at the sheer gumption of early explorers. 
As I pondered the trailblazers' bravery, the many survival stories I'd run across in my study of American social history haunted me. The Children's Blizzard. The Donner Party. The Hard Winter. All were tumbling in my mind. How many people were lost on the frozen prairies every year? How many were fooled by mild daytime temperatures and the date on the calendar? How many struggled to follow a fence, a clothesline, a group of haystacks, only to die a few yards from shelter? 

The date. Today was the ninth. Only October. October 9th. And Laura knew all about a blizzard in October. And here it was, October, Dakota, snowing. It had been fifty-five degrees in Walnut Grove today. Now I had a coat on top of my fleece and was already wishing my gloves were thicker. I fished around in the luggage for my wool socks. 

I was wishing I had my own car, a sturdy mid-90s-model European rig, "built from jets" and designed with negotiating tundra in mind.  The manual transmission, wide wheel base with snow tires, automatic weatherband radio, and the trunk with its year-round stockpile of emergency tools, maintenance fluids, and tire patch kit (for "Svea Brigitta") along with extra food, water, hiking gear, warm spare clothes and fleece blankets (for me) would serve to comfort far better than this barren, automatic put-put tin can the rental company had stuck me with.   Good thing I remembered the gloves, hat and scarf, but there was only so much I could pack in an airline carry-on, so the pickings were slim. 

My head was swimming.  You'd think I'd never driven in a little snow before.  Of course I was used to this, but I wasn't used to this in DAKOTA.  "What if it keeps snowing?" "What if I can't find an open gas station later tonight?" "What if that deer jumps out in front of me?"  

Along the Chicago and Northwestern Railroad,
South Dakota,
the afternoon following the storm.

The sky was cloudy, but the temperature had
increased by over 30 degrees.

Silly? Perhaps. After all, I'm a native New Hampshirite who has driven in plenty of Nor'Easters, when the snow seems to fly straight at you from all directions and the wind stops your breath. The light from the highbeams bounces off each flake but you can't see the lines on the road well enough to figure out what lane is yours. The effect is hypnotic and wearying as you lean further forward trying to distinguish anything in the blinding white. It is the worst kind of feeling, where you are on edge for the duration because stopping on a snowy road is more dangerous than continuing on when no other driver can see you in time to avoid crashing into you. Better just get where you're going. 

But this was different.  I had never set eyes on any part of Dakota, north or south.  This highway was RURAL, in new ways: boldfaced, italicized, underlined, and with all caps. The wind was shoving the rental all over the road, and the ditch on either side of me was just deep enough that I could envision the worst. The deer peeks out from a withering cornfield, and I am mesmerized by its magnificent beauty.  After a short pause, it leaps directly in front of me, and in my zeal to avoid it I overcorrect, ultimately losing control of the car and flipping over. I'm trapped upside-down and frozen to death long before anyone even notices. 

That decided it.  With no deer yet in sight, but pardoning myself for erring on the side of caution, I called my sister to have her book the hotel for me.  I dared not tempt fate--and the elements!--but instead resigned myself to postpone arrival in North Dakota for a day.  I kept her on the phone long after walking her through the booking on my favorite travel website--just in case I met up with that wily deer.  I made it to the hotel at the edge of the little city, thanked my patient sister profusely, and checked in.  Exhausted, though only 9:00pm or so, I fell into bed without so much as a glance around the room.


The next morning I marveled at the sight of snow-blanketed streets contrasting with a stunning sapphire Dakota sky as I found my way through town to a cafe which the hotel manager recommended for breakfast.  Having forgotten about dinner during my anxiety-ridden travel the night before, on this morning I ate like a lumberjack--or a hired hand.  My steaming platter of hotcakes, scrambled-egg-with-tabasco, oatmeal, wheat toast, even bacon! arrived. (I almost never eat bacon, but it was local stuff and therefore simply must be sampled) Ravenous, once I dug in it all disappeared in minutes, surprising even myself.  I nearly forgot the orange juice and coffee for a moment, I was so hungry.  It must have been the leftover visions from spending the night dreaming fitfully about frozen eyelashes and frostbitten toes that spurred my appetite.

 

Once I'd sopped up the last of the maple syrup, I asked the waitress where to go for a good pair of thick warm workgloves and more wool socks. She muffled a tiny snicker and pointed me in the direction of the sporting goods store halfway down 6th Street.  After that, I was on my way to the Wide Missouri River, wondering all the while if the ramble around Plum Creek had really happened at all...?






...to be continued...

Old Sturbridge Village...Laura would have loved it!

After a particularly cruel and snowy winter, it is with great joy that I announce:

Spring has sprung in New England!

Once again, Springtime in New England means a heraldry of birds chirping, squirrels skittering, leaves sprouting, lupine leaping, and lambs...the lambs are, well, "baa-ahh"ing.  With a Central Massachusetts accent, no less!

That is to say, no Spring in this part of the country would be complete without the arrival of the lambs at Old Sturbridge Village...

...And what better way to celebrate the coming of Spring and the arrival of the lambs than with a visit from Laura?  Animals held a special place in Laura's heart throughout her life.  From "going for the cow" in Burr Oak, to raising chickens at Rocky Ridge...from riding bareback over the Dakota prairie with cousin Lena or learning to ride sidesaddle on her pony, Trixy, Laura's life is filled with stories of animals and all their contributions to her health and well-being.  Laura was known as a woman whose fondness for animals extended to feeding the turtles which congregated at the back steps of her Ozark home and teaching daughter Rose to tame the birds which nested among the trees of their dooryard.

And then there were the sheep!  Both Manly and Laura thought sheep were a wise investment, and a memorable section of The First Four Years declares the purchase of a flock (in partnership with cousin Peter) which turned a profit just in the sale of the first year's shearing as one of the few successes the Wilders would enjoy during their early married life.  These sweetest (if not necessarily smartest) of all creatures were a regular feature of the farm, and in my pursuit of understanding the woman behind the novels, I take pleasure in knowing  I have a built-in-excuse to exclaim over the supreme cuteness of each Spring's newest ewes and rams.

And wouldn't you know?  When "Laura" made a couple of visits to the Village this Spring, one of her intentions was to visit the wooly little bundles at the Freeman Farm.  Yet, it would seem that on the first visit, 9 April, the Girl Scouts were visiting, too, and they just had to meet Laura...So, rather than greet the new lambs, she had a nice, long visit with the Girl Scouts.  Everyone learned a few things about each other's favorite famous, and sometimes not-so-famous, American women, and Laura's new friends  learned that some Ingalls cousins and ancestors had their share of fame, too.

Lambs grow up quickly, and Laura did not want to miss them in all their wobbly cuteness, so she scheduled another journey.  This time, she opted for a quiet Tuesday morning, the 3rd day of May.  Quiet?  Well, that's what she expected, but...this time the Homeschool Families were visiting too!  And they, too, just had to meet Laura!  After a little while, everyone was talking about traveling and moving and packing and saying goodbye to old friends in old places only to make new friends in new places.  There was lots of lively conversation and everyone tried to guess what crazy contraptions and obsolete oddities Laura had brought along in her prairie schooner.  Afterward, lots of hungry travelers found refreshment in some of Mrs. Wilder's very own special recipe gingerbread--including Laura herself--but still, no lambs!

"This simply will not do!" Laura thought to herself.  She must find another excuse to make the long journey to Sturbridge Village before those lambs were grown!


Then, a bulletin was spotted: Wool Days, 28-29 May.  This was a day not to be missed!  Laura had often heard stories of the fun Manly and his brother Royal would have at shearing-time.  Manly--that is, Mr. Wilder, you know--had grown up on a sizable farm far up North in New York, where his father raised horses and lots of sheep.  As a boy, Manly, who was known as "Mannie" back then, learned to care for the sheep and prepare them for a shearing long before he was allowed to care for a single horse.



Mother Wilder and Mannie's sisters would prepare the shorn wool and spin thread from it.  Then Mother Wilder would arrange it on her big loom and weave cloth for the family's clothing.  Wool Days at Sturbridge Village would be a celebration of all the parts of raising, and tending sheep.



This would be a celebration which no animal lover could miss.  But the lambs by now are too grown up.  They are so big it is difficult to distinguish the lambs of the spring from last year's.  But the celebration would still have a lot of interesting sights, and shearing was only the beginning.

More exciting to Laura was the demonstration of sheep herding with Border Collies.  Those beautiful dogs with the piercing eyes made such a lovely sight, and they worked so hard!  It would almost make up for missing the lambs...especially when she heard their trainer call out to the dogs.  There was such a familiar ring to their names: Dottie, Brittany, Bonnie, Nellie and...Bessie!

The demonstration was fascinating, and the dogs were almost as adorable as the newborn lambs which have eluded Laura all this spring.  Yet, Laura still managed to enjoy her visit, and this time she learned a great deal more than she expected about how to make an animal--even one that seems like an ordinary pet--work for its keep.  The farmer is also the trainer, and his Border Collies are no slack-jawed lie-abouts.  Dottie is a lightning-fast Shedder.  She separates the sheep into groups by numbers, such as "two in the pen and four to the gate."  Bonnie is a small, very spry, but sometimes unruly young dog; she is still considered to be in training.  Brittany is a beautiful roan color, and at 11 can pierce your skin with a steady gaze.  At 13, Bessie is getting tired and has slowed down a bit, but still loves to play with her pal Nellie, a 12-year-old high jumper!  Watching the dogs steer sheep, goats, and ducks all over the pasture was exhausting, but vastly entertaining.  And that made up just a tiny bit for the loss of seeing the lambs.

So, although it may be that Laura will have to wait until next Spring to greet any more new lambs, it can rightfully be said in this situation that Ma's words ring true:  "There is no great loss without some small gain."